Sunday, June 12, 2016

For Friends

The tiny but fierce unicorn of Bodley MS Douce 6, offered today for anyone in need of some comfort. #TinyUnicorn #🦄

by J J Cohen

I wrote this on Facebook but I am placing it here because I wrote it for you, as well.

The worst mass shooting in American history looks to have been triggered by homophobia. The Republican politicians who fought against gay marriage, who still work to undermine what limited equality is afforded LGBQT Americans, and who take far more interest in regulating toilet use than the availability of army-grade weapons now offer "thoughts and prayers" rather than apologies for their own practice of mundane acts of violence. The GOP will blame the deaths on radical Islam and fail once again to recognize their own "Christian" complicity in a culture rapidly descending into everyday vitriol and increasing brutality. Trickle down economics has gone hand in hand with trickle down hate.

I am so sorry for the lives taken in Orlando this morning. I am so sorry for everyone experiencing loss in the massacre's aftermath. I am sorry many who would like to donate blood to help out are prevented from doing so because of who they have had sex with. I am sorry that safety is fleeting and that body counts keep rising and that so many people feel endangered every day (because they are endangered. Every day.)

And I am thankful. Without queer friends I am not sure I would have made it through childhood. Without queer friends I am fully certain I would not have made it through college, through graduate school, through much of my career or life. I know those sentiments can easily come across wrong; I hope they do not. What I really want to say on this day when so much hate -- hate that we all knew was there already -- has turned extraordinarily lethal is simply to say, to so many of you here, that I love you. You make the world better. Your friendship means everything to me. I wish there was more I could do when you feel endangered, and when you hurt. But I will do whatever I can.

2 comments:

Nathaniel M. Campbell said...

I have many Christian friends who are Republican. Not only would none of them EVER advocate violence against the LGBTQ community, but many of them actively denounce such violence.

It's a sad day when you you can take the deaths of 49 people and use it as an excuse to attack Christians who had nothing to do with it.

Jeffrey Cohen said...

I think you should read the post more attentively Nathaniel. Start with the sentence that begins "The Republican politicians who fought against gay marriage, who still work to undermine what limited equality is afforded LGBQT Americans ..." Note who is named specifically as the agents in that. Of course, if your Chritian friends voted such people into office, yes I do blame them for supporting a growing climate of hate against queers in the US.