Tag: rants

Button Sunday

This button was created by Keith Haring to celebrate National Coming Out Day. National Coming Out Day has been celebrated on October 11 every year since 1988, although it wasn’t observed in 2001 out of respect for the one-month anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Because this year it precedes Button Sunday by one day, I decided to make it today’s button.

Last night we had dinner with The Brides, and completely unrelated to this day of awareness, our conversation turned to the process of coming out. I can’t begin to count how many coming out stories I’ve heard over the years. Each story is as unique as the person who tells it, but one thing never changes: the courage of honesty.

Having never been the one who comes out, it isn’t–and won’t be–my intention or purpose to tell people how, or when, or to whom, they should come out. As a straight ally, I encourage any straight person to learn more about how to be supportive when a friend, coworker, or family member comes out to you. The Internet is replete with resources about coming out. PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) offers this helpful list:

Do/Don’t

Do listen to what your loved one’s life is like, and what kind of experiences he or she has had in the world.
Don’t blame your own feelings on your loved one.

Do take the time to seek information about the lives of GLBT people from parents of GLBT people, friends of your loved one, literature, and, most of all, directly from your loved one.
Don’t rush the process of trying to understand your loved one’s sexuality or gender identity.

Do get professional help for anyone in the family, including yourself, who becomes severely depressed over your loved one’s sexuality or gender identity.
Don’t assume that your loved one should see a professional counselor or encourage them to participate in “reparative therapy.”

Do accept that you are responsible for your negative reactions.
Don’t criticize your loved one for being different.

Do respect your loved one’s right to engage in loving relationships.
Don’t try to break up loving relationships.

Do try to develop trust and openness by allowing your loved one to be who she or he is without pressure.
Don’t try to force your loved one to conform to your ideas of proper sexual behavior.

Do be proud of your loved one’s capacity for having loving relationships.
Don’t blame yourself because your loved one is gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Do look for the injured feelings underneath the anger and respond to them.
Don’t demand that your loved one live up to what your idea of what a man or woman should be.

Do defend him or her against discrimination.
Don’t discriminate against your loved one.

Do support your loved one’s individual goals, even though they may differ drastically from your own.
Don’t force your own life goals on your loved one.

Do say “I love you.”
Don’t insist that your morality is the only right one.

Does anyone know?

Dear Anyone or perhaps Fox viewers:

Is this an accurate quote?

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told Fox News that Palin would not subject herself to any tough questions from reporters “until the point in time when she’ll be treated with respect and deference.”

I keep thinking the quote can’t be real. Newspeople are clamoring for an interview with this candidate. It’s her party’s perfect opportunity for free publicity. Is she afraid of their questions? Does she not know how to say “no comment” if an interviewer ventures into territory that she considers private? Her family’s right to privacy doesn’t preclude her from her obligation to make public who she is, what she stands for, what her plans are for her office should she win it, what her vision is for our country and its people. If she wants to dodge questions about foreign affairs, the economy, and other domestic issues, she’s going to have to learn to dodge them and dissemble when the lights and cameras are all pointed directly at her, just like every other candidate.

She’s running on the ticket for the highest offices in our government. Although people seem to have forgotten this little detail, if she wins, she will WORK FOR US. Our tax dollars will pay her salary. We will provide her a home. We will provide security for her and her family. She will travel throughout the country and the world on our behalf and often on her party’s behalf, even if we disagree with her and don’t belong to her party. That makes her accountable to us and answerable to us. Since we don’t all have access to our candidates or our leaders, we depend on the press to ask our questions and get information for us. (Those who may feel inclined to speak to me about media bias need not chime in. Reading critically is my life. I know how to get to the heart and truth of the written word, and I don’t watch wannabe-celebrity pundits or attractive newscasters–on either side–for my information. Thus my original question: Is that quote accurate?)

The simple truth is, when you put yourself in the position Sarah Palin is in, you don’t get to go all Mommie Dearest and demand respect. You don’t get to pick and choose the questions that are asked of you. You have to face even the people who don’t like you, don’t agree with you, insult you, anger you, and hurt your feelings. You have to be tough enough and smart enough to do that.

