Government Service - African Style

There is only one thing worse than spending three hours sitting in a queue that doesn't move - spending three hours STANDING in a queue that doesn't move. In South Africa's government departments, this is getting beyond a joke.

Vicious Circles And How The Wheel Turns

Gay-haters claim GLBTI are less than one percent of the total population (when worldwide stats seem to place us conservatively at TEN percent (based on estimates of the KNOWN out pink population)) and object to having "their rights" placed secondary to a minority. Funny that a bunch of fags gaining legal equality with them will make them feel less than equal? How does that work again?

Isn't it strange the way some people reason? You can almost taste the irony in the air when people justify their actions by saying it was necessary to kill a hundred in order to save a thousand? Isn't that called rationalization? Particularly when you really have to wonder what it is they are trying to "save" people from? It certainly makes me wonder about the way they think - their motives, reasoning and whether or not they have any conscience at all? After all, how many innocent victims of their hate does it take before it becomes wrong?

For us, one is already too many. For them, a thousand is not enough.

Heterosexism Kills

"...how do I stand up for myself if I will lose my home?"

This is just one example of a young person too terrified to stand up for herself as a young transgender woman - in her own home. 

 

One example of how we let the bigots win by terrorizing us into silence and compliance with their will and their way. 

 

Too many of our young people live in an environment where they have to hide their sexuality or their gender identity from their parents, friends and family. So many of them have such a hard time dealing with it themselves - and to then still have to face the trauma of coming out - at which point they risk facing what has come to be called 'the war at home'. 

 

Some of us are lucky enough to have loving, caring parents who comfort, accept and nurture us - but not so many of us are that fortunate.

A Million Drums

The ACDP is making a lot of noise consolidating and enlarging it's power base, which was all but decimated in the April 22 elections. The DA has thankfully broken the tenuous alliance they had formed with them in order to form an opposition to the ANC in the Western Cape province some years before, and now they are well and truly out of power and on their own. 

Far from giving up on the fight to take power, institute a theocracy and turn the gay community in South Africa into criminals and fugitives as they were before 1994 - they are now trying to drum up support for their daunting climb from the dark and stifling basement they hatch their schemes in, to the dizzy heights of the steps of Parliament in 2014. At least, that is what they are aiming at.

Rotten Fruit

Since the "ex-gay" industry recently lost one of its most famous cornerstones - a book written thirty years ago called "Homosexuality in Perspective", in which the founding principles of this multi-million dollar hate-industry were laid out using "case studies" - now revealed in a new book called "Masters of Sex" to have been wholly fictitious and falsified, fundamentalist gay-haters are now changing their rhetoric to suit circumstances.

Christian Is As Christian Does

All arguments aside about whether being gay is a sin or not - what about those Christians who take it upon themselves to persecute gay people? We could debate the issue of evidence and proof for a year, and for another year you could reject all evidence to show gay and trans people are as natural as heterosexual people, as well as rejecting all reasonable religious alternatives to the choice some make to hate - or to love us in the name of the same God many of us also love and who also loves us. But let us put that aside for a moment, and narrow it down to response.

How do you as Christians respond to other people?

Expecting Someone Smaller?

Many times I have engaged in debates with bigots, particularly Christian fundamentalists. Often, when cornered and outgunned by the weight of evidence and material presented to them - which they have of course denied - they resort to personal attacks and character assassination. Sometimes they will call efforts in defense of their victims "trashing other people's beliefs" - I find that rather ironic considering all the vicious things said about gay and trans people - and me - that have come out of their mouths, um - finger tips.

Out, Damned Spot!

Here in SA our Pride events are sponsored by the community, businesses and not councils or government. This means that while their funding is independent (and often hard to come by) all they require is the co-operation of the local authorities and that at least their financial eggs are not all in one basket, and the cancellation of one sponsor will usually not mean disaster.

Municipalities often just show us support through granting of permits, assistance with advertising or press releases and statements and so on. Mostly they realize how much revenue and tourism these events bring into their towns - one such instance saw a campaign by religious radicals to ban such an event thwarted, mainly due to the fondness of the residents for the festival - and also their fondness for the pink money it brings in - which exceeds their December holiday takings.

What Happened To IDAHO DAY In SA?

This year IDAHO day was celebrated widely by pink communities around the world, and on the eve of the 2009 IDAHO day, and France became the first country in the world to officially remove transgender issues from its list of mental illnesses, as homosexuality was globally in 1973. (This means that I am wonko everywhere in the world - except France. Did I mention I like France?) 

Sadly I noted nothing of the sort here in South Africa. No announcements, events, full page ads, radio interviews... nothing at all. Perhaps the bigger advocacy organizations here were too wrapped up in campaigning against racism or xenophobia? All jokes aside, I feel it is necessary in South Africa to mark such events - because believe it or not - we are not immune - nor are we untouched by the hand of homo and trans phobia.

True = False

There are many loving Christians out there who happen to love and befriend gay and trans people and support and accept them without seeing any kind of conflict of interests in this. They love God and they love their fellow human beings as they believe their God taught them to. These are people in whom one can believe you can see the nature of a loving father God shining through.

Considering this, isn't it somewhat ironic that there are people who claim to worship the same deity, read the same holy books and also claim to be Christians - who paradoxically hate gay people and try their level best to destroy them in the name of this same God? In the same breath many of these people also claim that others who show love and tolerance to gay people - or stand against their acts of hatred against them - cannot be "true" Christians... I find this rather an interesting proposal.

Don't you?