Tragic's Wake

As you know, I took my whole family to the big Pride Parade and BBQ this weekend. We had an amazing time too. We started watching the parade on King Street and several friends shouted to me and even ran out of line from the parade to deliver hugs and love to me, a few even yelled for me to grab the kids and jump in. I’ve never felt so proud and I’ve never seen such love and community support.

The streets were lined with love, three and four deep in some spots. That is huge for Saint John and I’m so glad to have been a part of it all. I stood my ground on King Street because I wanted to catch the best photos and I surely did! I yelled to my friends that I’d jump on the tail end when it got to me and we’d all march to the BBQ and show together and that is exactly what I did. My daughters had friends in the very end of the parade, they were marching in memory of a beautiful and promising local girl who’d died in a fire earlier this year so we fell in line with them and we waved our flags, shouted happily at supporters and it was grand. The after show was beautiful as well. People of all ages lazing in the sun in the little park at Parade end, we listened to live music and we watched some wonderful drag artists, we ate juicy burgers and we hugged and enjoyed the sun. There was a dark cloud though, later.

Someone (who was involved with my family on a seriously peripheral level) took exception to my daughter bringing her two year old son to the parade and though I wanted to just ignore the hateful creature, I couldn’t let my daughter be so viciously attacked on such a wonderful and love filled day.  The argument took place on my daughter’s facebook profile, she had posted a status that said “Home from the parade, had a great time. The baby waved his flag and screamed the whole time”  This cruel woman said some really vulgar crap about how it was gross and she supposed my daughter had a tit in her mouth and pubic hair in her teeth, etc. There were a few other comments, then she said the boy would grow up to be “that way” and I really and truly lost it. I’ll share with you here what I said over a stretch of half a dozen comments, this first was to let them know I was watching and to try not to start a huge drama:

I had a great time S* and I’m glad my grandson did too. It was a fabulous day and I’m proud of my family. Ignore hateful comments and harassment. You’re above that garbage. I love you baby, always.

At which point the woman started to insult me personally as well as my daughter and the crap she was spewing looked much like some kinda crazed zealot pamphlet of misinformation, so I replied:

Hmmm.. People in glass houses and all that, right? Listen, the only danger that child is in happens to be from bigoted people with dirty minds and filthy mouths harassing his mother for being perfectly normal. If you haven’t noticed: this is Canada, one of the last truly free countries on this planet and there is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with Gay. Good As You and from the filth and hate you’re spewing, I’d hazard that perhaps its actually better. I teach my children love and equality. This is the 21st century, the only ones wrong, deviant and immoral here are the backwards deviants who know nothing but hate and anyone offended by this: well, if the shoe fits, eh?

She made some other nasty comments about my parenting and my overall character, I’d post them but she deleted and ran shortly after and I wasn’t home to save her end of the “discussion” but then I said:

If you’d like for me to report you for hate speech and harassment then be my guest, keep on commenting. You know nothing of MY family and you seem to have very little control over your own. Carry on ma’am, the law is on my side.

Several other friends and family members stepped in at that point to defend my daughter but there was still one vicious girl who barely even made any sense but she angered me anew, at this point the comments take up Sunday afternoon and I’m back down to earth and starting to think clearly again. This new girl says:

its not approiate really for a child to be there exspecially so wrong.. he will learn that when he grows up …

and I really wanted to clarify exactly what her issue was so I said:

Its inappropriate why? Because you think Gay is wrong? Because you believe the crazies who say it’s all about sex and has nothing to do with love and equality? Because you think there was blatant kink and perversion running rampant? Because you’re afraid or insecure and simply cannot confront it? Why? Why was it wrong? Gay people don’t have children? Children of Gay families don’t deserve the same picnics and festivals that children of hetero families enjoy? If you replace the word Gay with black and you go read a history book then you’ll see that your argument strongly resembles the attitudes of people who believed that blacks were “less than” those same people who wanted to keep blacks segregated and those people refused to grant blacks any rights and tried to strip them of the minimal rights they already had.. Who is inappropriate, the mother who wants her child to learn tolerance, inclusiveness and equality? Or the insecure bigots who would take away a child and it’s families rights just because they’re afraid of anything that isn’t their way?

