America

Obama says
Change.
Have hope.

I'm trying to.
He'd better get the
nomination.

Me too.
Hopefully he'll
keep that lead and
win, because I don't think
Hillary has a
chance to become
president.
She's too
conservative and this country is
still too sexist.
And everyone thinks that
Bill's running with
her so we'll just have a
third term of Bill Clinton if
she's elected.

I've been thinking about
it because we went over
DOMA yesterday in
Gov. I got SO freaking
agitated!

Thank you.
I was worried it'd sound
sad and
pathetic...
I'm not very used to
writing political
poetry. I want to
get better at it, though.

Thanks. Good to know. :)

Most definitely.
The conservatives
hate the Clintons and the
liberal-dems hate them
(at least her) as well.
It won't help.
If she's nominated,
McCain will be
the president.
And we definitely do
NOT need that.

They haven't, but yeah,
because of DOMA,
no other state needs to
recognize their
marriages.
Which is unconstitutional.
And hasn't been challenged yet by
SCOTUS in the
twelve years that it's been
law. I am so
outraged.

I feel that way, too.
People are
bigots. I think sometimes
labels are
true, though.

I see that as
well. I wish it
didn't have to be that
way.
And then, if you have an
overlapping label, you
have to choose.
You can't be black AND
gay or Hispanic AND
black or Hispanic AND
gay. You have to be
one or the other.
It's stupid.
People need to
wake up and realize
we're
all
in
this
together.

That we do.

I know.
I'm worried about who it'll
be.

I'm incredibly
pissed about DOMA.
I was ranting to
Pinaud yesterday and she just suggested I
do something with this and
Outright for my
grad challenge.
Got me thinking...
Hmm...

Oh my god I
know! That is the most
annoying thing
EVER! They just don't
want to talk about
it. It's so
stupid. Maybe if people weren't so
afraid to bring it
up, people wouldn't be so
homophobic in the
first place.
Maybe if people weren't afraid to
challenge crazy, right-wing
nut-jobs about stuff like
this, and I mean REALLY challenge
them, we wouldn't be so stuck in
reverse.

That's amazing.
If you can, you should
send it to me. I'd love to
read it.

We totally should.
We'd be an
awesome president.

I love you too.

The world would be
so much better if
we could really
rule it like that.

Yes!
I'm sure we could
wrangle more on here as
well. :)

Oh, and I did find it.

It's really rather embarrassing
because I was in a crappy
mood. I started out picking on
this girl in my class who I
CAN'T STAND and she's bi. Which
I hate to say I don't believe,
except seriously? She's a little
fixated on the attention
it gets her...

I then descended into
a rant about how it's
not fair that I can't
be MYSELF around my other peers without
the world turning upside-
down, while their own
sexuality is taken for granted.

Let's see..

I also mentioned the
teachers thing oh look!
I mentioned YWP!

I talked about how it's
hard writing without
punctuation
and
that the gay community is
separate but equal and
it
is
wrong.
That's where I got
my idea on our friend
MLK.

Oh, and I took some
shots at the government
too. Wow,
I was on a ROLL!

Huh.
That's interesting.
I mentioned the communities
thing but then said
perhaps it's wrong to be
labelled that way but
in our form of government
it's the only way you
can have a voice and that
there's strength in
numbers which is where the
gay community is suffering
since many many people
refuse to identify with it
due to the fear and shame we've
instilled in
ourselves.
I said that splits us up and
it gets in the way of
making a difference.

hahaha oh boy.

Yeah, that was definitely a
bad day.

I gave it to you in a
nutshell because the
laptop isn't
letting me send it and
I'd prefer not to save it
to my mother's hard drive...

Plus now you get better
punctuation!

Wow.
That's amazing.
I agree with you
completely.
I've had
rants like that as
well.
I definitely agree with you about the
gay community instilling
shame in itself.
We have all these
pride marches and
rallies, but people are so full of
shame because sometimes they still feel it's
wrong or that the gay community shouldn't be
trying to gain any
rights...
It's awful.
I wish people could just
stand up and be
okay with who
they are.

I really
hate that everyone is assumed to be
straight. It drives me
nuts. I hate it when I'm asked about a
boyfriend.
But I think now that I have
short, dyke-y hair,
people are less likely to
mistake me for
straight, but still...
It's hard.

I hate it
when my teachers do
the boyfriend talk with
me or
my cello teacher! That one
is the worst. Also family
friends... my parents
up until August. Now
they just look at me
and whisper about
sleepovers.

I don't really look
like anything BUT a straight
white kid from Essex,
and the only way people figure
it out is the fact that
I never date guys...

