With Pride Week in full swing, it’s nice to see that we’re only one stripe and one letter away from a perfect rainbow. The missing letter to the LGBTQ mix is S, but just when I think my straight brothers and sisters are ready to make the great leap forward into sexual colour blindness, some idiot drags us all back into the dark ages.
The incident I’m referring to is an altercation outside a known Victoria gay bar recently wherein an individual tossed a handful of homophobic comments alongside some spent bullet casings at the feet of two patrons.
The comments are bad enough, but the bullet casings immediately escalate this disturbing encounter into the arena of hate crime. As if we need more hate in this crazy, mixed-up world. I’ll never understand how another adult’s consensual sexual preference or lifestyle has any direct affect on my own. It’s like judging someone based merely on the amount of melanin in their skin . . . oh, wait, we’re still doing that. OK, how about hair colour? Nope, we’re all-too-ready to make assumptions on that score, too. Breast size? Height? Width of nose? Shape of eyes? Speech impediment? Mensa score? Wow! Do we even like ourselves or do we seek out any difference in others that we can for a little buzz of superiority?
Which brings me back to the acronym LGBTQ. I would like to one day see it changed to be inclusive of everyone, since we are all queer in our own ways.
Heck, I know people who
can’t get enough of toy trains, and others who think bird watching is fun; I, personally, collect action figures and comic books and drive a Jeep with a Batman symbol on it — now that’s queer.
The new acronym that I propose is BNTEO or K for short. BNTEO would stand for Be Nice To Each Other, and the K would simply mean: Kindergarten, as in you learned this piece of wisdom in Kindergarten, so what the hell happened?