Gay does not mean Stupid, Stupid

     Hey small minded idgit, I don’t think you know actually know what “gay” means.

     Gay means gleeful, jovial, glad, joyous, happy, cheerful, sprightly, blithe, airy, light-hearted, vivacious, frolicsome, sportive, hilarious, merry, good-humored, brilliant and lastly pertaining to a homosexual.  Weird how none of those words come even close to stupid!

   But I mean I understand. Why use stupid when you could use another word? 

     Like anserine, dopey, foolish, goosey, gooselike, jerky, blockheaded, boneheaded, duncical, duncish, fatheaded, loggerheaded, thick, thickheaded, thick-skulled, wooden-headed, cloddish, doltish, dense, dim, dim witted, dull, dumb, obtuse, slow, gaumless, gormless, lumpish, unthinking, nitwitted, senseless, soft-witted, witless, weak, weak-minded, yokel-like, brainless, headless, dazed, deficient, dummy, futile, gullible, half-baked, half-witted, idiotic, ill-advised, imbecilic, inane, indiscreet, insensate, irrelevant, laughable, ludicrous, meaningless, mindless, moronic, naive, nonsensical, out to lunch, pointless, puerile, shortsighted, simple, simpleminded, sluggish, stolid, stupefied, trivial, unintelligent, batty, campy, crazy, daffy, dippy, freaky, gagged up, goofy, illogical, incongruous, irrational, jokey, loony, nutty, off the wall, preposterous, screwy, silly, tomfool, unreasonable, wacky, absurd, cretinous, daft, sophomoric, asinine, balmy, bugged out, cracked, crazed, deranged, dotty, harebrained, mentally incompetent, nuts, odd, Philistine, blundering, boorish, bovine, churlish, gross, indelicate, inelegant, loutish, lowbrow, oafish, raw, rough, rude, uncouth, unrefined, vulgar, slow on the uptake, crass, addled, backward, besotted, boring, feeble-minded, ignorant, indolent, not bright, numskulled, scatterbrained, shallow, tedious, unintellectual, vacuous, wearisome, huff, ditzy, cockamamie, fatuous, ill-considered, imprudent, incautious, injudicious, insane, kooky, lunatic, mad, nerdy, ridiculous, short-sighted, unwise, or zany.

     Consider your vocabulary expanded.  You’re welcome.

P.S. Anyone who chooses to use “gay” as “stupid” is in my opinion a dingbat, moron, airhead, barmey, cabbage, dickish, dipstick, dope, drongo, fat head, plank, plonker, turkey, wanker, yob, git, knob-end, bell-end, numpty, nutter, pillock, toser, tube, twat, blockhead, boob, chump, clodpate, dimwit, dodo, dork, dumdum, dunce, fool, goon, idiot, ignoramus, lamebrain, lunkhead, meathead, nitwit, sap, yo-yo, loser, feeble-minded, imbecile, late, subnormal, underdeveloped, underprivileged and quite possibly inbreed.

QBP: "I think the most overused words in our vocabulary in the South are black and white." -Artur Davis

Repairing what has been broken

     Recently a seminary student who attends my church started up a new ministry.  A ministry specifically for gay people.  The goal of the ministry: to help those who have been wounded by the hate “Christians” have inflicted upon them.  It’s also a place where gay people in the church and in the outside world are welcome to enjoy community.

     The first meeting of the ministry was this past Sunday.  Though the invitation to the meeting was extended to all regardless of sexual orientation, I was the only one there who was not openly gay.  One of my church friends was there and I think he assumed I was there because of my brother being gay.  That’s half the reason why I attended.  I want to help young and older gay people know that God loves them, and that they are loved.  I want them to know that the loudest voices in their lives aren’t the only ones. 

     I wanted to tell my story, my brother’s story.  But I wasn’t ready.  I’m the type who has to think before she speaks.  However my thoughts weren’t cooperating.  My mind was jumble of words and feelings.  So instead I listened to the stories of the others.

     Most of them grew up in conservative churches.  They knew they were gay from a young age, but feared coming out.  For good reason.  Several were socially isolated when they came out, or forced to go to reparative therapy if they wished to continue attending.  All these people who loved and supported them were gone in a single instant. 

     One gay man was planning on becoming a youth minister, but when his home church found out he was barred from ever working with youth again.  Another had his mother go ballistic and said every mean thing you should never say to your son.  Each story more powerful than the last.  Haters make me insane sometimes.  Why break down, when you can build up?      

     When the time came for prayer requests I put forth my baby brother’s name.  I know he doesn’t think much of prayer.  Sometimes I too debate its efficacy, but he should know that even though these people don’t know him like I know him, that they care.  

     The next meeting is next month.  There I will tell my story.  I will come out, and be brave, because my brother is brave every day.  Every day that he has to walk the halls of his high school, he is brave.  I will tell his story, so that they understand the importance of such a group like this.  So that maybe, just maybe we can save young gay lives like my brother's.

QBP: "Dear, America. When you tell Gay Americans that they can’t serve their country openly, or marry the person that they love, you're telling that to kids too. Don’t be fuckin shocked and wonder where all these bullies are coming from that are torching young kids and driving them to kill themselves because they’re different. They learned it from watching you." -Sarah Silverman

 pic source

When the $#!^ gets Real

     Several months ago I got a call from my brother and panicked.  My brothers never call me unless something horrible has happened/is happening.  My baby brother, his young voice breaking, said, “I need to tell you something.”  “Of course, anything,” I replied.  “I think I’m gay.”  I about burst out laughing, but stop myself.  I didn’t want to be insensitive.  I had been expecting something dire, and instead it was something wonderful. 

     Here was my youngest brother figuring out and owning something ten years earlier than myself.  I thought of all the wonderful experiences that awaited my brother, now that he was armed with that knowledge.  Of course as brave as he was I had to tell him I shared similar feelings, which came as a bit of a shock, but he took it in stride. 

     The people who know me could tell you one thing for certain about me.  The most important people in my life are my brothers.  Particularly my baby brother who I raised when my parents decided they were too burdened with their own life issues to do it themselves.  I am fiercely protective of him. 

     Anyways flash forward to the beginning of last month.  I get a call late at night from my brothers.  They’re in tears, which freaked me out.  My older younger brother never cries.  Some family shit was going down, and all I could do from several states away was try comforting them.  Offer platitudes.  Tell them I love them.  All this emotion brought something out in my baby brother.  He had something else to tell me.  He admitted to attempting suicide.

     I don’t think I’ve ever felt as hurt as I did right then.  Sure I followed the gay teen suicides, but for whatever reason I felt my baby brother was safe.  He had my other brother; he had me.  He wasn’t even out at his high school.  He didn’t read as gay.  He’d be safe from the bullying.  I can’t believe I was that stupid to think that way.  He is surrounded by bullying.  He’s not deaf.  He hears all the unkind things said and hate spewed.  He isn’t going to a liberal high school up north like I did.  He’s deep in hate territory, where he doesn’t need to be open about being gay to feel hated.  Add to that all the family crap, and the fact that he’s a teenager and damn. 

     This hate…it needs to stop now.  I don’t know how I’m going to make it better.  I don’t know if I can.  But I have to try.  Even the threat of losing my brother devastates me.  I can’t imagine how all the families of suicide victims feel.

     I feel my anger rising and I can’t even think straight anymore, so angry am I at “Christians” who spread such a message of hate and inequality.  How dare they invoke the name of God and Jesus in their vile filth!  I have to end this post now for fear of losing it.