A Tale of Two Posts

By the fate of an alphabetized Bloglines list, I just read these two posts back-to-back…

Mustang Bobby:

Question of the Day: When was the last time you put something—i.e. a job—on the line in order to stand up for your principles?

Bil Browning, writing about his life after last week's protest at the Indiana Statehouse against SJR-7, the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage:

The day after the rally, my phone rang off the hook with folks calling to support me after the brouhaha. However, what is disturbing (since my cell phone number isn't published!) is how many phone calls I got from people telling me I was going to burn in hell, I was a sinner, I should be run out of town, etc.

The politics of personal destruction have begun in earnest and it seems that my family and I are taking the brunt this time.

For example, the window on my car was busted out last night. It was parked on the street since it's the old car that we don't use as much. The car was obviously searched, but nothing was taken—not even the spare change. Footsteps in the snow lead directly up to our car and then back away. No other car on the street was touched—and ours is the ugliest, oldest car parked on the block. The police don't think robbery was the motive, obviously, but instead have asked who we've pissed off lately.

And that's just the stuff that I feel comfortable talking about.

I can't even begin to express how furious and deeply concerned I am that Bil and his family are being subjected to this shit. Bil is a friend of mine, along with being a fellow Hoosier blogger. What are the odds that two people who know each other, both bloggers, who live in the same state, would be threatened and harassed by rightwing nutjobs within weeks of one another? Pretty fucking good, I guess, considering that the common theme is that we're both vociferous supporters of same-sex marriage equality. Nearly every last post of mine that was cited as evidence of my alleged bigotry had been written in support of SSM.

Meanwhile, the epidemic of hatred against the LGBT community continues with another heinous week in which a 21-year-old woman was left severely injured after being attacked for identifying herself as a lesbian, and a 72-year-old man was left dead after being attacked for being presumed gay. And where is the national outrage? Where is the anger that people are being attacked and killed for being gay, that people are being threatened and having their property destroyed for protesting their state-sanctioned inequality? Where are our national leaders? Where are the Democrats, who are meant to champion equality and progress? Where are the Republicans, who are meant to champion keeping the government out of our personal lives? Where are all the religious people who supposedly hate the sin but love the sinner?

To reference Bobby's question again, there are people regularly putting their lives on the line for something in this country—but nobody seems to notice. It's a national disgrace.

Be safe, Bil.