By Mabel Doge Luhan
Well, I guess it’s Pride month again! When totally truthful truth-tellers on social media and Kandit comments can tell us the totally true tale of a barista hocking a loogie in their coffee for using a certain gender pronoun, or their child’s conveniently gay kindergarten teacher showing up to class wearing leather chaps (ALL LEATHER CHAPS ARE BUTTLESS, SO QUIT SAYING “BUTTLESS LEATHER CHAPS”), or a restaurant kicking out a heterosexual couple for not being gay. Those stories are so entirely truthful I almost burst!
We all have fantasies, don’t we? It was only a year ago when Dallas Monroe Peavey Junior regaled the CNMI with his hot fantasies of roughing up some muscular Latinos! And not even a week since Zaldy Dandan published his latest work of fiction!
Apparently, those obviously false stories about rude or criminal behavior by gay people or people who hang out with gay people totally justify destroying public property. Isn’t that how things go under the rule of law? That if you hear a story about someone somewhere having broken the law, you go out and destroy some property?
I’ve been barren as the Atacama (and, let’s hope, every politician’s achakma) for over a century, so I’m a bit out of the child-raising loop. But becoming so angry by rainbow-colored flags that you destroy other people’s property? Wasn’t that sort of behavior already considered abnormal by first grade or so? How delayed is these people’s development?
Even more amazing is that there are people in positions of power who are either genuinely upset by colorful flags, or make a good job of pretending to be — and I don’t know whether someone like DeSantis honestly believes his balderdash, but I know some of his ilk do genuinely believe it.
Which is hilarious, isn’t it? Because it’s like they’re starring in their own fairy tales. In the real world, nobody means to offend you or start a fight by displaying a rainbow flag, or their favorite Hogwarts house (I’m totally a Ravenclaw), or the crest of their favorite stoolball team! In the real world, nobody much notices. People have their own lives and concerns. They’ll see your sticker and nod or shrug.
But in these right-wing fairy tales, if someone sees a sticker or pin or flag that doesn’t align with their own views, they will take time out of their day to take you to task for it! If they see you wearing a cross, they will scream at you that they don’t believe in God! If they see you with your other-gender partner, they will scream at you for not being gay!
The premise is ridiculous, isn’t it? Why, if I tried that kind of plot device in my next submission to the Mark Taper Forum, I’d be told to go send that poppycock to the Steppenwolf!
But these people live out their fantasies. As much as they fantasize about others passionately caring about their sexual orientation or voting preferences, they step into the role and get upset about someone else flying a rainbow flag! Because — how outrageous — somebody flies a rainbow flag?! Or even a government flies a rainbow flag because some 20% of their citizenry asked them to?
Who gives a fig! The planet is about to cook itself, a felon is leading the Presidential polls, mRNA technology might basically eliminate human disease, two million Chinese Muslims are imprisoned and tortured by their own government — and you are getting all upset about some multi-colored flags? Are you, like in pre-K? Or just a self-proclaimed conservative? Because I have no idea in what world it’s conservative to care so much about a flag that you’d trample on the property rights and law and order you claim to hold so dear.
Maybe they don’t realize how many of their own symbols and displays their fellow citizens disagree with, but don’t trample. My heavens, just the other day, I saw a Nickelback sticker affixed to the rear of a motor-carriage! I admit I gritted my teeth and even considered reaching into my Birkin for my angle-grinder — but I breathed deeply and remembered that not everyone can listen to Volbeat.
If you believe that God created humans — as most of you flag-rippers do — you must have noticed that God created us with a genetic code that varies between individuals. We’re all different, not as a glitch in the system, but as a fundamental, basic fact of life on Earth. If you claim to honor God and God’s creation, you’d better get used to this.
And stop setting “tolerance” as the goalpost. Because if you either believe in God or in human decency, or in both, then you should do more than “tolerate” the way we humans are all fundamentally different. You should love it and embrace it and, yes, celebrate it. Instead of getting so upset about somebody flying a rainbow flag that you don’t fly that you go out and vandalize their property.
“Pride” may not be the best word for our feelings toward differences we can’t control, but we humans aren’t so perfect with language, are we? Some of us use much harsher words to describe those differences, don’t we?
Let “Pride” be. Let the flags fly. Don’t just tolerate those flags, and don’t just tolerate your neighbors who are different from you. Love them, embrace them, and celebrate them. Because that, my possums, is what life is all about.
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Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.
