funny, despair and bliss feel the same, just opposite

[demotu]

I had a moment of absolute, gut-wrenching despair last night. While doing the dishes, as these things are wont to happen, and fortunately B was in the living room or I might have taken out my frustration on said poor, blameless dishes.

Comments

[paragraphs]

Having grown up in a town full of hard-core Southern Baptists, this attitude is what is normal to me...I encounter it all the time. Despite this, over the past few years, I have seen change. Attitudes of the type you speak of and have no tolerance for (and, frankly? I feel the same) are being replaced by acceptance, by a growing, more-vocal human attitude.

To me, then, I actually see alot of progress taking place where I live. The gay society is no longer underground, is quite visible; moreso in Dallas than here, but it is growing despite the closed-minded, holier-than-though, judgmental Christian attitudes prevalent who would rather that it all stay far far away (or killed off completely--probably that). There are set-backs, definitely, for every step forward, but progress IS forward.

I can't believe that we'll go backwards now. I definitely have certain hopes that 3 years ago, I didn't even imagine possible. Seeing my kids and their friends' attitudes, their nonchalance about people's sexuality (it is not a big deal, hello) is what I look at and know there is a reason to believe.

There will be those, always, who refuse to see, who are afraid. (Afraid!?) And yeah--I get angry too (thinking about those idiots the Westboro people). It is amazing the fountain of hate that can be spewed in the name of God.

[demotu]

*sigh*

Yeah, I know it's better. I really do. But I feel like sometimes we get stuck in the "but it's so much better" and stop seeing how truly awful it still is. Even here, where there's now same sex marriage, and sexual discrimination is in our charter of rights and freedoms, because I remember being afraid to come out to my friends as bi at 16 because one of them said, offhandedly, that lesbians made her uncomfortable. Because I still have arguments with - otherwise beautifully loving - Christian friends that no, gay marrige is not the beginning of the end. Because there was only one girl out in my high school, and even she kept it on the down-low from anyone who might not approve. And none of that is okay, even if the law is better.

(I hate the Westboro people, because my neighborhood is Westboro Village, and it totally ruins the name for me. :P)