A disturbing moment.
As I was walking my bike to the Mondavi Center for choir rehearsal (didn’t really want to try riding while nursing a chai latte), they were rehearsing a scene outside the studio theatre. The main fellow was shouting into a megaphone, saying things like ‘God hates fags’ and ‘it says in the Bible, Pillars of Salt! Soddom! Gomorrah!’ While I knew it was a rehearsal for something, and I figured out what it was, it still reeeeeeeally bothered me. Maybe I’m just hypersensitive to judgmental types, the Campus Crusaders, the ultra-conservative ‘now, I know it’s P.C. to give gays their rights, but let’s not call it marriage’ types ’cause I’m one of those hippie greenie pinko equality for everyone types. Yeah. I guess the kneejerk disgust showed on my face.
There was a line of actors in big white sheets with square sheeted frames on their backs like wings, looking like angels, three I guess. Go pun on that one all ye like. Anyway, there was a guy with earrings and a shaved head, a girl with spiked hair and thick-rimmed square glasses, and a girl with long brown wavy hair. The guy said to me, ‘chill, it’s for a play.’ My only response was one that I didn’t really feel comfortable saying – ‘yeah, it better be just a play’ or some such. I settled for “Good” and walked on to my own rehearsal.
I wonder why it bothered me so much. I mean, I knew intellectually that it was a play, but the guy shouting the fundamentalist party lines just… dunno. It wasn’t rage, if it were I’d know by now how to deal with it. I’m used to rage. It wasn’t fear, it wasn’t sorrow. It was disgust. I felt my lip curl and my nose wrinkle. If that one moment can hit me so hard, what am I doing sitting here behind a computer? I’d go see the whole play but I’m afraid of my reaction to it. Maybe I’m just as entrenched in my beliefs as they are in theirs. And that bothers me.
I guess I think it’s wrong to regulate the grayer forms of morality. Let’s follow the basics. Don’t kill (even in revenge or death penalty), don’t rape, don’t steal, don’t pillage, don’t take soft money, don’t sell out to corporate greed. Let’s think of the common good over our own. So let’s not worry about the piddly things like homosexual relations or marijuana (regulate it sure, but making it illegal removes all your control) ’cause there are much larger problems in front of us. Although I don’t think contraception is a Bad Thing. Let’s work on making sure everyone’s fully educated (and not just on absent abstinence), kay? Wearing a condom or whatnot has the same effect – wriggly little spermies never meet regal eggs. Once conception takes place, it’s your own problem. Let’s not outlaw the option of preventing it in the first place, please. Even if your ‘outlawing’ is simply not educating people that it’s there. Same effect, really. Haha! Contraception of contraception! Leave it to the politicians. *amused*
Anyway, let’s get the basics down first before we get sidetracked by the pesky hormones. Deal with the wars, rapes, hunger, disease and all. Then let’s sit down over some good home cookin’ (whatever your preferred cuisine may be) and hash out the details. But… basics first. And we’ve been causing more of those than fixing them, it seems. *sigh* Clean up the first mess before making another, right?
Yeah, this election, no matter what the result, will be pretty interesting. I mean, they’re even getting us miseducated heathens to vote! Without promising us beer or free food! That’s gotta be a collegiate first (I really hope you can hear the dripping of my overproductive sarcasm gland here).
~ dunno where this rant came from ~”
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