Mad As A Hater

I know it isn't a fair comparison - and I must apologize to Linux fans for this unintentional sleight - but whenever I see anything that reminds me of Angus Buchan, I immediately think of Red Hat and its Fedora distro. Why? It's because of the hat. That hat has become synonymous to me with that man. In fact, one of these days I think some avid Angus fan may even release - or unleash - a new linux distro on an unsuspecting world and call it "Angus Fedora" Linux or something appropriately lame. Don't get me wrong, I like Linux - and I love that cute penguin - at least a good deal more than I like Angus - or his silly hat. Fortunately most Angus aficionados are clearly not bright enough to be Linux developers - or they would be bright enough to know a scam artist, baloney merchant or snake-oil salesman when they see one.

Flexible Morality

Ever notice how often human rights come under the attack of groups like Christian Action Network and Family Policy Institute lately? 

 

They have a unique name for human rights advocacy, and the notion that all human beings deserve to be treated equally, or with compassion, or justice, these fundamentalist radicals - they call it "secular humanism" and they call it a religion - just as they claim that atheism is also a religion, in spite of an absence of BELIEF or FAITH. How an absence of apples still counts as apples to these cretins is unclear to me, but be that as it may, by their contributions to the rat-infested storehouse of radical fundamentalist barely-literary material, you will see they are certainly not overly fond of the concept.

Indecent Exposure

It is quite cute how some people can glory in being ignorant. Have you ever noticed how they seize upon junk-science they find on the Internet, put there by their equally ignorant compatriots - and claim "I win!" when it is as fake as their faith and their claim to worship and follow a loving God who is supposed to have created - and to therefore love - all of us?

A Change Of Heart

Christianity - the lifestyle choice that elevates one to a position from where you can look down on everyone else, and point out their mistakes - and everyone who disagrees is automatically "evil", "anti-God" and a "heretic", a "deviant" - or a threat to "the family", and somehow less of a human being for it.

This is how a friend of mine put it: "Very true - even of "good" Christians who claim to hate the sin but love the "sinner". "No, you're not evil, but your acts are evil." Evil. Good. Evil. Good. When will people just be able to accept reality as it truly is?"

When people stop fearing the dark as some representation of evil and see it as a shadow, an absence of light, and also a consequence of it.

Going Mental

I know this guy, see? He's a local, claims he's a Christian - belongs to all the "right" clubs and parties - supports the CDA, ACDP, CP, UCDP - in fact any political party in South Africa with a "c" in it - okay, except possibly for THAT one. 

 

This bloke hates gay people and loves to point out all the usual verses in his holy book that support his misogyny. On his more lucid days he claims he doesn't, though you can see it right through the beatific smile on his face. On his worst days he admits to his hate and promotes the death penalty for gay people and then shifts the blame by claiming "it's not my fault - the bible tells me so". 

 

This man is proud of - and even brags about - being a Christian fundamentalist.

Oh... Fundamentalists!

Cameronian Pscience Abounds

Yesterday I found a Facebook group addressing the matter of a pending legal motion to change the legal age of consent for the youth in South Africa. 

 

The group creator doesn't stop at just attacking the suggested move to lower the age of consent for heterosexual children, but differentiates between heterosexual and gay children and then launches into insulting references to fictional anti-gay pseudo-science and propaganda aimed at gay people. 

 

In fact, it seems to me this person and her group are obsessed entirely with gay male sex - as only a small portion of the lengthy rant on its information section concerns heterosexual children at all, so it seems fairly obvious where this individual's intentions lie.

Love Versus Hate

When one looks at hate crimes such as the Tel Aviv Massacre Saturday night in which fifteen gay people were wounded and three young people killed by a masked and cowardly gunman dressed in black who entered a gay center filled with gay kids and began spraying it with automatic weapons fire and then fled - it is quite easy to reciprocate the feelings of hate. 

Broken Logic

Over the last week an "ex-gay" champion engaged me in an email debate over my "leading gay people to destruction" by taking them "further away from the light of God" and "into the ways of the world".

LOL.

I brushed aside images of being a transgender "Moses" (or "Moselina") leading the downtrodden masses across a candy-floss desert in my bright pink cape, imagining various forms of burning bush and grinning annoyingly from behind my false beard. Achoo.

I Know, Therefore I Am

The murder trial of the killers of Eudy Simalane made me realize a few things. 

 

One was that the hatred some people feel for gay and transgender people is alive and well - while a fine and upstanding woman like her is dead because of it - and the other is that up until I read a few articles on her death, I never knew that SA even had a national female soccer team - or that she was their captain. After searching through this muddle of emotion and drama in the circumstances surrounding this tragedy, I now realize why.

It's because of the Patriarchy.

Double Talk Heralds Double Standards

On Tuesday 28 July a letter was published in the EP Herald, a newspaper considered by many, including myself, to be a forward-thinking publication which frequently presents unbiased and fair articles touching on the topic of sexual and gender diversity. 

 

The letter was titled "Flaunting of gay lifestyles offensive" and penned by a certain Mike Jones of Port Elizabeth. In his letter Mr Jones berated the popular TV show "Top Billing" for "ramming gays down our throats every week", "as if their lifestyle is something to be proud of, particularly in a programme of this calibre". He also called gay people "deviates", and elaborated further on his personal prejudice by saying that he did not "regard homosexuality as 'cool'" and intimated how gay people whose homes were featured on the show "got up his nose".

 

The very first thing that popped into my head - after a healthy flush of adrenaline had run its course, and the thought of something a lot more satisfying I could get up Mr Jones's nose flashed through my mind, was the question why a supposedly straight and vehemently anti-gay man so obviously stricken with a case of toxic masculinity would be remotely interested in watching that TV show in the first place? But, brushing such private generalization and stereotyping aside, I decided to look into it.