[oramit]

Thanks for linking this. I needed a good chuckle this morning.

On a more serious note. I'm gay and if you want to know why Pride parades, Pride month, and being out is so important, it's this sort of rhetoric. Calls for "biblical morality" and "homosexual crimes" to be punished are coded calls for our destruction. This sort of thinking is always absolutist and apocalyptic. There is nothing I can do to "tone it down" that will make them happy. They simply want us dead. Being out is the only real defense we have because we then go from a demonized other to just your friend, coworker, or family member.

We're here, we're queer - fuck off.

[PuppyTailWags]

For anyone curious about what oramit's talking about: Gay people have tried extremely hard in the past to "fit in", especially during the AIDS crisis. Gay catholics at the time were forced to face the fact that, if they acquired AIDS (at that time known clinically as "Gay-related immune deficiency") they will have to face the horrific and slow deaths without the support of their religious leaders due to homophobia. These were churchgoing, churchfearing, model catholics who did everything they could to fit into their parish and the church turned their back on them to the point where they could not even hold bible studies amongst themselves on church grounds.

Basically, the way AIDS victims were dehumanized, mistreated, overall publicly humiliated, shattered any real belief that if you just tried to fit in enough society will treat you as one of their own. Ultimately, the LGBTQ community were the only people supporting the LGBTQ community, and this required radical self-acceptance movements in the face of horrific death and apathy.