Mourning in our own ways

Mass shootings have become so commonplace we can become numb to them, even when they hit close to home. Sunday morning I was reading the coverage in an academic way, trying to learn the what, when, where, and why of the story.

Then I clicked on the video of Christine Leinonen, a mother looking for her son. She had been standing behind the police tape for probably twelve hours.

"They said there's a lot of dead bodies in the club," she said as she started to break down. "and it's a crime scene, they can't identify anybody, so it could be hours and hours..."

I began to cry and have been crying on and off ever since.

Why was nobody standing with her? I wanted so much to be there to hug and support her, but felt helpless.

I've not been a fan of candlelight vigils because I didn't believe they served a purpose, especially when not coupled with what I consider real efforts to make change. But when Jason Brooks invited me to speak at the vigil at Bubby & Sissy's last night I had a change of heart and decided there was indeed value in coming together as a community to mourn.

While at the vigil with my partner a woman standing at a table invited us to join her. "I'm here by myself. You're welcome to join me."

In her reaching out I sensed she needed companionship. I wasn't able to comfort Christine Leinonen, but I could keep this woman company. And so I did. After conversing for a while she told me she didn't come out much, but after watching the news she wanted to be with people. I thought about how sad it would've been had she not found anyone to talk to, and left alone.

But that's the thing about LGBT bars. They're often a place where you can go and find friendly people to talk to, and a place to belong.

Outwardly I'm mourning by expressing anger that politicians are using our tragedy to target other minorities. I'm railing against the NRA. I'm trying to think of ways to make things better. But I'm still weeping with everyone else.

I can't think of any bigger LGBT anthem than "We Are Family" and the line that keeps rininging in my ear is "Just let me speak for the record. We're giving love in a family dose."

We're all different, we all express ourselves differently, but we're all in this together. Let's be there for one another, give space to mourn and vent, and then let's press onward.

The Pope's Side Ho

I don't know why the Vatican went to such great lengths to bypass the culture wars only to muddy their message by diving right into them, but I'm not upset about it. I lived through the Bush years, when Monica Goodling worked to purge the government of LGBT employees, GOP mastermind Karl Rove won elections by demonizing our community, having sex with someone of the same gender in your own home could get you arrested in many states, and Paramount gave "Dr" Laura a television show despite her claim that most gay men were pedophiles. This is nothing.

There's still a religion & politics issue that sticks in my craw, though, even though it's been eleven years.

In 2004, after the GOP pushed anti-LGBT constitutional amendments all over the country, the United Church of Christ produced a commercial telling queer people that we were welcome at their church, and no major network would agree to run it out of fear of offending the Bush Administration. 

To this day that infuriates me, and to this day I believe heads should roll for that decision. It’s during times of hardship that you know who your friends are, and at the end of 2004 not even the network that brought us Will & Grace was standing with us.

We've come such a long way in only a decade (Thanks Obama!). And on the religion issue, America's gone from banning gay friendly church ads to thinking it's scandalous that the pope had a secret meeting with an anti-gay clerk.

Attention-hungry Davis boasts about being validated, but the pope was willing to meet publicly with thieves and murderers, but felt he had to hide his meeting with her. She's as validated as a side hoe.