Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/c/community/people/gay_and_lesbian/locdocs/108430.htm
 

Baker Act: Stop the gay bashing already!

Greg Baker

gbaker@streetmiami.com

Get up, stand up. Stand up for yer rights.

Literary master Alexander Pushkin wrote this: ``Can't be helped, the track is covered. Hopeless! We have lost our way. Demons must have taken over, Whirling, twisting us astray. Look at them! They're everywhere!''

During the holidays my lover person and I were re-watching a documentary about the Brit punk scene circa 1975. As some of you might be old enough to recall (I still have my vinyl slab of Never Mind the Bullocks) there was the standard-issue outrage after the Sex Pistols cleverly said ``sh&*t'' and ``f*&@k'' on a live telly chat show.

Religious (read, intolerant) groups stood in protest of a Pistols' concert in England, stupidly ignoring the fact that they were only helping the filthy punk cause by doing so. It was then that my love made a sharp observation: ``It's cool to see that happen in Britain. It's so common here, but you'd think they'd be above suppression and censorship'' and, I might add, sucker bets.

It reminded me of an even older documentary I once saw in which some American politico jerk was determined to stop an early-day rock show: ``We don't want that n*@@er music here.'' I still recoil in repulsion at that one.

But here it is, a new millennium, and our county is divided into three camps: A group fighting to repeal our so-called gay rights ordinance, a group fighting to save it, and the biggest group of all - those who don't give a dang.

Can any of you, please, justify the sanctimonious repression favored by the family-value crowd?

No, you can't, but I found this cool letter to The Miami Herald from a guy named Mark who noted ``how appropriate it is that the two opposing sides of the human-rights ordinance chose the names they did.''

Take Back Miami is attempting to repeal and repress human rights with a petition that would force a referendum on the ordinance. ``Take Back'' as in take us back to the Dark Ages.

Defenders of the ordinance rally under the banner of Save Miami-Dade - that is, save us from the overpressers. ``Let's put this behind us [insert offensive wordplay here if you want] and work to unite our community, not divide it. We are all Americans and deserve equal protection,'' wrote Mark, the silly f@gg*t.

Seriously though, did Jesus or Moses or Buddha or any other religious top cat ever favor hatred? How'd I miss that? I didn't miss two recent stories: a heroic cop (with a girlfriend!) who killed himself (mortal sin) after being accused of attempted child rape and a rabbi sentenced to prison for similar abuse of the innocent. Homosexuals are not pedophiles, pedophiles are pedophiles. Our community looks stupid and backward, and these newspaper columnists are wasting space writing about stupid crap like the Miami Heat.

It could have been a pirate transmitter disrupting the broadcast signal, or it could have been a microphone left ``open'' in an extremely inappropriate place, but viewers of the Orange Bowl game were treated to this opening monologue: ``Fuck the f&*@ing gay Gators.''

So far the FCC has not pulled ABC's license, so we'll assume it was just one pathetic loner over-riding the teevy signal. And I'm OK with ``f&*@k the Gators,'' but there were no kids in my living room at the moment and the idiot had to throw in the ``gay.''

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