Happy Pride! Dear Faith!

     Doesn't sometimes feel as though we are moving backwards?  I can't imagine how it must feel today to be a queer person living in America, and the thought of the millions of people living in less fortunate circumstances than I in every corner of the world brings me to tears every time I'm reminded of it.

    It is always this month that I see a range of content online- bigoted middle aged adults with nothing better to do than spew a hateful rhetoric for just the sake of spewing hateful rhetoric, to wonderful celebrations of pride and love and joy that even though I cannot fully relate, I can share in their pure happiness.  I also know that with that happiness comes a sense of anger I will never truly understand, but can empathize with.  I can only imagine what it must feel like to constantly live with the knowledge that your love, LOVE, the one truly insurmountable emotion that, in my opinion, has somehow mostly survived the capitalist machine, that true, warm feeling that everyone on this earth spends their days searching and searching and searching for, is being scrutinized.  Criticized.  Berated.  Bludgeoned.  Attacked and hated and feared.

    So that is my rant on the major system of homophobia as a whole.  Other than that is the, as of lately, even more targeted and ruthless attack on the trans community, and it is beyond despicable.  I have to pause and come back to this in a separate post, because I believe both deserve an equal amount of attention.

    Another phenomenon I've seen recently, both online and in person, is this sympathy for religion and the religious views that "make" someone homophobic.  Truly, though, it should be rarer than it is. I understand the mind numbing way that devout faith can wash your brain and make you into a person you might not be, sure.  And maybe that is an appropriate use of the term "homophobia," which conveys a fear.  In a biological sense, hatred evolved from fear, yes, but I think it is amiss to call the hatred of queer people in most settings a phobia.  It's far far past a fear at this point.  It is such a systemic failure, such a deeply ingrained hatred, then can even be truly identified as a fear except, in my opinion, in certain cases, which even then I do not excuse or have sympathy for.  Deeply religious mothers crying in fear and disappointment when their sons tell them they like boys, red faced fathers screaming at school boards because a ten year old trans girl was allowed to use a stall in the girl's room.  Fear.  These people are afraid.  Their fear is misplaced, and embarrassing, and vile.  It is also learned.  

    Religion, particularly, is a heady drug when it comes to sowing misplaced fear.  It really is impressive the way that reading an ancient book and listening to sermons and praying on an alter your whole life can turn you into a mother afraid of their own child's ability to love.  If that doesn't make you question your God, then what will?  I will never, ever, ever truly be able to understand, and damn it because that seems to be the only thing in life I ever truly really want, is to understand, the people that live their lives with such conviction against LOVE because of one minuscule part of one interpretation of an ancient holy text relating to one religion.  It is an insurmountable amount of faith to have, and to place it there instead of on the shoulders or the heart of your own child feels like a failure of religion.  

    Sometimes I imagine myself having an interview with the Pope, seeing as I am, or at least I come from, a long long line of devout Italian catholics.  I don't consider myself atheist, not really, I still look to St. Anthony when I've misplaced my car keys, but I see god in a way that feels true to me.  I think, I think, that the God out there, the one my family sees in small things, is much, much kinder, and much much more universal than we imagine it to be, and much much more powerless.  I would ask the Pope some questions.  I imagine asking him why, why, if god created everyone in his image, he would choose to condemn millions of people to such a sin, unable to choose and forced in many placed to "overcome."  If everyone is perfectly made, why are queer people not perfect the way they are, in who they are?  I know these questions are gotcha questions maybe, maybe they have anger behind them, maybe fear.  It is hard to imagine the Pope would give me a satisfying answer.    

    Sometimes I lose hope that the world will ever look the way I see it when I close my eyes at night and dream.  It starts to feel like we will never be able to reach some people.  The Pope lives in the Vatican, the red faced father in rural Texas, in my imagination at least.  But then again they are people in the street every June, even with mothers who are afraid they are going to hell.  And it must be so hard, and yet, happy Pride!!!