Your Big Gay Baby

Have you ever fired a shotgun at a hobo? The traditional method involves removing the lead 'shot' from the ammunition and replacing it with chunks of rock salt.
This is slightly less fatal than buckshot but guaranteed to hurt like hell in any wounds it causes- but most hobos will jump from a moving boxcar at the sight of a shotgun, rock salt or not- a hobo trapped in the narrow confines of a railway freight car is an easy target.

But there are easier targets.

Fundamentalist Christian Homophobes, for example. Attacking them and their ludicrous 'beliefs' is easier than drowning slugs in a barrel of pickle brine.

These Christians, who hate Science when it teaches evolution or uses stem-cells to fight diseases, have opened up Pandora's Closet with this almost unthinkable uproar about Gay Babies- in theory, these Christians hope, science will allow them to determine their unborn child's sexual orientation , giving them the chance to 'cure' unborn queer babies of their homosexuality, which no serious modern scientist would call a disease anyway...

A Fundie Christian wrote this:

If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

My idea would be to guillotine the writer's penis in order to help him avoid the "inevitable effects of sin" - but why stop there? Let's remove his fingers before he pens more poison words - heck, lose the whole hand.
Dude.
Save yourself from the Sin of Onan.

This dogmatic freak is using religious insanity as an excuse for practical applications of eugenics theory.
Even the Nazis were not this crass- the Germans conducted their atrocities in the name of science and Nation and left God out of their vocabulary of horror- but this man implies that God would be OK with Man tinkering with the unborn if it kept them from being gay...hmm, what's next? Does Thalidomide prevent self-abuse? Does being born with a flipper instead of an arm keep you pure?

They could test for other 'degenerate' traits...what if you were a Christian Couple and the doctors told you that due to some miscegenation during the Third Crusade, there was a slight chance you might have a Muslim baby- or a Jewish baby...what if your child was destined to be an alcoholic or a vegetarian? A serial killer or the next Gandhi?

What if you made a drastic, irreversible decision about your baby based on a faulty screening test- what if your mistake turned your straight fetus into a gay one- or into a liberal- or made them creative- or atheist-or intellectually curious- or any other item off of the seemingly endless list of things that Fundie Christians cannot tolerate... I reject this idea of aesthetic fetal modification for ethical and practical reasons- if, for example, Oscar Wilde had been "de-faggotted" before birth, would he still have been an excellent author? What else gets destroyed, changed or lost when you start modifying the minds of the unborn? I trust science a lot more then Faith, but I'm not gonna let anyone- Labcoat or Frock- tell me I shouldn't love my child simply because they are gay.

I would have a gay child.
I would love them.
So what?

They'd be loved because they would be my child.

Even atheists love their children, although, in my case, not enough to force mutation on them in the womb.
I might reconsider if they were to be seriously deformed, but probably not.
What if some 'curative' treatment was applied to an unborn Stephen Hawking- perhaps he'd walk, but what would have become of his mind? Would he have been the same?
Aren't people like Mr. Hawking part of God's Plan? Some of us are strong, some are smart...together we are supposed to work it out and take care of each other.

Isn't that the idea? Not according to Fundie Freeks.

If Stephen Hawking was my kid, I'd be proud. Very, very proud.


Fundie Freak makes a great point here:

The discovery of a biological basis for homosexuality would be of great pastoral significance, allowing for a greater understanding of why certain persons struggle with these particular sexual temptations.

What he really means is that this will allow guilt-wracked Fundie parents to stop agonizing over why their kids turned out gay- it's not because of the painfully sado-masochistic homo-erotic imagery of the Crucifixion, it's not because their role-model Pastor likes giving head to the gay hotel hookers who supply his amphetamine habit; it's not because they were never shown the love and attention that they needed at home and wound up getting buggered by the priests- now they can blame it on the DNA. Simple and cleansing.

Fundie insists God created DNA and His "pernicious" handiwork can be seen in the DNA helix, Original Sin being just another genetic marker, but the Bible tends to contradict this Fundie statement:

Given the consequences of the Fall and the effects of human sin, we should not be surprised that such a causation or link is found. After all, the human genetic structure, along with every other aspect of creation, shows the pernicious effects of the Fall and of God's judgment.

Ummm...riiiiighhhtt...

Personally, I think God a is pretty poor consultant when it comes to matters of conception, breeding , DNA and whatnot- at least one precedent comes to mind:

Once upon a time , this Old Guy named Zelophehad died , and he owned lots of land but he didn't have any sons, just daughters- and Jehovah was pretty sexist towards unmarried women and property (women were property, they did not typically own or inherit it), so there was some dispute as how to keep the father's wealth in the hands of his unmarried daughters - and, of course, in the tribe.

Moses was pretty much the spiritual go-to guy back then , so he was dispatched to go ask God about how to settle this dilemma.

This is what God told Moses:

"This is the word that Jehovah has commanded for the daughters of Zelophehad, saying, ‘To whom it is good in their eyes they may become wives. Only it is to the family of the tribe of their fathers that they should become wives."