I hate it when my
extended family does it.
One of my aunts did it
over the summer...
"You got contacts, eh?"
"Uh, yeah, for dance."
"Really? Max [her son/my younger cousin who's six weeks
younger than Callan] got them, too.
I think to attract the
girls. Did you get them to
look good for
boys? Do you like a
boy?"
"Uh...I got them for
dance..."
And then my
mom some how distracted her,
but it was so awkward.
Ah, my violin teacher is a
Mormon and last year when I was
reading Under the
Banner of Heaven we
had a quasi-political
talk and she brought up
how she's not so
sure about gay couples...
how she's not so sure if there's
pressure there on the
kids to be gay...
And I'm just sitting there like
"I'm not exactly
hiding..."
It was so awkward.
I'd never made the connection between her
conservative religion and what she'd probably
say if I came out before...

That really bugs me.
Because I think that with
gay couples there's NO
pressure on their kids to be
anything whereas with
straight couples, especially
homophobic ones, there's absolutely pressure for the
kids to be straight.
It's so stupid!
Callan and I are
hoping that our violin teacher's
youngest kid is gay.
We just get a
vibe from him.
Of course, he's like
three or something,
but still...

Oh man.
Sleepovers...
My mom hasn't tried to
restrict those, yet.
Thank god.
But she also knows I'm
not dating anyone,
so she doesn't have much
reason to.
She pull the
open door crap, though.

Ah well.
At least they
figure it out.
I'm liking right now that I'm
able to not feel the
need to wear
rainbows all the time.
I always did that in
middle school...
had to be wearing something
rainbow, but now I'm like,
"Eh, they'll
figure it out.
Either that or I'll
just tell them..."

My parents aren't
homophobic, per se. I
started being more open about
it just this last summer and
they weren't too excited... They
1) refused to believe me
2) threatened to tell my mother. which
just would not have been cool.
3) kind of begged me to stay in the closet.

I know they were only worried
about me. They just don't
really understand what they're
talking about all the time.
Now I'm just quasi out, but
if someone needs to hear I tell
them. I figure
it's a pretty decent compromise
for my parents. :P

Ah middle school...
that sucked. NO rainbows
there.

That sucks.
That seems almost
worse than outright
homophobic in some
regards...

My mom's totally
cool so I'm
lucky. She's on the
Outright board,
but I only recently
officially came out to
her. As in, some time in
January, but since
seventh grade I've been
some semblance of
out.

And my dad figured it
out really easily and was
okay, too.
He was more
openly perceptive than my
mom is.

Middle school was
awful, but I didn't run
into anything bad there...
Not until my
freshman year when the
WCS/Outright fiasco
happened and I was
appalled considering my
eighth grade challenge had been
gender issues and
sexuality and I hadn't run in-
to any outward hostility or even
comments. I was so
completely shocked.

What was your
middle school like?

Oh, and
what was your WCS/Outright
fiasco?

I love this, D.

To answer MM's question: A couple of years ago, Outright was supposed to go to WCS and speak on tolerance and the ability for kids to be allies. At the last minute, several parents complained and the appearence was cancelled. After that there was a board meeting that a lot of people from the community (Obscure and I included) attended and many people spoke. Eventually Outright did come in and talk, but there's plenty of fear that something like that will happen again.

Thanks. :)

To elaborate on Awsm's response: There was a meeting held that morning before the presentation was to be because parents had expressed concerns about what would be addressed. There was only going to be two people speaking--one of the Outright executive directors (at the time) and a youth. The main accusation was that they would be recruiting kids and talking about (and encouraging) sex. Basically, the only parents who showed up were the ones who took issue with the presentation, so the district principal freaked and called it off. There were a few nasty things said at the board meeting, but yes, it did eventually happen the way it was originally planned.
However, something like this did happen last year in the Northeast Kingdom. Same basic outline, except it was a high school. Outright was to go in and speak and there were comments made and the administration freaking out and called it off. It was also rescheduled, but it just goes to show that Vermont is not as accepting as we'd like to think it is. Although, there are definitely places that are much much worse.

Yeah they had better.

I'm coming for them...

ROAR!!

Don't worry,
you're safe, but the crazy
born-again woman who
spoke at the
board meeting is
not so safe to
put it mildly...
(Em: Like the salsa at
Taco Bell!)

That would simplify matters quite a bit. :)

I love salsa.
And yet somehow
I don't think that
relates at all.

That would be nice if they did.

Mmm, they have some pretty okay stuff, really.
:)

And Sporks!

(I love that word. I had to explain to a friend what they were. I couldn't believe she didn't know.)

Yes! That would be amazing!
Sporks rule!

And we should make Spork-Lover bumper stickers

I would be instant friends with anybody who had that on their car.