DON'T PANIC

I watched part of the debate about the Marriage Equality Bill in Parliament today. A bill that might mean homosexual people are treated equally under the law. I am not naive enough to think it will change peoples bigotries.  As I watched I listend to all sorts of reasons why I should not be treated as fully human, and why some people, like religious people, should be allowed to continue to treat me as sub human, how teachers woulds till be allowed to teach children that same sex love is wrong, that no registrars will be forced to marry homosexual people. The exclusions grew. I realised with mounting rage that this is not going to be a law making us equal in law at all. It is merely going to be window dressing, a appeasement. No such conscience clauses are given to racists, to those who oppose inter faith and inter race marriage, to those who think people of differing races are less than equal. It is not legal to bar blacks, irish, Gypsies etc from hotels because of conscience. But it is going to be allowed if the matter of conscience is against me and my kind. You know a woman recently wrote to me angry that i was upset with 'normal' [people for thinking this way. she has the nerve to still touch me at shows, as if I think well of her or am such a wimp I need her fucking approval.

I got so angry whilst watching and listening and then it hit me...I am HURT and I am tired. From the day i was born I knew I was not acceptable. My father made that very clear. Only I didn't know why until I was 16. Yes I finally realised that those evil people they kept on about was ME! I then spent far too many years believing I was the one at fault.

Not any more. No. Those who know me well know when the change happened. 
I don't really know how I can ignore this. I don't know how I can continue to read and hear injustice and not react. Not just the injustice toward me and my brothers and sisters but toward others too. i juts read of a woman who lost her children, by order of a judge, because she wasn't going to bring them up fundamentalist!

I cannot live like this, enraged at the cruelty all around me. The mean spiritedness. The shit flung at me day in and day out. Seeing how people treat other people, how women are treated, how children, mostly children, are treated. the casual way people refer to immigrants as if they are not human, calling them names, blaming them for our lot. 

It sickens me. It truly does. I do not know HOW people can be so cruel, can think so poorly. Even those I know and love are guilty of seeing people as disposable, as different, as to blame. 
It frightens me. The atmosphere around now is how I understand it was like in 30's Germany. It led to the Holocaust. I imagined those MPs who spoke so eloquently and cruelly about me in Parliament today being no different to those who spoke the same way about those who were different back in Nazi Germany. i hear friends today call others 'filth' and it cuts like a blade and sends a chill through me because I know that come the crunch they will either too late see their error or they will turn their back.
I am totally at a loss. I think I have to immerse myself in fiction books, my knitting, my dyeing, my dogs, light films, comedies and push ti all out and away from me. But if I do that I fear i won't hear the jackboots as they stop at our door.

I lived in fear as a child with good reason. It was violent. I've spent my life trying to assuage that fear, to find somewhere safe. To feel safe. Physically removing myself from the childhood situation has not altered that fear one bit.  I now know it wasn't just my family. Opening my eyes to them opened my eyes to rest of this world. There is no safety. No peace. People don't want that. They prefer to hate. I won't join the hate club. I am so glad today that i never fitted in. 
One day that long sleep will come and perhaps safety too.