What God was saying is : "Marry your father's brother's sons- marry your cousins and keep the money in the family."

This concept explains a lot about American Evangelicalism but it shows an alarming ignorance of genetics, especially from the Being who allegedly Created DNA.

Marry your cousin?

God should know better.

It amazes me that anyone could attribute 'Intelligent Design' to a God that is so intellectually dense that He doesn't even understand the basic chromosomal principles at work in His own creations.

Didn't God invent Mendel and those famous beans? Can't He read?

However, the agnostic idea that there may very well be a God, and that God is as thick as the proverbial brick, seems to gather steam every time I hear about these close-minded and dangerous lunatics; in fact , the idea of God being really powerful but a bit clumsy, a trifle stupid and dangerously incompetent seems quite logical.

After all, it's His image.

What's the Story?

This is the view from my porch. My goal Saturday was to get to the mailboxes behind the yellow van and drop a number of envelopes into one of them. Pretty dull, eh?
Not for me.



First, I wondered if I was having an acid flashback - what's up with the stripes on the brick? That building doesn't usually look like that.
I went back inside to grab my camera...

And then I saw the car. The blue Volvo station wagon.
Actually, I could smell the car, but at first I thought it was the hospital across the street incinerating body parts and infectious medical waste again.
I was wrong.
It was the car.



Breathing as little as possible, I approached it. A bedraggled young man with a scruffy knapsack was standing a few yards away, waiting for the bus. The smell of cheap wine coming from him was staggering, even at that distance, and combined with the stench coming from the car, it was almost pukabley offensive. With the windows up.




I had to get a pic. This sort of thing isn't quite so unusual (or wasn't, back in my hobo days) in NYC ,San Francisco, the DC area and other places that are far too expensive for most humans- but this is Fallentown. It's getting bad, but rent is still pretty cheap here.
Our local homeless people don't own Volvos, they drive shopping carts.

The last time I saw a car like this , it was a battered old AMC Gremlin and it had luggage , furniture, clothes and other readily identifiable items neatly organized inside- it was clearly a 'domestic' vehicle.
Today's car was full of garbage-literally. Rotting offal.
It's been cold lately- what would this thing be like in summer?
Who drives this mess?
I looked around. No one nearby except the drunk on the corner.

"Don't take my picture," said the winey bus stop buzzard. He didn't seem especially drunk, but the smell was awful...oh, man it's bad when you can drink that much without showing it. I know.

I had no intention of taking wineman's photograph but I had to ask:

"Is this your car?"

"No. I'm waiting for the bus. That guy's fucked up or sumpin'.."

"Really?"

So I walked around the car, peering into the windows , trying to discern whether someone was living in it or if was simply full of refuse.
It was refuse alright, rotting remnants of fast-food meals and crumpled wads of disturbingly brown newspaper... but my question of inhabitation was unanswered.
There was a hairbrush and a desk fan on top of the junk in the driver's seat...why?

I didn't see how one could survive it, much less live in it; then again, there wasn't much at all I understood about this car. Curiosity piqued, I decided to sit on the wall and wait for the owner.
I figured I'd interview the driver and get their story; if they were in a bad way, there are places in town for different sorts of help and I know most of them, or people who do- but my motives weren't altogether altruistic- I was simply curious . Nosy, really. I like to know the story.

Speaking of nose...
Usually , one of my cats joins me when I sit outside, but neither one wanted to come close to the Stenchmobile. After a few minutes, the smell started to bother me. It smelled like a dead cow. Or a corpse. Or a corpse hidden in the hollowed-out body cavity of a dead cow.
Bad.

So I mailed my letters and went inside to see if the Dept. of Health and Sanitation was open on Saturday.
Hmmm...there's a number for abandoned vehicles, but this doesn't qualify. From the looks of it, the owner of this Volvo has abandoned everything but the car and it's contents.

Emergency? Given the freaked-out fear world we live in, I imagined the results of a call to the Hotline reporting a vehicle emitting a noxious odor - they'd probably evacuate the area until a CDC ABC team could scour the entire area, including my apartment.
I could find myself living in my own Volvo.
What do do? Nothing.

A few minutes later it was gone. I didn't hear the engine start or the door open and shut.

It was just gone.

The bricks had returned to normal.

To Bo or Not Hobo

The post that was here sucked . So does this one, but it's shorter and has a pic of a neat car. I'm not sure what make this is but it resembles an Italian or French military reconnaissance vehicle circa 1930's. Who knows?

Spent the entire day emailing and faxing resumes- 12 in all. I also signed up with two more temp agencies.
It's a new year, holidays are over and the wolves are at the door, huffin and puffin'...I expect I'll wind up taking on some really crappy jobs until I find something decent...

Saw something alarming this morning- one ad for an office manager said: "individuals with more than two j0bs in the last five years need not apply"- it's the first time I've see this on a job for which I was otherwise qualified- it stopped me from applying. If such notices become common I'll never find work again, since I've had about ten jobs in last five years...sheesh...maybe I'll become a hobo, beat the coming rush.

Hmmm...no, being a hobo might suck, come to think of it.