Then I read that she’s “agreed” to do an interview with ABC. AGREED? She’s not Madonna a monarch in office yet, is she? That nap I took was only fifteen minutes, wasn’t it?

Signed:
Becky Van Winkle

Word

To those of you who sit next to your fireplace on an autumn evening, toasting your toes while a steaming mug of coffee, tea, or cocoa, or perhaps a glass of red wine, sits next to you, and you let your book fall to your lap as you stare into the flames, then you hear yourself thinking, Sewing clothes for a Barbie doll? How hard could THAT be?

I have one word for you.

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Playing catch-up–Part 1–Politics

Being away from home for most of ten days has left me trying to get my bearings. I’m having a really hard time reading my friends’ list. I don’t unfriend people for what they post and would never presume to tell people how to post, it’s just that large numbers of entries in one day or long lists not behind a cut make things really hard for someone who’s way behind in reading and/or commenting.

I’ll live. But rather than try to find and comment on posts that I’ve read over the past ten days, I’ll just touch on a few things that have struck me–though I think I’d better divide my posts by topic.

it’s gonna be a long one

I couldn’t agree more, and so what?

Someone I don’t know who also obviously doesn’t know me sent me a little message, the gist of which was:

Don’t you think all this doll stuff is kind of silly and a waste of your time?

Yes, I absolutely think it’s silly! And I think being silly is often one of the best ways any of us can use our time. Being silly (after a year of coping with stress, physical pain, losses, writing a novel and working with Tim to find a home for our anthology on behalf of some superb writers, and dealing with enough changes and responsibilities to turn me into the She Bitch of the World on more than one occasion) is just what the doctor ordered. I mean, SERIOUSLY just what FOUR doctors ordered–and not one of them was a psychiatrist. Being silly with my friends may be what keeps me OUT of therapy.

My advice to anyone, including you, Person I Do Not Know, is to put more silliness into your life–and I won’t even charge you $.05 for this. The war, the economy, the cruelties and failings of humanity–I can’t fix these things. That admission reminds me of a day when I couldn’t see my mother because my back pain was so bad, and Tom did errands for her. As he was leaving her apartment, for no apparent reason, she said, “Tell Becky to stop trying to save the world.” Even with Alzheimer’s, she had wisdom and knew me so well.

While I’m being silly with dolls, I’m still taking care of my home and my work–not that it’s any of your business. And if you are creative at all, you already know that any process of creation relaxes and opens your mind to more creativity. I don’t sew worth a damn, quite frankly, and perhaps the reason I keep stabbing myself with needles while I’m trying is because my mind is preoccupied with ideas for what I will write next–and as fun as writing can be, I do take its process quite seriously–I just don’t take myself seriously. It’s an important distinction.

A few nights ago, another wise person, while shaking her head with a smile about the Runway Monday goings-on, generously said, “If more people were at home doing what you guys are doing, I’d have less work to do.” She educates people about hate in our society.

In fact, all the people in my life, whatever their own cares and concerns, do much to heal the world with their time, their art, their energy, their work–and with their silliness. I couldn’t be more grateful to know and be inspired by them.

they wanted to go to work

Using a Hi-Point Model JHP .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol, an employee of Atlantis Plastics in Henderson Kentucky, killed five employees and injured another, Noelia Monroy, before taking his own life. The dead included:

• Joshua Hinojosa (28 years old)
• Trisha Mirelez (25)
• Israel Monroy (29)
• Kevin G. Taylor (30)
• Rachael Vasquez (26)

Day of Silence

April 25, the Day of Silence, a project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is a student-led day of action when concerned students, from middle school to college, take some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to the name-calling, bullying and harassment–in effect, the silencing–experienced by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) students and their allies.

Check out GLSEN’s FAQ page for more information.

they wanted to go to work

On March 18, 2008, the son of an auto wrecking yard owner shot four people to death at Black Road Auto in Santa Maria, California, using a semi-automatic handgun. There were no other injuries. The dead included one of the perpetrator’s relatives and two employees.

• Golden “Dave” Duboise (45 years old)
• Ricardo Cardenas Leal (33)
• Robert Louis Leeds (66)
• Terry Edward Majan (38)