Happy Pride Month 2023

​With this being June, of course the Mormon bigots on Twitter - and of course other bigots on other social media platforms, but I don't see them as much - have grown even louder about their desire for a world where LGBTQ people don't exist.​ This kind of backlash is to be expected, since conservatives did the same thing after the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. Those of us who believe in social progress just need to brace ourselves, ride it out, and wait for most of them to die off. This one got more attention than she deserved because her husband or father made the mistake of wearing a Flight of the Conchords shirt, and half of Flight of the Conchords noticed.

Mormons actually have a long history of bullying marginalized groups (black people, women) and then crying about religious persecution when they get called out on it. But yes, the hypocrisy this time around is particularly gross. Especially because, contrary to the church's current retcon that monogamy is the Lord's standard and polygamy is a rare exception, Brigham Young and George Q. Cannon consistently taught that polygamy was the true heavenly order of marriage and monogamy was an unnatural aberration that made civilizations collapse. Kind of like gay marriage is supposed to do.

The people she's addressing neither claim nor have any obligation to be loving, tolerant, or inclusive toward hateful, intolerant, and exclusive ideologies. Racists could make the same complaint - oh wait, they do. And quoting a gay musician who's married to another man was an odd choice. And in case anyone is confused about the purity of April's intentions behind hanging a document in her yard that she knows nobody is going to stop and read, she helpfully spelled it out.

Here, not for the first time, is my take. If you don't want to celebrate Pride Month, don't. If you don't want to put a rainbow flag in your yard, don't. But don't play stupid and pretend you don't understand why it's a thing. It blows my mind to see middle-aged people acting like they can't remember how LGBTQ people have been treated within their lifetimes, and why LGBTQ people don't just quietly live their lives like straight people do, and why LGBTQ people make such a big deal out of their sexuality or gender identity. If they hadn't been marginalized for centuries, Pride Month wouldn't be a thing. But they were and it is, and people who never lifted a finger to defend them against bullying or harassment or discrimination (or obviously never would have if given the chance) need to shut the hell up about how they've opted to deal with those things on their own.

These bigots think they're speaking for God. I know they aren't. Their version of god is a small-minded, petty creep who conveniently happens to be prejudiced against the same people they are, even though he supposedly created those people and doesn't make mistakes. And their church is going to die if it doesn't change, because most people under forty have no desire to be like April Wilde Despain or to worship alongside people like Aprile Wilde Despain.

Ariana Rees probably doesn't remember me, unless I really weirded her out, but I used to message her on Facebook with questions about dating because she wrote articles for LDS Living or some such magazines with titles like "Just Because You're Single Doesn't Mean Something is Wrong with You," and bless her heart, she responded. Because she has pronouns in her bio, I knew she was either out of the church or didn't really believe in all of it, and this confirmation of that fact brought me joy. I'm sure Monster Cock's response did little to make her reconsider that decision. It sure validated mine a thousand times over. You put up with their shit? Really? Really?

In other uplifting news, Ukraine is going to launch its counteroffensive any day now, and given its performance relative to Russia's performance so far, I'm very optimistic that Putin's death is nigh. And I've finished my first full week of not being a substitute teacher anymore and I'm never going to do that again, even if I can't find another job. I'll starve first. Maybe that's not uplifting news, but having principles and sticking to them is important. Theoretically, with all this free time, I can think of better things to write about than bigots on Twitter. I do hope to transition to writing about their church a lot less often. I've been out for a year now. I've heard that most people need a year of deconstructing for every decade they spent in it, so that would be one more for me. And I can't even imagine where my beliefs will be in a year, if I haven't starved by then, so that'll continue to be a terrible and wonderful adventure.