Can we all agree this is out of hand?

There are scattered reports of businesses and even homeowners boarding up their windows and closing or planning to close on election day and perhaps for days or weeks after. 

Never in my life and thankfully it’s been a long one, have I seen this kind of behavior. I remember antiwar riots during the Vietnam war but nothing like we’re seeing today.

This is a standard election year, this happens every four years and all of us are supposed to get a say in the direction of our nation.

This is supposed to be a respectful process. Let the politicians sling the mud, We The People, are supposed to be better than them. After all, our elders used to say the only thing politicians had in common was their corruption.

Yet that is not what we’re seeing. We’re seeing what amounts to a series of childish temper tantrums played out on the streets of cities around the nation.

ACTUP, an organization that appeared during the AIDS crisis wasn’t as violent and there were literally thousands of people dying in hospitals around the nation. (I Know… I was there.)

Visiting an AIDS patient was done with full biohazard protection. I’m personally all too familiar with dressing in white disposable “Bunny Suits” with gloves, mask and eye protection. There were some hospitals where the staff was in self contained pressurized suits because physicians had no idea what was killing gay men, but they knew it was contagious and communicable.

Let me tell you, those were ugly, lonely deaths. ACTUP had plenty of reason to scream, riot, and raise hell.

Those deaths were in fact generally being ignored by the media, and the government, and everyone else. Because they were deaths occurring in a marginalized segment of society. A group of people who could and did have their rights regularly suspended because of the love that dare not speak its name.

Yes, Black Lives Matter, ALL LIVES MATTER.

During the AIDS crisis there wasn’t any separation between black, white, hispanic, or asian gay men.

They were all dying and the gay community, the real gay community, stood up and raised hell. Eventually the gay community was joined by other people who realized that standing up for what was right, outweighed being stigmatized.

And in the midst of that, The Westboro Baptist Church was holding signs outside hospitals, protesting at ACTUP rallies, or protesting funerals, spouting hate filled speech, (as is their right), things like God hates fags, AIDS is God’s retribution, all FAGS burn in hell, better dead than a FAG.

My Mother and I were even accosted by members of Westboro, going up the steps to a concert hall where one of the Gay Mens Choruses were performing.

My first reaction to these people’s hate filled vitriol was to punch their teeth out of their heads in anger and defense of my dear old mom.

It was she, that stayed my hand. “Son,” she said loudly, “these people, no matter how cruel, misguided, inbred, or stupid, have the right to be assholes where ever they choose. We have to defend their right to be morons or risk losing our rights too.”

We enjoyed the concert.

What the hell happened to that philosophy? How is it that in 30 years we’ve gone from understanding people have the right to their opinions, (no matter how contrary to our own,) to a culture where people who don’t agree with you must be silenced unequivocally?

While looking up Westboro, I honestly didn’t know if they were still around since Fred Phelps died. I noticed that not only are their current signs still largely about FAGS but a lot of their signs now relfect a general hatred of America. They also seem to hate Trump which begs the question of why, or if, they’re not naturally aligned with ANTIFA or the radical Islamic elements.

They don’t like Jews, and many of their signs appear to be thankful of the maiming and killing of American soldiers.

It’s likely they’re not going to be aligned with BLM since they may just be flat out racists too, perhaps the racist thing is the reason they’re not marching with Islamic terrorists.

I find it interesting that they are not censored in searches, their hatred is on full display with no content warnings. At  the same time conservative and GOP voices while far less hateful are being censored.

I guess this means that there are acceptable kinds of hatred, or hate speech. 

Today, membership in ACTUP means you are by definition apparently against Trump. There was a time when politically ACTUP was against anybody that refused to take action in the AIDS crisis. The organization was fairly nonpartisan. Now it seems that they’re firmly Democrat.