Been thinking a lot about what happened at Club Q in Colorado Springs this past weekend. It hits close to home, my partner is bisexual and my brother is gay, many of the folks I hold dear are queer.
If what happened at Club Q were an isolated incident it would be a tragedy. The thing is it's not, and it's so much worse than that. This sort of violence happens everyday, just without the number of casualties it takes to attract media attention. My brother has been attacked on multiple occasions simply for being gay. A friend of mine was murdered because of it, lured into a setup using Grindr and beaten to death.
Growing up I was the smallest and smartest kid in my class, which gave me a taste of some of the violence and misery people will inflict for things beyond your control. Left me with a distinct distaste for bullies.
My father told me "people are going to mess with you, you have to figure out what you have to do to make them stop and do it." While this advice has always stood me in good stead, as I've gotten older I've come to realize that it's not enough. If I stand idly by as people mess with others, I am complicit.
Hate crime laws have yet to stop hate crime, nor will this violence be ended by a top-down, imposed 'solution'. If we are to see an end of this it will require each of us as individuals to take action, to ask ourselves "what can I personally do to help?" and then do it.
I'm not saying everyone should be ready to charge an active shooter, although in this country there's always a possibility that might be needed. Bullies don't like it when you challenge them, when you give them a taste of their own medicine. So give the assholes hell.
My attempts to do so over the years have led me to some lively situations. These photos are from the last two Pride festivals here in Louisville.
On both occasions some assholes showed up to bully and harass attendees. On both occasions my friends and I showed up as well, to distract and deescalate, to be a buffer, and to just plain old give'em hell.
If we don't take care of each other, then who the hell will?
Lookin good Jethro. People who judge in the name of God aren't very good at their religion.
Thank ya! You ain't kidding. What gets me is, if you take any of the major religions out there these days and strip the metaphysical stuff from it, it boils down to 'be a good person and take care of each other.' Did you know Thomas Jefferson did that with the Bible? Don't know what part of that is so difficult.
Lol, I even got one of these assholes to read Matthew 6:5 to me but they were still oblivious.
Did you delete your comment or did something weird happen with hive? (The other day it was showing I had 34 comments on a post when there were only 19).
Lol, bet you had fun with that verse. You ever get blazed and have bible verse battles? I used to live in a building with a couple southern baptist seminary students, me and my roommate would smoke with them and then we'd toss verses back and forth at each other for hours.
Guilty. I went on and on about Colossians 2:22-23 and was like stop it.
Ah. I'd read it on my phone but when I finally got back on the laptop to answer it I couldn't find it.
Nice photos.
Sad to hear your brother story... I don't understand why we hate each other for the most common things in life....
I suppose it's about letting our kids be and respect each other no matter our preference, ideology or religion...
Cheers from Mexico.
Thank you.
I don't get it either, you'd think we'd be able to find better things to do with our time.
Live and let live, it seems so simple and yet is apparently so difficult.
Cheers from Kentucky!
Those people disgust me. Why do they feel the need to show up in festivals that focus on self-expression and love, to tell them they're sinful and will go to hell. Worse is that is only according to their beliefs, which none of them even ask the attendees if they even belief in the sky daddy they believe in.
I'm sorry to have witnessed these horrible stuff and lost some of your loved ones cos of it. In our place, people just tolerate the lgbtq community, but aren't accepted either. If only people accept that everyone has the same beliefs and their beliefs shouldn't be applied to everyone.
Disgust is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what feelings these people inspire, but yeah. Until they made it illegal earlier this year I volunteered as an escort at the abortion clinic here in town and most of these guys regularly showed up there as well to do the same shit to people going to the doctor there. I don't understand how anyone can justify treating other human beings thusly. Judging by how most are wearing bodycams and how they only seem to target vulnerable or marginalized groups, I suspect they know that it's indefensible.
Lol, don't get me started on sky daddy. It's wild to me how their ostensible purpose is to bring you to their sky daddy but their methods seem calculated to accomplish the opposite.
It is much the same here, with the cities being much more accepting/tolerant than in the more rural areas. Things have slowly, grudgingly gotten better but there's still a long long way to go. Man, if we could figure out how to coexist without trying to force our beliefs on one another we'd be set. That's a big if but the alternative is worse for everybody.
Thank you, and thanks for dropping by.
Thank you so much for doing this. I just can't imagine how these women feel going to the clinic while being harassed outside. At least they didn't feel alone with you being there.
It's one of those things where I felt I couldn't idly stand by. I can't imagine what it was like for the patients going there, it was bad enough just escorting. If you want a sense of what it was like this video was filmed there a little while before I started. I don't necessarily recommend you watch it, it'll just make you mad. Some of the people in the video are also in some of these photos.
100% agree! ♥️
You're a gem! Keep giving 'em hell!
Thanks, I'll do my best!
Thanks fam for the support you give to the community ♥️
This type of news is always quite heartbreaking but I know that in this world there are more good people than bad and that together we will create a better society for future generations and for ourselves.
I have to remind myself of this regularly but yeah, just wish it wasn't so damn difficult.
Yeah I get it fam ♥️
This article is a decade old now, but the point stands:
I endorse the Pink Pistols and their mission to encourage the LGBTQ+ community to embrace self-defense. It also fosters more interaction between the "right-wing" gun community and the "left-wing" gay community instead of driving a political wedge between them.
While I find their methodology more than a little dubious I have little doubt about the point its making. If for no other reason than the lesser amount of time they have to pull a trigger will keep the body counts lower. I've always thought that run/hide/fight stuff they teach now had it completely backwards.
Did you watch the video of the Christchurch mosque shootings? Several of them tried to stop him but it just wasn't enough.
I'd heard of the Pink Pistols but hadn't really read much about them until now. There was apparently a chapter here at one point but it doesn't appear to be active now. More self defense is never a bad thing! As for those communities, I don't think assigning either to one wing or the other is or ever was accurate. Still, I know what you mean, and more interaction and understanding between armed people is never a bad thing. On a similar note, Redneck Revolt tried to do some outreach to the 3%ers a while back but I don't think they ever got through the cognitive dissonance.
I think the Threepers are mostly a lost cause, consisting of boomer fudds dedicated to a nostalgic fantasy of Constitutional supremacy, and when push comes to shove, they'll "back the blue." Maybe I'm being uncharitable.
As a discreetly-armed individual, I always know it's no guarantee of safety. It's just an extra option, and I need more range time to refine it in addition to all the other matters like maintaining situational awareness, practicing de-escalation, avoiding conflict where possible, and so forth. I think the run-hide-fight order of operations is generally sound, especially for those not armed or trained at all.
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