Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Gay Debate

Here’s a story:

                Recently, former San Francisco 49ers lineman Kwame Harris got in a scuffle with an ex about soy sauce.  This resulted in an assault charge against Harris.  Soy sauce-based arguments happen more often than you think, people. That’s not the interesting part.  The interesting part is that Harris’s ex happens to be a man.  Yes, hard to believe as it is, a professional football player was gay. 

                As you may know, the San Francisco 49ers happen to be in the Super Bowl this year.  As a result, on media day, a number of the current players were asked if knowing that a teammate was gay would affect the atmosphere in the locker room.  Most said a teammate’s sexuality would not have made a difference, as, being professionals, they are there to do a job, namely win games, not wondering what their teammates are doing with their penises in their spare time.  Non-grammar-award-winning-cornerback Chris Culliver did not share that opinion, however, and openly worried that gay germs might infect him and ruin his good time (paraphrasing). *

                Here’s my beef: there are a number of things that I have opinions about, and not favorable opinions, either.  I am 99% opposed to marriage for me, and about 90% opposed to it for you.  I think that conspicuous consumption is either a sign of a small penis or daddy issues.  I have found that people who talk about how great they are at religion are usually pretty bad at being humans.  But the truth of the matter is that no one gives a shit about my opinions because they are stupid, and, technically, a little crazy.  So how is it that we provide a forum for people to continuously express their stupid and crazy opinions about human sexuality? 

                I know what some of you are thinking: that this is something that should be debated because the Bible says or doesn’t say something about sexuality, or because sexuality is or isn’t a choice.  Well, guess what?  The Bible also has an opinion about ham sandwiches.  But do we feel the need to debate ham sandwiches ad nauseum on every television show and every blessed comment on USAToday?  We do not, America.  And, on top of that, lots of things are choices.  Men under thirty who grow full-on Ulysses S. Grant beards make a choice, but people allow them to go about their lives with nary a word, despite the fact that I CAN GUARANTEE YOU that their partner/loved one thinks that they look MUCH BETTER without the beard.  So, given the fact that we feel perfectly comfortable allowing some biblical references and some choices to slide, why is it that we must pick on sexuality?

                Don’t get me wrong: I believe in the marketplace of ideas.  But there’s got to come a time when we say, “Thanks, we’ve heard enough on this issue.”  Right?  Because all we keep doing now is recycling the same things that people have been saying for hundreds of years now- the same things that people used to say about interracial marriage, women voting, and abolishing slavery.  Aren’t we intelligent enough to move beyond that?

                Oscar Wilde- a man who, coincidentally, was imprisoned for homosexuality- wrote, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”  When we insist on pretending that sexuality is a legitimate debate, we are simply bedeviling ourselves.  Instead, why don’t we live by the words of my hero, Kurt Vonnegut: “If you can do no good, at least do no harm.”  Regardless of whether you believe gayness is good, bad, weird, awesome, or something else, can’t we all agree that to show loving kindness is the truest expression of humanity?

                And besides, don’t we have more important things to debate?  Children die from preventable causes.  Mentally ill people are untreated.   Rape remains a powerful tool of oppression, and according to Stephen Colbert, bears are out to get us.  Gayness is something that can’t be solved, and doesn’t need a solution.  Bears, on the other hand…


* Culliver’s actual quote was, “"I don't do the gay guys man…I don't do that. No, we don't got no gay people on the team, they gotta get up out of here if they do. Can't be with that sweet stuff. Nah…can't be…in the locker room man. Nah."  A later tweet on an unrelated topic also demonstrated that Culver is unaware of the their/there distinction. 

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Shame Heaven

I don’t believe in hell, but I do believe in heaven. I also believe that everyone goes to heaven, even Saddam Hussein. Being Catholic, that’s not exactly the way heaven and hell were explained to me, but I never really felt like I got an adequate explanation of how Jonah set up shop in the belly of that whale, either, so my theory is that the Catholic Church wants me to use my imagination.


I’ve already written a blog about how we all get the heaven that we ask for, so that all of you racists can live in your gated community in heaven, and all of the rest of us can have fun. But one thing I think everyone gets before you get to go to your final, heavenly destination: shame heaven.

What is shame heaven? Well, here’s how I figure it. Do you know that feeling that you get when you realize that you’ve just done something horrible? For example, when you mean to text your friend Sarah to say, “Jesus Christ, Lauren is acting like such a fucking bitch!” but you accidentally SEND IT TO LAUREN? And how, for a brief moment, it’s like all of the blood in your body starts running in the opposite direction and a full-body, inside-out blush begins as you realize the enormity of the assholery that you just perpetuated? That’s what shame heaven feels like.

Everyone gets to make a stop in shame heaven before real heaven. In shame heaven, the length of time you feel that horrible feeling of shame is dependent on what you’ve done here on earth. Nothing is missed. You know those lies of convenience that you told, thinking that no one would catch you? Remember that time you only paid for a small, even though you got a large? Remember that time you screamed at your spouse, even though you knew that the problem really was just that you were in a bad mood? All of those things go on your tab in shame heaven. The big things go on your tab, as well, even the big things that you thought you were getting away with. Pretending that your church wants you to hate gays. Pretending that your political party wants you to believe that poor people are just lazy, so you don’t need to do anything for them. Pretending that science isn’t real. All of the things that you know are true, or untrue, and that you ignore because it’s more comfortable or convenient….yeah. Shame heaven. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, or just the non-deity-related virtues of right and wrong. Everyone gets shame heaven. I don’t make the rules, that’s just the way it is.

Now, for me, I find shame heaven totally comforting. Think about it: if all I am being asked to do here on earth is the right thing, all the time, then I know what I gotta do. I already know things for which I’m going to spend time in shame heaven. I deserve it. But I also know that I totally control my destiny. If I want to do bad here and pay for it later, I can. If I want to do good here and not run up my shame heaven tab, I can do that, too. And I also know that I don’t need to worry about other people and the trifling shit they do, because they will get theirs. NOBODY is immune to shame heaven. Even people who seem to feel no shame.