I'm going to Hell... who's coming with me?

There are three topics forbidden to polite conversation: Religion, Politics, and Sex.

I don't like to talk about religion because it is an intensely personal and intimate subject to me. I honestly don't care who, what or how you worship, as long as:

1. You give me the freedom to worship (or not) as I see fit;
2. It doesn't involve harming animals, children, or non-consenting adults;
3. You don't immediately assume I am evil/wrong/broken for not sharing the same views.

I don't like talking about politics because it seems to automatically engender reaction #3. I also view politics with heaping disdain because it seems to be High School all over again, albeit writ large: getting elected, whether to Student Council or Congress, is largely a popularity contest based upon how good you look and the sincerity of your lies, not your strength of character or knowledge of the facts. Thus I regard politicians as garbage collectors -- their purpose is to do a job I find loathsome, and once elected I'd like them to do their jobs quietly and efficiently. If they don't dispose of my garbage in a professional manner, I fire them.

This leaves sex. As some of you may have deduced, I quite like talking about sex, and am very hard to shock. However, in deference to the delicate constitutions of some readers, as well as adhering to Blogger's Terms of Service, I prefer to use clever euphemisms and double entendres rather than outright vulgarity. (Plus, any fool can write porn. Erotica is much more challenging.)

Today, however, I'm going to end up breaking my own rules and talking about all three of them. It's not a choice I'm particularly comfortable with, but Calliope is a fickle bitch today and so it's either this or printing the word "fuck" a thousand times.

Aren't you lucky?

My father is Jewish. So Jewish, in fact, that he was born in Austria in the 1930s, and had to flee a little thing called the Holocaust. Now even though he married a non-Jewish woman (aka shiksa), I still look very semitic. I have dark hair, dark eyes, and distinctive nose that is too large to be properly adorable. This doesn't bother me (other than the nose); in fact, I am very proud of my heritage. However, I am sick and tired of being hated for what is essentially an accident of my birth. Because, as you may have heard, Jews are apparently to blame for everything in the world.

My mother is Protestant Irish. God help me if I lived in the United Kingdom. I'd be labeled as a potential terrorist, a British sympathizer, or a worthless layabout, depending on where I was. Again, whether or not I truly am one of those things doesn't matter; it only matters if I look like I am.

You will notice that I never had control over any of those things. Yet whole countries and entire cultures would have me jailed, beaten, raped, and/or killed because of them. Hatred, I believe, is the bastard child of politics and religion, usually caused by people who aren't getting enough sex. Sometimes I think that if world leaders had daily blowjobs the world would be a more relaxed place to live.

I know what it is to be hated, which is why I'm generally conservative. Republicans are pro-military, and I like a big military, because they protect my way of life. I am very much in favor of not being beaten to death because of my heritage.

Now, I said all that just so I could say this: Because I know what it's like to be hated because of circumstances of birth, I stand firmly beside my gay brothers and lesbian sisters and those in-between. And if they're going to Hell because they were born gay, then I guess I'm going to Hell because of the accidents of my birth. I mean, a good quarter of the world thinks I belong there anyway, right?

I'm a goth. I have a tattoo. (No, I'm not going to show you pictures.) I like to wear black and dance to strange music. This means I'm damned to Hell because apparently I'm a Satanist, I mutilate my God-given body, and my every waking moment isn't spent praising Jesus.

Except: I go to a Methodist church with my parents on Sundays. I pray on a regular basis. My tattoo has a cross in it. Heck, I even spent a few years teaching Sunday School.

Yes, I am a pro-gay rights conservative Christian goth. Is your mind broken yet?

If you're going to hate me for anything, hate me for that. Because those are things that I have chosen, and I am damn proud of all of them.