But all I got was this:

if that msg was to me.. i certainley dont think gay is wrong at all!!!!!!!!!! i think taking a 2 year old to a gay prade is just not approiate.!!!!!

And yes, I fully confess to boiling over here:

The entire day was set up for the families of the community to share in the same fun and festivities that all families should be able to participate in without fear. You say you’re not bothered by Gay but your words actually say something far different. So it’s ok to be Gay but not to show pride in how far we’ve come? Your rights as a heterosexual have never been in question, they’ve never been under fire. You’ve never risked losing a job or being denied equal care and rights because of the person you love, if you’ve ever had to defend your civil rights as a human being then you would understand why we celebrate our advances and why we stand up to say we’re not going to let it go, we’re not going to hide any more, we are not going away. We have a right to be proud of how far we’ve come and we have a right to share that with our families. I’d recommend reading up a bit about the struggles in the LGBT community and I’d especially recommend researching civil rights in general. It’s not all black & white, it’s not all about you and your beliefs. It’s about an entire segment of society being ignored, abused, bullied and shoved aside because people like you think we can do whatever we want but we really should hide it back in the closet because it’s so distasteful to you. Let me tell you something–straights necking and holding hands in public may be distasteful to me but I’m not going to segregate them because of it so you have no right to segregate or abase us for carrying a damn flag and having a freakin’ BBQ..

She gives me the standard closeted bigot’s argument:

some of my friend are gay .. if i had a problem with it i would very clearly tell u i have a problem with gay people but i dont !!!! im not sitting here writting a huge ass comment becuase u seem to think i know how i feel .. WHAT IVE BEN SAYING IF YOU CAN READ.. IS I HAVE NO FUCKING PROBLEM WITH GAY PEOPLE!! I DONT EVEN HAVE A PROBLEM THAT THE 2 YEAR WENT TO A GAY PRADE… I THINK ITS INAPPRIOATE !!!!!!!

At this point I’d mostly given up, I was actually in the mood to troll my way through her ignorance:

Its spelled ‘inappropriate’ just for the record. And you DO seem to have a problem, that is what the term “inappropriate” actually means. I hope I never see you with any children at any type of family day events, it seems that in your world family is inappropriate.P.S if you could take the time to either learn to spell or perhaps install a decent spell-check in your browser, perhaps I could read your ignorant comments properly with the correct amount of spite and vindictiveness inherent.. Carry on ma’am, and have a fabulous day!

But she just wasn’t getting a clue:

lol if i was rude i would be saying .. gay people have no fucking rights!!!!! thank you very much.. your cleary a dumb bitch if you cant understand what im saying .. what i fucking said for the hundreth time cause u didnt get it threw your thick skull the first time.. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH GAY PEOPLE!!! I THINK ITS INAPROIATE THAT A 2 YEAR OLD WENT TO SOMETHING LIKE THAT!!!!!!!! ITS FOR PEOPLE THAT ARE OLDER … NOT BABYS NOT KIDS NOT TODDLERS.. BUT FOR ADULTS OR TEENAERS  MAYBE IT WAS A COMMUNITY EVENT AND IT WAS A FUN TIME.. BUT TAKE YOUR KIDS TO THE PARK OR A FAIR OR SOMETHING .. !!!!!!!

At which point I completely dismissed her:

I think you’re a reprehensible parent because you’re resorting to vulgarity in a discussion with a stranger on a public forum such as facebook. It is possible to discuss something without masking your inadequacy with foul language and nonsensical punctuation. To each their own though, I would never dream of removing your inherent right to be an idiot. Goodbye now!

The rest was just amusing:

Her: and i would never drea of removing your ingerent right to be a dumb bitch.. goodbye to you

Me: *dream *inherent

…and then she was finally gone. A few other friends commented with more support and love, many good points that shot the bullies down even further and it truly ended. Two of the bullies cut and run, blocked and deleted, and the third has argued her pseudo Christian “morals” with me before and so she knows better than to try that little adventure again

To close: I have another very strong post coming up regarding my take from it all but that’s not for today. This post needs to close with love, joy, support and PRIDE and that’s what I have for you below, enjoy the pics my friends and have a blessed day!

15 Responses to “Taste the Rainbow: Pride with a Chance of Clouds (pics too)”