Can't Stop Us Being Loud and Proud

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.


My words are:

clutching ~ woeful ~ happy ~ stretched ~ hop

They were submitted by: https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/


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Ok I'm gonna need y'all to have some discussions with your friends and family who have full on gay panicked over Lil Nas X and every famous gay who didnt make themselves quieter for the straights' comfort before him if we're being honest. 

 
I hope they stretched real good before all the reaching and clutching of their pearls they've been doing about how gays will corrupt their children and how unnecessary his open gayness is and the devil and HIV and all the other little homophobic things. But now it's beyond ridiculous. Do you have any idea what it's like to wake up in 2021 as a gay, get on your phone, and wade through homophobic rant after homophobic rant? Woeful doesn't cover it, and a lot of this could be avoided if they got a little education.

First of all, if anyone is worried about music corrupting your children let's start with not letting your kids listen to explicit hip hop or any other genre of music for that matter. ALL of them except maybe gospel will have people talking openly about sex. Lucille Bogan's songs from the 30s have made even ME blush, and we all know how my mouth and mind are. There are dozens upon dozens of country songs about sex and sexualizing women. There's an entire subgenre of indie Americana called murder folk. No genre is safe, but these same people are the ones in hundreds of videos I've seen who are happy and think it's funny when the kids are singing along about their broken hearts or honky tonk badonkadonks until it's a gay man doing the singing especially a Black one. What will your kids learn? I don't know. That it's ok to love who you love? That sex isn't shameful? That their parents are wrong? That's the crux of this isn't it. If kids are exposed to gay people making a success of themselves by societal standards, gay people who are happy, who aren't tokens, who love no differently than anyone else, who aren't at all different than anyone else, that proves more than any bullshit lie their parents tell them and then they might think for themselves or *gasp* feel safe to come out themselves.

You can also happily report to them that their christian religion actually says nothing about being gay as a sin. The Bible discusses sexual exploitation. None of the passages y'all's folks point to in order to declare homosexuality a sin are actually about loving relations or consensual sex between same gender partners. These passages are actually mostly talking about assault of minors, rape, and exploitation. Homosexuality actually didn't show up in the Bible until 1946 as a bad translation paid for by christians in America who wanted to demonize homosexuality and knew the best way to accomplish that is through religion (the same happens with different sects of Christianity and abortion too actually). Jesus never once talks about same sex relationships in the new testament. If anyone does it's Paul. Jesus though did say the number 1 commandment, the thing we are to take to heart more than anything else to live the life wanted us living is to love one another. Above everything else he said, love one another was the thing he wanted everyone to practice.

There is no gay agenda to corrupt y'all's kids. I need your family and friends and, hell, some of mine to know that. These kids are coming into a changing world. Gayness is more socially acceptable now than it's ever been at least in some countries and while we still have a long way to go to equality, we have, through hard work and decades of activism, given space to new generations to come out into a safer place, to meet others easily just like them, and with a variety of labels to help specify their needs and wants in romantic and sexual relationships. Society isn't gayer all of a sudden because of some weird gay agenda to corrupt the kids (which is honestly just another facet of satanic panic). These kids have support now that they never knew was there before. They have people accepting and loving them as they are. They're coming into a world where yes they still face bigotry, in everyday society and systemically, but it's improved. Equality isn't now, but it doesn't seem nearly as far off.

That's the only gay agenda there is--that we get to live our lives in peace like anyone else. We want a world where being gay won't get us fired in any state, where we aren't denied adoptions, where homeless shelters for disowned gay teens aren't filled to capacity, where a small town judge can't deny a wedding because of his beliefs (yes it still happens here), where no one is worried about marriage equality being overturned by a stacked conservative court. We want a life that doesn't punish us for being born.

We don't need to corrupt any children to being gay. They already are gay, and they quite often get mentored by those of us who are out because their own parents failed them. They're gay and trans and asexual and fluid and beautiful in all the ways these identities co-exist. Whether you know get to know it or not and get to be a supporting character or a villian in their stories is up to you. And I can guarantee--and be sure to tell y'all's folks this part--hearing you verbally destroy a gay kid with a successful rap career for being unapologetically queer tells your kid a lot about how unsafe you really are and is a first class ticket to being the villian.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:


Baking In A Tornado https://bakinginatornado.com/

On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

Climaxed https://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

What TF Sarah https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

language barrier

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This month 5 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My “Secret Subject” is:

Pick one person and tell them something you think they need to hear.

