<\/br>
\nI woke up feeling really dumb. Like I just don\u2019t get it anymore.
\n<\/br>
\nI mean I know it\u2019s been a very long time since the days when I began to get it. The Sixties became the Seventies which slipped into the Eighties, and then we found ourselves in the Nineties and Two Thousands with a couple of Bushes, and whoosh, it\u2019s 2010.
\n<\/br>
\nWhen I\u2019m feeling this kind of stupid, it seems to me as if we\u2019re moving back in time and instead of forward. And the light of hope seems to be fading before my eyes.
\n<\/br>
\nNow, of course, this could just be me: some kind of vitamin deficiency, or my own private response to the recent days of rain, or too much gluten. What do I know? I spend a lot of time in the coffee shop in front of a laptop that emits all kind of dangerous rays. And my friend Bill is quick to remind me that I watch too much TV.
\n<\/br>
\nBut it\u2019s hard to be optimistic when the cynical and stupid and greedy are determined to drag us all down.
\n<\/br>
\nAnd it\u2019s a hard time, figuratively and literally, to be gay when the forces of darkness seem to be gathering around us.
\n<\/br>
\nI mean are we really going to allow them to force gay men and lesbians back into the closet? Are we going to let moronic and creepy people like Christine O\u2019Donnell and Sharron Angle to force women who have already been traumatized by rape to bear the children of men who have committed the most heinous of crimes?
\n<\/br>
\nIn the name of family values? In the name of God?
\n<\/br>
\nHey, I\u2019m the first to admit I don\u2019t have the same kind of privileged personal relationship with God that they do.
\n<\/br>
\nShe hasn\u2019t called me once on my iPhone. No burning bush for this cowboy! No request to be my Facebook friend. Not even a measly email.
\n<\/br>
\nSharron Angle is the Republican who wants to be Harry Reid in Nevada. She thinks a thirteen-year-old girl who\u2019s been raped needs to learn to make lemonade with the lemon that is rape or incest. \u201cYou know,\u201d she said, \u201cI’m a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.”
\n<\/br>
\nAm I missing something here? Is the rape and incest of a thirteen-year-old part of this plan? Or just having the baby?
\n<\/br>
\nBecause ending this unwanted pregnancy is clearly not a part of Sharron Angle\u2019s plan:
\n“I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.”
\n<\/br>
\nSo somehow an at-risk, difficult pregnancy is the same as dealing with rape and incest?
\n<\/br>
\nFor a while Angle was chairwoman of We the People Nevada PAC. Their website proclaimed:
\n“The radical homosexual movement and other groups seek to destroy the traditional family structure which is the underpinning of society. Their agenda should be opposed.”
\n<\/br>
\nShe was a member of the Independent American Party of Nevada, which, in a newspaper ad, announced: \u201cobjection to homosexuality is a liberty and right of conscience and shall not be considered discrimination relating to civil rights.\u201d
\n<\/br>
\nSo much for Angle. Then there\u2019s Rand Paul in Kentucky who calls himself a libertarian but doesn\u2019t think liberty works for women when it comes to reproductive rights. “I believe life begins at conception and it is the duty of our government to protect this life.\u201d
\n<\/br>
\nWhat am I missing with this one? The same men and women who rant against government now want to use it to sanction and control women and gays?
\n<\/br>
\nThen there\u2019s my favorite, Christine O\u2019Donnell of Delaware who wants to be one of our one hundred \u2013 count-em \u2013 one hundred Senators. She thinks gays have it too good considering how homosexuality is a perversion that violates the will of the Lord:
\n\u201cThey — homosexuals’ special rights groups can get away with so much more than nobody else can! They’re getting away with nudity! \u2026 They’re getting away with lasciviousness! They’re getting away with perversion! \u2026 They’re getting away with blasphemy!\u201d
\n<\/br>
\nFortunately, for Christine, gayness can be cured by faith. Unfortunately, for Christine, there seem to be lots and lots of them with little faith. Still uncured.
\n<\/br>
\nI don\u2019t have room to talk about Ken Buck of Colorado or Joe Miller of Alaska but it\u2019s possible we\u2019ll have five new Senators who will make life miserable for gay people and women and me and maybe you.
\n<\/br>
\nHelp! Please help. Do something.
\n<\/br>
\n<\/br>
\nThe Berkshire Record, Thursday October 7, 2010. \u00a9 Mickey Friedman. All rights reserved.
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