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DYKE ABROAD, from p.73
lenging their monopoly. A few hours after we were massacred in Orlando by an Islamist zealot, Catholic leaders in the Dominican Republic joined forces with Evangelicals to participate in a previously scheduled march against the “Gay Agenda.” The Vatican fights tooth and nail against marriage equality, sneers at trans youth, continues to demonize us as sinners and degenerates, hideous to God. Plenty of American preachers and politicians responded to the attack saying that we deserved it. The repulsive Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick tweeted, “A man reaps what he sows.” Unsurprisingly, about 500 LGBTQ people have been killed all over the Americas in 2016 so far according to the website Al Momento. So why consider Omar Mateen crazy when he was just pursing hate and fear to its logical end? If we are abominations to God, why not rid the earth of us? After all, God cleansed the earth with the flood. Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire because of people just like us, some say
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MEDIA CIRCUS, from p.73
mass murder of homosexuals in Orlando was an act of Islamist terrorism.” Oh, really? In point of fact, the president first labeled the slaughter “an act of terrorism” before calling it “an act of hate.” What he did not do is employ the word Islamist. The president never uses that word because it tar nishes the entire Muslim world when in fact the terrorists are
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restricted to a relatively small number of lunatics. It’s rather like the word Zionists — too loaded to be of much use. Raw Story and other news outlets reflected the shock and disgust Donald T rump provoked with his notorious tweet, “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” In an interview with the presumptuous Republican
SNIDE LINES, from p.74
I know you don’t need me, Ms. Clinton. You already have lots of sexy, brilliant, right-on feminist supporters helping you. But I wonder if Gloria Steinem, Lena Dunham, Oprah, and Eileen Myles know about things like this. — Sisterly group hug, P.S. I’m glad you took out that coup stuff in your book’s paperback edition. Don’t worry about the media linking you to Berta’s assassination. If anybody asks me, I’ll tell them Bernie did it.
Madam Presumptive President, I woke up this morning and thought, “Is Hillary happy today? I wonder who she’s having for breakfast.” I worry about you, Hillary. All alone, you’ve been soldiering on through years of abusive charges that you used your private email server for official, classified communication. It must have been hard to reassure the American people time and again that you complied with all government rules — only to confront vicious
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the Bible tells them. Most of the people screaming outside Planned Parenthoods are perfectly sane, perfectly sure that the care providers are bound for hell and leading others there. That’s the beauty of religion. It can give such certainty and power. We have God on our side after all. We search the sacred texts to uncover our heart’s desire, and if there is love inside of us that’s what we find. If there’s hate and fear and a desire for vengeance, we can find that, too. Even Jesus lost his cool, overturning tables in the temple and chasing out the loan sharks and tchotchke vendors. He himself was crucified, which is an encouragement to sacrifice yourself with as much blood and drama as possible for whatever you believe in. Yes, what would Jesus do? We queers, in this religion-loving America, have to face that religion is intertwined with past violence and will be a part of it in the future, too. It intoxicates, like alcohol. Cynical politicians wrap themselves in its authority, use it to justify their own homophobia and misogyny. It guides the hands that pick up the guns we surely have
to get rid of. But if there’s not a gun, there’s a knife, there’s a cliff. Or a rock or a bomb. And even one death is too much. Equal rights aren’t enough either. We have to go after the root, which is pure hatred and an addiction to violence. That means, in part, supporting queer and progressive Muslims and listening to ex-Muslims, too, as they battle for the soul of Islam. Ditto for progressive Christians and Jews, other religious people, former believers, atheists, and anybody else grappling with hate. But we also have to turn a skeptical eye on the enterprise of religion itself and vigorously defend the separation between the Church (which regularly tries to strip us of our civil rights) and the State (which is supposed to defend them). Because as long as religion exists, we’ll never be safe. Fundamentalists and extremists will always emerge, and the hatred of queers — and of women — is right there in the text. Kelly Cogswell is the author of “Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger,” from the University of Minnesota Press.
pr esidential nominee, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie had none of it: “To a lot of people, that struck them as unseemly — that at this moment that 49 people lay dead, you were focused on yourself and giving yourself congratulations.” Trump attempted to defend his egomania by saying that Guthrie’s claim (as Raw Story put it) was “‘completely false’ because the tweet went on to say that he would rather have ‘toughness & vigilance’ than ‘congrats.’
‘But you did stop and say, “Oh, I acknowledge and collect your thanks,” Guthrie observed. ‘And then you later say in this statement, “I predicted this.” Literally everyone predicts that there will be another terrorist attack.’” Thank you, Savannah Guthrie. To top it off, it turns out that there were only four congratulatory tweets. Not 4,000. Not 400. Not 40. But four.
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“findings” by the State Department inspector general (a man) that you never asked the government’s permission in the first place. Please send me your pantsuit size. I’d like to make you a stylish ensemble you can wear to your next congressional hearing. — Hillary SHALL be vindicated!
When you think of it, nearly everything has been feminized: zip-up-the-front pants, the U.S. military, prison, poverty… Like, I just read that 3,000,000 kids now live in U.S. households with incomes of less than $2 a day per person. Talk about self-reliance! — Sisters are doin’ it for themselves,
Dearest Hillary,
Darling Bra Burner,
Today, thanks to the magic of the Inter net, I came across a campaign video you made about being a feminist! About how feminism is humanism — sporting an unattributed quotation by Rosa Parks to prove it! Let’s play it now, so we can be equals: youtu.be/b-dwobZGirc. I should have seen how the lot of US women quietly improved, thanks to you and your presidential hubby’s devising the 1994 crime bill that led to the world’s highest incarceration rate. And consider the countless American mothers — in and out of prison — whose children have grown up much more self-reliant, without all those patriarchal education and lunch programs foisted on them by the welfare system you demolished.
Was sort of blue last night, so just to perk up my spirits, I held a little raffle at the local Quaker meetinghouse. I called this raffle, “Win a Night on the Town with Hillary Rodham Clinton”! Guess what, Hillary? I WON! I have never seen such hatred emanating from so-called pacifists. But I don’t care. Have you ever been so happy that you were afraid? Afraid of losing it all? I hope you like Thai food! — Susie Day is the author of “Snidelines: Talking Trash to Power,” published by Abingdon Square Publishing. June 23 - July 06, 2016 | GayCityNews.nyc