One week later

Well a few things have happened. . .

We had some friends stop by on Sunday for light edibles and conversation.
I ran up to iowa friday & saturday to do a little cooking.
Khubz had a bit of a hard night Saturday night.
Scully & I encountered a slight conflict over the weekend.
The weather has been okay lately.

The above is my paragraph of understatements.

All in all, a fabulous (if dramatic) weekend. Everything turned out okay in the end and though I would particularly like to write about Sunday I have a need to simply move along because other things seem to be going on.

The best announcement: Khubz's ear infection is completely resolved! Hamdillah!

Other good news: Khubz has her first carnival at daycare and Scully has volunteered to work the one-year old room. My only obligation is to bake a cake for the cake-walk and hang out with Khubz. This suits me fine and I am delighted by this division of mommy-labor. (sorry Scully!)

In another world, I was part of a conversation at work about the merits/demerits of keeping names of sexual assault survivors' names out of the media. I'm not going to write it out now but I just wanted to mention it to compel me to follow up and write more later. The whole hook was that not printing a survivor's name only contributes to the stigma, secrecy and affirms this atmosphere of shaming survivors. (of course, the culture does stigmatize survivors; victims are punished by perpetrators and the community for speaking out and our fucked up idea of "womanhood" tells women they should be ashamed of being "damaged goods.") But nevermind all that. . .

The thing that kept pulling me back was this comparison to "outing" of closeted queers. And it has been the most powerful political strategy for queer communities--to simply say who we are and not let people obfuscate my sexuality. It has been the greatest change agent of anyone I know who has had a hard time overcoming feelings of homophobia. . . to learn that their daughter is queer, for example.

Of course, SA survivors also use this strategy. . . it's what survivor speak out" circles are about. It's why we read so many "telling their stories" anthologies. They key is that she is telling her story--not a journalist. That's what makes it a powerful change agent.

So it all makes me wonder why I get such a thrill out of the outings (a la Larry Craig or Ted Haggard) Aren't they closeted because they know how badly queers are treated? Well, sure. . . But they actively participate to worsen the climate for queers. Does this mean they deserve to taste homophobia directly from all the people that used to have them over for prayer meetings? Yes. Yes it does.

Oh, except that no one deserves homophobia, remember?

I promise I am not defending these assholes. They made money, made their careers, built their lives using homophobia as currency.

Do you see why I never should have started writing this?

I do remember seeing a t-shirt that said, "Instead of outing celebrities, I think we should just stop fucking them." A little wordy for a t-shirt, and there's a big difference between a generic celebrity and a politician who uses his institutional power to further marginalize my family. . . But still. Nice point.

Well, hell. . . I do hope I come back to this thought later. (maybe) Until then, forgive the incomplete post.