Let me explain to you why...

I was over at my parents yesterday and my mom telling me this story.

She was telling me about how the contractor (they are having a room of sorts put on their home) commented that one of the pieces of trim was cracked or something and that it was "gay" and that he didn't like homosexuals. Well, I thought at first he was just a young guy and meant gay in the way that young folks (look at me, I'm talking like I'm 80) use it these days, just to describe something odd or strange, but not tied at all to homosexuals. Before I had a chance to ask her how he meant it, she told me exactly how he meant it.

He tells her this story of how he got hit on by a man three times, how offended he was and how "unlucky" the next guy was. Then she tells me that my father has explained to her why this happened---oh, it's a "redneck" thing and that basically all male members of my family and men that I know of through my fathers work would also do the same thing. I said no, it's not a redneck thing----it's a male thing. They both insisted that it was not and as my anger grew, I said "He should be glad that someone found his bald-headed, *guido ass attractive!" *(guido is a term my sister and I use to point out men who wear too much jewelry, look like they would wear their shirts open too far down and just generally look like faux gigilo's) For some reason she then tells me about how a radio show that they had listened to made fun of Brokeback Mountain by calling it Brokebutt Mountain...My response was that it people like that like to say they are good Christians but that is not true...and they were just being funny she said, and by this time I had just turned her off. A I'm taking it the wrong way, she says.

Well Mom, let me explain to you for the LAST time why this is not funny and just why exactly I get upset.

I don't really give two shits what people think about the act of two men or two women fucking. That is there perogative. Quite frankly, I'd wonder more about why they would even be thinking about that. However, if you are a spiritual person of pretty much ANY KIND of faith you should not have a problem with the person.

Why is it all about who they are fucking..why can you not just see the person that is there and decide if you want to hang with them strictly based on that? Because guido here is saying to you that he can't form an opinion about someone unless he first thinks about who they have sex with. If you get hit on, why not take it the same way you do if a member of the sex you do like did it. Why can't you just say, thank you for the compliment--but no thank you.

An it's wrong because they are picking on someone. Those men were probably doing that bullshit in high school---and need I remind you of what that does to people? People like him were the ones who drove Christopher to drop out of high school and it was years before he got his G.E.D---he was afraid he would get hurt. Because he was gay.

People like that are the same ones who called James a fag all through middle and high school and because of that he is still fucked up today, all those years later and thinks people are talking about him and making fun of him. He is uncomfortable around straight men because he thinks they are all looking down on him. Because he was gay.

People like him are the ones who beat the shit out of Matthew Sheppard, tied him to a fence post and left him to die in the middle of winter. And he did. Because he was gay.

Or what about Scott, Scott killed himself.

People like him are the ones who tied James Byrd to the back of a truck and drug him for several miles because he was black.

Or that guy from India who was murdered back right after 911 here in the states by a bunch of guys who thought he was from Afghanistan and was "one of them".

You know, I could go on and on and on....................................................but I won't.

My point is that I don't care if they are rednecks or not, that does not make it right or soothe my brain as to why they do the things they do. They are idiots, they are bigots they are wrong. Let's call it what it is, wrong.

Would they just be "rednecks" if they didn't like fat people and they beat the hell out me and left me to die?

Would they just be "rednecks" if they did like seeing white women with black children and murdered Tiffany and her children?

I know you think I'm going off the deep end with this and REALLY wish you could see how it is all tied together. Hate is hate is hate is hate Mom. Charles may claim to love his daughter and grandchildren, but if he really would physically hurt someone because they hit on him, then he is just as bad as those folks who dress up in sheets.

So, you go on and chalk it up to being a redneck. If it makes you feel better to just call them rednecks and move on to the next thought, that's fine. You and Daddy can think the radio station was funny and think its just rednecks the next time Butch refers to the Asian people who live up the hill from him as "gooks" or the next time someone Daddy works with talks about some "nigger" they saw. Yeah, they are just rednecks..