The blog post originated over a hokey "letter to the president" from a doctor who had just treated an African-American woman who was going to be paying for her emergency room treatment with Medicaid. The doctor's complaint was that his taxes were supporting this woman who was not making enough sacrifices in her life to the point where she could pay for medical insurance.
This was my response to my brother's bewildered reply on the Facebook wall in which he wondered out loud why I never call so that we can have a chatty conversation about how wonderful our lives were back in the "good old days" before I became a non-Mormon liberal.
The definition of Estrange: to arouse especially mutual enmity or indifference where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness.
Fred:
[In spite of my repeated pleas to tread carefully going into the Prop 8 campaign,] you made a choice over Prop 8 that placed you squarely in the camp of a group of citizens willing to spend $24 million to spread six lies about gays and lesbians. You make choices that put yourself politically in direct opposition to the kind of legislation that would allow me to participate as your equal in society; where my new "family of choice" could serve openly in the military, adopt children, be married to protect our family assets, and file joint tax returns.
And you wonder who I am referring to when I say "your kind?" You are squarely aligned with a community of bigots that make no apology for your bigotry, but rather wear it as a badge of honor for your god.
Your complicity (and for 44 years, mine) created this culture that you now find yourself in, and it is so comfortable to "your kind" that you think of it as normal and accepted behavior. Your ideology of white privilege (and your complicity to not end it) has warehoused Blacks and the "others" into marginalized neighborhoods where education is supported with $1,000 less per pupil than the school your kids went to. In these marginalized communities, higher paying jobs are scarce and opportunities for self-betterment are deliberately suppressed. Zero-sum thinking justifies this because the "good" jobs out there are meant for "your kind."
"Your kind" see anything different from your behavior through the lens of Glenn Beck where anything "liberal," "progressive," or having to do with "social justice" for minorities of any kind as tyranny worthy of 2nd Amendment remedies.
No, I do not regularly make a habit of telephoning people with whom I have nothing in common other than some memories that originated only because I was living a fake life. No, I was raised in a culture that would have systematically "othered" me if I had been authentic to my birthright as a gay man. Out of fear I projected the image of a person that I knew would be accepted in a family of bigots and a community of zealots.
Until I see somebody demonstrate a willingness to open their mind and foster a climate where change becomes possible, there will be no chatty telephone conversations.
I peek in from the sidelines every once in a while and look for evidence of this open-mindedness, but to date, none has been found. You see, I associate with people who are supportive of "my kind." To date, my siblings and the majority of my nieces and nephews have failed to qualify, and that is no surprise. It is not hard to see why they make no effort to be supportive of equal rights for "my kind:" In June of 2006, before I had ever been intimate with a man, I became supportive of the plight of gay men. For that moment of enlightenment, I was excommunicated for apostacy.
Enjoy your church!
