"Let's Go Shoot the Fags!" - A Message of Hope for Pride Month

A little something I shared at last night's BraveSpace CoffeeHouse

Let’s go shoot the fags!

The chilling words echoed across the lake water in a voice that I think might belong to someone with just enough audacity to do what they said.

Probably raised in a home where the scents of gunpowder and barrel cleaning oil assault your nostrils as soon as you walk through the door.

Where there’s a deer head hanging over the television in the living room

Another in the dining room staring right at the head of the table as if it were a regular invite to the family meals.

Directly across from where I can only imagine a big burly man would sit each night consuming meat and potatoes prepared by an obedient wife.

Above the bed of the one shouting hatred and violence across the waves spans the largest rebel flag he could buy from a store online since none of the big box chains in his town would carry such trash

Even at the lake I can imagine he’s dressed in camouflaged shorts, a ribbed tank top which he has another name for with his friends, and a distinctive ring from a skoal can shouting nicotine warnings from his back pocket

I imagine he went hunting with his father every chance they could get… killing rabbits and squirrels, 12 point bucks and the occasion other game which the warden would never approve of should they admit it was their shot that downed them.

I imagine he abuses his wife

Spanks his children

Spits his chewing tobacco slop while your standing talking to him

Probably kicks his dog as well

There’s a ring around his blue collar

dirty under his nails

And an odor that is unmistakable for a body that is cleansed more in pond water than a shower stall

I imagine him this way because this is the man that has haunted my dreams since I was a child… from the moment I first knew I was gay, he stalked me in my dreams and shouted words just as hateful, just as violent, just as unavoidable in a world where more power is given to him than to me.

I remember wondering if he was just around the corner I approached as I made it back from the gay bar to my apartment… laying in wait to achieve a tale to tell his friends

He’s the one driving the pickup truck with tattered American flags drifting out from the tailgate as it traversed the main street of our small town.

I’ve seen him in movies and on television shows where it seems he takes the lead in modeling for us all what it is to be privileged in a society such as ours.

I’ve read about him in books.

Heard him talked about in friend groups at the latest news of a bashing that at least this time wasn’t one of us

He’s a constant presence in my mind and in my world

A reminder that it is never safe to be who I am

Never safe to live as I live

Love as I love

Never safe to occupy space in a body that’s queer

And clearly never safe to hoist a pride flag on our dock… in our backyard…

I’m always thrown when I think of how a colored piece of cloth affects some in this way… boiling their blood, flaring their nostrils and hoisting the crude and hateful speak from deep within their guts…

This time loud enough to be heard far from the boat dock where it originated.

For them, a pride flag is a trigger…

Triggering perhaps their fragile masculinity

That hidden thought that perhaps they, too aren’t fitting neatly into society’s heteronormative boxes

And that they too hate themselves because of it

When for us… that pride flag extending on its pole out toward the lake we once knew to be peaceful… it’s a beacon of hope

It’s a reminder that we’re not alone

It’s a symbol of the hard work, the vast accomplishments, as well as the blood, sweat and tears that have shed from that time the first brick was thrown until this moment

What for some is a reason to threaten lives

Is a reason for living for others

What for some reveals an inner truth of how tainted their heart has become

Is a reminder for others of what it is to let their own truth be revealed

And maybe that’s why they hate it.

Because a pride flag doesn’t do what they think it does… it doesn’t make anyone queer.

It doesn’t recruit or convert… it’s not awarded a toaster for the number of new queers it brings into the fold…

And it sure as hell doesn’t threaten.

It just tells the truth.

It says:

We’re here.

Despite the sermons.

the slurs.

the fists,

the laws,

the threats shouted across dark water.

We survived every person who boldly promised that the world would be a better place if we would just simply disappear.

And still,

here we are.

Cultivating Brave Space

Raising our flags.

Holding our partners’ hands.

Telling our stories.

Building our families.

Laughing.

Dancing.

Living.

Not because the hatred is gone.

But because it didn’t win. Because it never will.

The voice faded across the lake that night.

the flag was still there the next morning.

And the morning after.

And the morning after.

Still waving.

Still visible.

Still beautiful.

A threatening piece of cloth to some.

A lifeline to others.

A promise carried by the wind:

You are not alone.

You never were.

Happy Pride Month!