"Westboro Was Right" -- My First Spoken Word Poem!

I severely need to write and document what's been happening in the last few months.

But just so you kinda know what I'm up to, I performed the first spoken word poem I've ever written on Saturday at the talent show at my school, and I just uploaded it to youtube (my first ever [and potentially only ever] video on youtube!).  Results were really positive for the most part, and I got second place out of 16 acts! (although I did also perform Neil Hilborn's "OCD" which I actually memorized, and which is really good and you should definitely watch that one too.  The first place winner was expected... one of my friends made a skit that took scenes/lines from Princess Bride and made it all about phonology.  Too many people here who love phonology/linguistics and Princess Bride that I just couldn't compete!  If I hadn't voted for them and had voted for myself, the votes would have been 12 - 14.  Glad that people liked it!)

Here's the transcript:

In 1991,

I was born in Laramie, Wyoming.

Population: 27,000.

In 1998, a year after I left,

Matthew Shepard was studying in Laramie at the University of Wyoming.

That was the year Matthew was robbed, beaten, tortured, wrapped around a fence post and left to die because he was gay.

That was the year Westboro Baptist Church picketed his funeral with signs that said

"No Tears for Queers" and "God Hates Fags."

That was the year I turned seven.

That was the year he would have turned twenty-two.

Fifteen years later, it's 2013.

This is the year I turn twenty-two.

This is the year I graduate from college.

This is the year my life begins and I wonder what it would be like if this is the year my life ends.

But I don't have anyone to assault me as I beg for my life.  

My skull isn't fractured from the end of a gun smashing into my head.  

My face isn't completely covered in blood except for where I've washed the blood away with my tears.

But I am gay, like Matthew was.

And I can't help but wonder:  if there's no one to take my life,

then will I end up taking it myself like countless gay people before me?

Because Westboro was right:  there are no tears for queers.  

There are only tears from queers.

And there are tears for the nation when gay people no longer lose their jobs for what they find beautiful. There are tears for our media when queer people are represented on TV.  There are tears for ex-gay organization Exodus closing down, but there are no tears for people Exodus has hurt.  There are no tears for queers.

There is only the word no.  

There is only the vocation of no.  

The vocation of no-gay-marrying and no-gay-sex.

Queer means a calling to no family and no friends because everybody is too busy in their own straight relationships and families that there is no one left for queers but themselves.

Three years ago, I came out to my Christian fellowship, and for months there was only no.

No talk about homosexuality.  No asking about how I was doing with it.

Only silence.

Nothing.

When I remarked that in my church of over 900,

just statistically-speaking,

there had to be other gay people, there had to be someone like me, someone I could relate to,

I was silenced by others saying, "No, we are not a representative sample."

Last year, someone in my fellowship told me, "We would probably never talk about homosexuality if you weren't here."

Because there are no tears for queers.  

There are no tears for queers because there are no queers.  

Queer has no place, it's not real, it doesn't exist in the Church--we never talk about the queers except for when they are ruining our world.  

The Christians and the queers never mix except for when someone like me comes along and messes up everything. And if a gay person does somehow come into the Church,

and they aren't celibate,

then they might as well be dead--no, they better be dead.

They better be dead.

It is no longer 1998.

It's 2013.  I have turned twenty-two, and I am still alive.

But I find myself robbed, beaten by loneliness, tortured by the Church's disregard for people like me and wrapped so painfully around the posts whose only words for queers are how disgusting and disappointing we are.

And I am left to die because I am gay.

But this isn't just about me and what I feel.

I have always been the celibate gay Christian, the flavor of queer most accepted by the Church.  So I don't want you to tell just me that I belong in the church.

I want you to tell that gay guy down the street with the STD and stranger in his bed that he belongs.

Tell the girl with the wife and baby on the way that they belong.

Tell that genderqueer person, this lesbian trans woman, that pansexual man.

Tell them you want them with you, that you want them beside you to worship our Creator together.

Tell them Jesus doesn't say, "Get away from my church until you're no longer in sin, you fag." He receives them as they are.

Tell them Jesus forgives, and then says "Go and sin no more."

Never the other way around.

Tell them they're needed.

Tell them the Church isn't as strong without them.  The Body isn't complete without them.  We're not at our best without them.

Tell them God loves them simply because they are His.  They belong with Him.

We are all His.  We all belong with Him--even the gay people.

So thump your Bibles over that, shout that from the pulpit, scream that from the choir, have your words and actions rob us queers so fiercely of our doubt that we can't help but hope again.

Because if the Church isn't here... if you're not here, to show God's love to us... who will be?

I know Westboro was right about No Tears for Queers, but show us that they're wrong about God Hates Fags.