Have you ever just wanted to stand in the somewhere, outside preferably, where the air’s cold was steaming around your face…and just…take a deep breath and scream so loudly and deeply, that everything from your toes to your ankles to your knees– all the way to the tips of the hairs on your head came out of you?

I was talking to a friend tonight. We do dinner together every monday night, and I talk most of the time. It’s not that I don’t like to listen, she’s just someone that I don’t know how to sit and listen with. I just never have, and don’t know how to— I can’t even just sit there with her. I don’t know how to.

Anyway, tonight we started talking about the possibility of me going on the Equality Ride. And I brought up the fact that I am really nervous that my school wouldn’t let me come back. And I said, “Well– we also live in a really liberal area, and if I weren’t allowed back there would probably be some pretty bad backlash from the community.” And she said, “But you also have to remember that if they did let you back, there would be backlash from conservative Christians.” And when she said that I suddenly felt SO angry. I don’t think I have ever felt that angry when it has come to this issue before. I can’t even put into words, also, what makes me feel this way. It’s not even injustice, it’s just—- ignorance. I mean, do you think that just by casting people out of “your” society— and by censoring them that you will shut them up and make the issue go away (and totally out of your reality)?!?!?! I mean, are you kidding yourselves?!

I mean, it’s like the people who sit on street corners and preach damnation. I mean…seriously?!

I am queer.

It doesn’t define me, and it doesn’t make me any less of a person than being straight makes you. It doesn’t automatically mean I have AIDS, and it is NOT the reason the towers were hit. I am not responsible for God’s “wrath” on America, and I am entitled to be OK with who I am. EVERYONE is entitled to this. Your Christian ancestors came here to be free. Now isn’t it funny, that it is their heirs that have enslaved others?!?! Have you not learned from the past?

I’m sorry that I am so frustrated, I would like to think that it is righteous anger. But– man there is just no way that anyone could think that the way that some Christians behave is OK…

I mean– today in my Adolescent Literature class, we were discussing Annie On My Mind. This is a great story, although poorly put together, about two girls (the protagonists) who fall in love. It’s a typical teenage love story (for the eighties). But for the kids in my class—- they were “uncomfortable” (understandably) with the story and kept making comments about how they don’t understand the homosexual lifestyle. But– I would have to disagree. If you have been in love before, you understand it. You don’t know how or why you are attracted or interested in the person you love— you just know you are. Meaning- if I were to ask a straight person to explain what it is like to be straight— they wouldn’t be able to. Or could to a certain extent. I can assume that I don’t know what it’s like— but isn’t love just love? Maybe I am delusional or something. Lying to myself to make myself feel better.

But to me— love is love no matter the shape, color, or gender. It’s not a physical thing and it knows no boundaries.