It was submitted by: https://Bakinginatornado.com 

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I'm typically the kind of person who says what they think and not necessarily bluntly or no holds barred either. If I think your partner sucks, I'm going to say that. If I think

there's a problem between us that we need to discuss, I'm going to tell you and open the floor for that discussion. And that's true for Facebook friends that ask me for advice, people I see every day acting like a butthead, and people I write in prison. If I think it and the friendship matters to me in some way, I'm going to say it. If I think something is important or somehow valuable, I'm probably going to make a post about it. If I want to talk about how much men being whiny assholes makes me enjoy the He-man remake even more, I'm gonna post that too.

But I also have boundaries on that. It's neither productive or useful to say some things to my mom. It's past the point of being useful to wish I could say something to my dad who died in 2006 and honestly the fractured relationship we had said a lot without words. There's not much left to say because it's been his absence from my life that let me find peace with who he was. The things left unsaid and unresponded to helped me find a way to accept the reality of our lives. I am better for the things left unsaid to him at this point in my life. And I certainly no longer drag out arguments with internet strangers for the sake of being right. If they're open to information, sure. I don't think it's productive or at all valuable to do what so many folks online do--tell someone to Google it. I give resources and information and help them understand with my own words. But a stranger? A stranger in the comments of a news story or public page who is hellbent on fake outrage and moving the goalpost and sealioning? Nah. Not worth my time.

And while there's a part of me that wishes I could gather some younger people around me old granny style and ask them what the fuck and request that they please stop using leftist ideologies as brands and for making monetized "content," I also know that generation grew up at a time when 10 year olds could become internet famous and they have to learn certain lessons the hard way. Nothing I could say will stick without personal experience.

So if I could say anything to anyone I think I'd like the opportunity to talk to my dog and have him understand not just key words but what is actually meant by the whole of my statement. And yes I do refer to him as a person as weird as that is. Just ask my kid who always points out when I call any animal a person in this house like I've lost the plot.

"Mother, that dog is not a person."

"I mean, I know but yes he is.

So here's to Fizz:

I did not realize I needed you til you were here. I had my big goofy buddy dog, but you're my anchor. My velcro. In the year you've been here you've grown into such a loving little guy who actually learned some tricks and how to calm down around feet and that humans won't just hurt you then give you up. But I need you to listen to me.

I have to cut your hair. Have you seen yourself without a haircut? I have pictures if you need them. Your hair wasn't cut when you got here, and honestly you could have been an extra in a star wars film. Your poop gets in it. Your food. Buddy, it's gross. You look like a toupee for Andre the Giant and I imagine that's what a toupee worn by Andre the Giant would have smelled like too.

Your nails? Also have to be cut, bruv. You click clack on the kitchen floor like all 3 Billy Goats Gruff, and it's a little annoying. And it will get painful. I'm not going to hurt you, bud. I've done it every month for a year and a half and here you are still alive.

You get ear infections like they're a new TikTok dance to learn, bro. How? And when you get them you do not help matters by being mad about the medicine and the ear cleaning. Got to do it.

Cats are not for humping. Now I know this doesn't happen very much but you know seeing your pup trying to literally raw dog a neutered cat in the middle of the living room doesn't have to happen *often* to be awkward. I know they're your buds and all that but, uh, buds don't hump. Ok some do but not you and the cats.

Yes you need baths. It's not up for debate, buddy, and while we're at it, I need you to know that you have to go outside even when it's hot. I know you'd rather just hold it because you're not pooping and peeing inside either but that's not healthy. Y'all all have to go outside rain, cold, hot, or even when, gasp, the grass is kinda tall.

Sleeping time is not chewing your ass time. I swear to God if you wake me up 5 times a night rocking the mattress to get a better grip on whatever is itching you like I've put 50 cents in a motel bed, there will be a reckoning. And while we're at it, going that hard on your itches is just going to make you more itchy. It's science.

Alright, buddy, I love you. You're doing good. You're my best bud. But you know let's just keep this in mind for the future. There's some chimkins and tacos in it for you.

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Baking In A Tornado https://www.BakingInATornado.com

Wandering Web Designer https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

What TF Sarah https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/

Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/