| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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They didn’t advertise this rally. For obvious reasons. I only found out about it because I watch christian television so damn much. Me and roommate Anthony (the only person I could find to come with me, being a holiday party weekend and all) make the slow walk from the subway, we can hear someone yelling over a PA system and applause long before we see the crowd. And the stage they set up. And the big DEFEND MARRIAGE banner over it. And their signs. I didn’t even know if there would be any other gay rights people there. I only assumed. I didn’t care. I could be walking into something very uncomfortable. But we got closer and passed people who pointed at me and gave the thumbs-up and exclaimed “yes….YES!” and “Go fucking show those fuckers!”. Then I could see the rainbow flags in the back of the crowd. I was not going into this lightly or casually. I had a small rainbow flag tied to my shirt with DEFEND LOVE written across it. My trademark rainbow hair ribbons, usually worn only on Gay Pride Day. And my first professional grade picket sign, which says ‘No Excuse For Inequality’ over a pink triangle on one side, and ‘W.W.J.H - Who Would Jesus Hate?’ -on the other. As I said, this rally was not advertised, so there were only about 30-40 equal rights people there. But we had our signs and we had each other. One guy was wearing a shirt that said Homophobia Is Gay, which I really liked, I had thought of putting that on my sign. That or ‘Honk If You Love Butt-Sex’. I went for the serious side instead. Not much to say about the actual protest. It was what you would expect, hate filled zealots who are still shocked that society didn’t crumble back in 2002 when Ontario said it was no business of theirs if two dudes love each other. We mostly just laughed at various things that were said. We were at the back near the road, so we got lots of happy honking. Photographers were everywhere. We marched the crowd in circles chanting “shame shame shame”. A line of bike cops keeps the christian protestors away from us. Even the cops were giggling at the people on stage. The defend marriage people hated the jesus side of my sign. REALLY hated it. Several came up to talk to me about it, most of them elderly women. This led to some of the nuttiest shit I’ve ever heard. “I think there’s a problem with your sign, dear.” “Oh?” “Well it says ‘Who would Jesus hate’, and jesus didn’t hate anyone!” “That’s right.” “Jesus loves everyone.” “That’s the point, yup.” “But jesus didn’t hate.” “I KNOW. That’s why i…” But she just totters off. That happened like 4 times. Then this middle aged woman storms over. She means business. She gets all up in my face. “It’s not about HATE, it’s about PROCREATION!” (At this point I’m giving a mad shout out to Anthony. If I was watching this stuff unfold I would not have been able to contain my laughter. And sometimes he giggled but in general he kept a straight face around such people.) Anyway… “Excuse me?” “It’s about procreation!” “Really? Then what about people who can’t or won’t have kids? Should they not be allowed to get married? And haven’t you heard of adoption?” She just stares at me, then waves her hands around. “Ugh…ITS ABOUT PROCREATION!!” and she storms away. Wow, what a well thought out argument. Thanks for doing your research ma’am. Anthony and I lost it laughing. Middle aged women constantly seem to be my natural enemies. I find if I’m pissing them off, I’m doing something right. A tap on my shoulder revealed a born again couple. I knew they were because of their dead glassy Pat Robertson eyes. I’ve seen this on tv and read it on the internet, I’ve spent most of my life being amused by their antics, but I’ve somehow managed to never actually have this happen to me in real life. She had her hand on my shoulder. “I just want you to know that JESUS loves you.” “…uh-huh.” I’m really just too shocked to hear the words coming out of a person’s mouth. I’m slack-jawed and staring. “Jesus LOVES you and he made you and he loves you!!” “Yeah, I heard.” Hand still on my shoulder. Trademark vacant stare. “And JESUS will forgive you if you ask him to!” “I… really have no idea what that has to do with anything.” I said. They walk away. Some kids interview me on video for their social science class. This really mellow kid talks to us. You’d know the type, he’s that east indian guy that at EVERY concert, with longish thick curly hair, a brown leather jacket and long striped scarf? It was that guy, there’s hundreds of them. But this kid wants to know what we think of god and etc. He’s starting school in September to be a priest. And he’s totally cool and nice. We talked to him for half an hour. I gave him my email address and some M&Ms. I’m sure it’s redundant of me to point out that this guy is giving up his life for the bible, and he’s somehow managed to avoid running up to me screaming about what jesus wants. As the rally drew to a close, we walked out from the lawn to join two people standing alone on a traffic island, who were holding a huge rainbow flag. It was a good place to stand since you got the traffic from both directions, and it put us square in front of all the anti-gay people. WARNING-BIGOTS AHEAD. We stood with them for a good 45 minutes, talking, laughing and waving at cars. One of the flag holders was a British tranny who reminded me very much of Bernadette from “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”. So that was nice. The other guy tells me about a similar rally held the previous weekend in Hamilton (45 min from Toronto), which was advertised, and so many equal rights people showed up that the church groups were outnumbered and fled. We are joined shortly by some cute teen gayboys who confess to learning about the rally the same way I did- we are fascinated by the christian television station. I love that shit. They have the best kid’s shows. Puppets trying to save eachother from sin. Casual pedestrians kept running out to talk and join us. “Hey, is this a pro gay marriage thing or an anti gay marriage thing?” “THAT over there is anti, this side’s pro.” Lots of people came over to us. Office worker guys from the surrounding buildings who got stuck working the holiday- “I heard this totalitarian speech when I was in the lunch room and just had to come down here and check it out! What the hell?! These people have taken their one day off to spread hate. They could be at the beach.” As the rally ends they bring out a christian rock band who are singing awesome songs. The first one’s chorus was simply “One man, one woman” over and over. The second one went “I love Jesus, yes I do, I love Jesus, how ‘bought you?!” On our island we are dancing frantically to the music. The band announces between songs that they have CDs for sale. Our island erupts with cheers. The cute teen boys are making out and grinding to the christian rock. Cars are honking. I’ll never forget this one older woman who was out for a jog when she stopped to talk. “Excuse me, is that a…. an ANTI gay protest?” “Yes ma’am.” She sighed so loudly that we all giggled. She surveys the crowd. “I’m just so…let down. I mean, my god, what are they…monsters…” She looked so instantly dejected, this certainly ruined her sunny day off. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!??” she screamed over the traffic and towards the square. “Thank you all for being here, please keep it up.” She jogged away. Fun Fact: They (bigots) are saying that there were 10-20 thousand people there that day….. It’s a known fact that the Queen’s Park front lawn hold 5000 people max, the police need to know that sort of thing for crowd control purposes. It’s not a big lawn. Not including us counter protestors, it was 3/4ths full at best. Newspapers reported a generous estimate of 3,500 people in the crowd, and the church groups are HATING this, calling it “typical liberal media bias”. Maths is the work of the devil. We stood on the traffic island until most of the crowd was gone, waving and dancing and blowing kisses and flipping the finger at all the busses as they drove away. Get the fuck out. |
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YOU ARE THAT BOMB, WISPER. |
ps- I think there's something dead in our kitchen wall. It smells bad. |
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i used to watch daystar when i didn't have cable. now i know that i can give the lord my sexual desire and he'll return it to me on my wedding night. |
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god as bag-of-holding very nice |
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