This rap is more of a rant. Be warned. It really doesn't have to do with Paris per se, except that on Facebook today, as I sat reading it in a Paris cafe, a gay friend of mine from the Netherlands wrote about how it uplifted his heart to see that France transcended the petty demonstrations of homophobes and that its parliament sanctioned gay marriage in France. It lifts my heart, too.
After all, although being boringly straight, I have lived in 40% gay Sitges, Spain for a couple of years, and thus experienced what tolerance can be. I have also lived in the Netherlands, and thus experienced what one of the first (if not *the* first) country in the world to allow same-sex marriage *feels* like. So the question that puzzles me is: What Can These Protesters Have Been Fuckin' Thinking About? What century do they live in? As far as I can tell, many of the anti-same-sex-marriage protestors in France were religion-droids, protesting because the Church or churches they belonged to told them to. That's what triggered this particular rant, and why it, too has a Bruce Cockburn soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GUiGz_6Y7g <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GUiGz_6Y7g> To understand this song fully, you have to understand that Bruce is a Christian. But one of the Good Ones, the ones who actually walk the walk of their talk. He is more offended than us non-Christians by the ways that some people act in the name of Christ. What gives these people the RIGHT to tell other people who they can love -- and marry -- and who they cannot? Some moldy book that they believe has magical Woo Woo powers because God wrote it? Give me a break. It simply doesn't matter what homophobes call themselves, or the excuses they present for why they are homophobes -- they're still homophobes. May they rot in the Hell they believe in, but I do not.
