Image by Gun from Pixabay 

Turkey Trials

For the last several years I've been lucky enough to enjoy a sumptuous Thanksgiving dinner at the home of friends. I'm not the only orphan and stray who attends, and yesterday the guests included a man I'd met once before, who works for a legal organization bent on preventing "government overreach and abuse."

Is your spine starting to tingle?

I'm not one to argue for the sake of arguing, and on holidays I definitely strive to keep the peace. I can't remember how it all started, but at one point our hostess passionately pontificated on how the Constitution omits her as a woman, and while the conservative fellow seated next to me seemed sympathetic on the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe, he proceeded to reel off a host of Fox News talking points, from crime in the cities to people flooding over the border.

When he declared that gun control helped bring about the Holocaust, Ms. Keep-the-Peace couldn't keep her yap shut. I never thought I'd leap into a holiday fracas over politics, as so many have done around the dinner table over the past few years, but there I was. Participating in the new American holiday tradition.

But you know what made the whole scene more painful? I'd swear by the hem of Harvey Milk's sweater that this man is a closet case.

He's about 60, and single, and my friends are unaware of any past romantic attachments with women. My gaydar shrieked the first time I met him.

When he spoke of Seattle's downtown having grown terrifying due to the presence of so many homeless, addicts and mentally ill people on the streets, I actually agreed there's a problem. But my arguing that a host of reasons caused the problem fell on deaf ears. That part, I decided as I drove home later, wasn't important to him. These people scare him, so they're bad. Causes are irrelevant distractions to such a black and white thinker. So is empathy.

In his world, right and wrong are clearly delineated, and simplistic. He lives in a box. In a closet. He's a geometric marvel.

If he started letting in other thoughts—like perhaps that Honduran woman and her child have a reason for swimming across the Rio Grande, or Chris Evans is hot—would he fall apart? Or be reborn?

All I can say for certain is we were a lively bunch between dinner and dessert yesterday, and that whole notion of tryptophan in the turkey causing sleepiness is for the birds.

Image:  Facebook

We Did It Again

Yet again, it's our fault. How do we live with ourselves?

According to Media Matters, right-wing media figures are having a fine old time pinning the Russian invasion of Ukraine on queers. If your head hurts trying to make the connection, I'll do it for you. Now that I've taken ibuprofen.

President Joe Biden's repeal of the ban on trans soldiers, along with the military's diversity training and general "wokeness," have all combined to weaken American forces to the point where Russian President Vladimir Putin saw his chance to invade Russia's neighbor.

On a Fox News show, Pete Hegseth claimed Americans have been "running around talking about genders and reparations," so "as a result, [Putin] thinks this is his moment to make an aggressive move."

Fox contributor Lisa Boothe tweeted, "America is weak. No one is afraid of us with dementia man in the White House and our focus is flying pride flags around the world."

Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire podcast said it was "not a coincidence that this has happened after Biden spent his first year in office focusing primarily on wokeness and intentionally making our military weaker and more feminine." He later added that Biden was attempting to “fill our military with lesbians who can’t do three pushups."

I wouldn't want to be Walsh when some lesbian sergeant challenges him to a pushup contest.

So thanks to integrating LGBTQ people into the military, American forces have been neutered, and Putin took advantage.

As these rightist talking heads blame us for the invasion, Christian fundamentalists, our usual accusers, haven't joined in.

Maybe they're just mad they didn't think of it first.

Image by Hands off my tags! Michael Gaida from Pixabay

It's Not Easy Being Green

It comes as no surprise that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg would be a target of rightwing conspiracy theorists, considering he's a member of President Joe Biden's Cabinet, gay and smarter than all the insurrectionists put together.

Recently Buttigieg was filmed riding a bike from his office to the White House for a Cabinet meeting. Conservative commentators and MAGA devotees shrieked that an SUV had driven him near the White House, and he'd pedaled the last feeble bit in order to get environmental cred. Buttigieg's green sheen is fake!

The transportation secretary actually did bike the three miles there and three miles back. As Snopes noted, "Buttigieg was not caught staging a bike ride after riding in an SUV. Countless headlines, YouTube video titles, and tweets were misleading and false."

I'm sure the weavers of conspiracies and tall tales aren't discouraged. Perhaps next we'll hear that the gay transportation secretary rides that bike around Washington singing "You can ring my bell, you can ring my bell. Ding, dong, ding, ah-ah, ring it."