MILMOT: Make it like my old town

Today's Washington Post has yet another article on people who move to the party neighborhood and complain about the noise. We've also seen articles about people who move to rural neighborhoods and complain about the smell of fertilizer.

Here are two thoughts. If you don't like a particular environment, don't move there. If the ways of your present home town are so perfect, stay put.

Fabulous queer dating tip #2: Seek to attain only what is unattainable.

We all know about the sixtysomething troll who is holding out for a barely legal Adonis, but it doesn't stop there. If the intellect fairy skipped your parents' house, chase after someone with several advanced degrees in a discipline whose name you can't even pronounce. If you are online, message people in every continent but your own. Answer personal ads full of abbreviations that you don't even understand. Chase guys who have made it clear that they're not even available for dating. If you're a twink, chase after someone with a stated preference for bears, and vice versa. If you're vanilla, go for someone kinky; after all, you'll be able to convert him, right? Demand perfection, and make scathing remarks about people with the same deficiencies that you have. Bottom line: If someone offers you an insurmountable challenge, just say yes.

Fabulous queer dating tip #1: Be the change you desperately wish to avoid seeing in the world.

For those who are trying to find Mr. Right (regardless of whether his last name is Now), here is a helpful exercise. Think about the characteristics that you wish to see in your dream man, and make a list of those characteristics. Does your list include entries like "emotionally dependent," "drama queen," "high maintenance," "self-absorbed," "control freak," and "stalker"? No? What a huge surprise. Even so, be sure to cultivate such characteristics in yourself.

The same applies to physical appearance. Everyone agrees that everyone else is lethally unattractive with an obvious comb-over, a shaved chest, the regulation twink-bar goatee, and the regulation twink-bar tats, but that shouldn't stop you from having them.

Against bigoted religious people, fight fire with fire.

Many of the standard arguments against giving us the "special privilege" of equality rely on religion. Bigots claiming religion as a justification (or a pretext) love to quote-mine their holy books to condemn us. We really need to grow a backbone and fight fire with fire.

I will draw examples from Christianity, but, of course, the same basic principle applies with regard to other religions. When women pastors rebuke us, we should point out what the Epistles say about the role of women in the church. When African-Americans denounce us, we should remind them of what the Old and New Testaments say about slavery.

When they say that those parts of the Bible need to be "interpreted correctly" or "were meant for the church back then," we should demand to know why they get to use that argument, but we do not. Actually, I have asked that question in several fora, and the only response that I have received is that all-purpose scathing rebuttal known as pretending not to have heard.

Cafeteria Christianity (2)

I recently heard someone say that on the subject of homosexuality, the Bible clearly says what it says. How, then, does it not say what it says on subjects ranging to slavery to the treatment of rape victims to remarriage after divorce? There must be some special Bible teaching, discernible only by the initiated, that says that the Bible counts only when it can be invoked against the unholy trinity of abortion, homosexuality, and modern science.

Cafeteria Christianity

Ever notice that the Christians who cite a literalistic reading of Scripture against homosexuality love to reinterpret or just plain ignore their own holy book on subjects ranging from slavery to polygamy to the status of women? Do they regard the Bible as God's Word, yes or no? If they pick and choose, then their ultimate authority in matters of faith is their standard for picking and choosing, not the Bible itself.

This applies to salad-bar versions of any religion, but Christians seem especially prone to picking and choosing. Fluffy-bunny liberal Christians do it; so do fire-and-brimstone conservative Christians. A good reading of this site might help them.

Welcome to Collectopia (Collectivist Utopia).

We've heard a lot about the failure of individualism and the need for government to exercise greater control in the name of the collective good. To further that end, I have the following suggestions for moving our society in the direction of a collectivist utopia.

Separation of church and state: This is tantamount to privatization of religion, and we all know that privatization is very bad. Moreover, everyone knows that large, complicated organizations such as churches cannot be maintained through voluntary donations. We should therefore institute a taxpayer-supported state church, or at least make tithing compulsory and administered by the IRS.

Freedom of speech and of the press: Did the political correctness of the eighties and nineties mean nothing? There is just no such thing as freedom of speech or of the press. Therefore, to bring news reporting into line with the collective good, we should nationalize the media, preferably in time to hand them over to the next Republican President as a turnkey operation.

Reproductive freedom: The idea that a woman as an individual has a right to make choices over her own body is libertarian and therefore wrong. Ayn Rand believed it, and you don't want to agree with her, do you? Furthermore, population pressure obviously affects the collective good of the collective whole. Therefore, the government should have free rein to compel you to have a child or to prevent you from doing so.

Marriage: This one is too obvious even to require stating.