Thursday, April 20, 2006

Lesbians, We All Get It...Take The Rainbow Off Your Car - Don't Get Me Started

Now first let me say that I have never understood the rainbow as the international gay symbol. I don't know why but it's always seemed a little sad to me that the rainbow is being used to represent one group of people. Come on fellow gays, do we really need a symbol? No! We need it like the people with the Jesus Fish on their car. But why, amazingly enough is it that whenever you see a car with the rainbow on it, 9 times out of 10 it's a lesbian? We all get it...take the rainbow off your car and Don't Get Me Started.

I have to say I loved the rainbow when Judy Garland sang about it (see, I am really gay) and I loved my Mork from Ork rainbow suspenders back in the day but somehow the rainbow has been tainted and I'm not sure there are too many happy little bluebirds that don't want to fly over the rainbow and puke from the rainbow/gay mania.

What you need to understand is that my grandfather sold Cadillacs and my father always told us, "Don't put any bumper stickers on your car or the resale value will be shot to hell." This is the same man who would never let us put anything in the garbage disposal because it might break it. To this day, I don't put bumper stickers on my car and I don't use the garbage disposal!

In fact I've grown to despise bumper stickers and the people who put them on their car. Once a day, at least, I want to ram the back of someone that has the W04 bumper sticker on their car. It took me forever to figure out what it meant when they started popping up everywhere. I'm ashamed to say I thought it was about the hotel originally! And when I pass these people on the road, I give them nasty looks as I pass. That's right, I do! Of course they can't see me because they're twelve miles higher than me in their Dodge Ram pick up and I'm in my Mini Cooper but stare I must.

Worse than the one tasteful bumper sticker people are the people who feel the need for a thousand. The people who have the stick figures on their back window with the same amount of "boys" and "girls", "cats" and "dogs" as their family make me want to wretch. These are people who have finally found a way to take their dumb ass scrap booking skills and put it on their mini vans. Or the "My child..." people. Come on, if your child was that smart he'd be cracking codes for the government somewhere...is he doing that?? Then don't tell me he's so smart. Or the new ones which have sunk to a new low..."My Child is a good citizen at Monroe Elementary." What's next? "My Child can wipe his own ass!" What they should be saying is, "My Child is doing as well as can be expected with drugs, Ipods and Britany Spears around, all I can hope is that he becomes a useful member of society and doesn't move back home when he drops out of college. " To say we're lowering our expectations of what we're shouting about on our cars is an understatement.

But I digress, it's the rainbow people we need to go after. Much like the people who come to my door to let me know Jesus died for my sins or the people who put signs in their lawn stating, "Say No To Gay Marriage". Can't you just keep your God Damned opinions to yourself? I'm delighted you have an opinion, I just don't want to see it on a sign, a bumper sticker or in the recent Jesus Cliff's notes pamphlet that was mailed to me by some odd organization in the wooded areas of California. Still trying to figure out how I got on that mailing list!

And riddle me this, Batman, why oh why when you see the rainbow stickers is it almost always on some beat up piece of shit car and as you drive past, the person driving is almost always someone who looks like the dictionary definition picture for lesbian? Look closer and you're bound to see the "Hate is not a family value" sticker somewhere on this car and a rainbow air freshner hanging from the rear-view mirror that is hanging on by a thread.

Now don't get me wrong, I want everyone to feel good about themselves but lesbians, please, take the money you spent on that sticker and go back to Super Cuts to remove that long piece of hair that put you in the mullet hall of fame. Having long hair in the back doesn't make you look more feminine it makes you look like you have no taste. Or as my grandmother used to say, "the only taste that person has is in their mouth."

I'm not attacking only lesbians, there's usually a few men you'll see who have the rainbow on their Volkswagen Passat but it's usually done more tastefully like a Nike swoosh that's rainbow colored. I hate these guys just as much.

I guess in the end I'm really just upset that we need a symbol - call it a carry over from my Jewish ancestory. If I had been in Poland during the Nazi period there wouldn't be enough room on my coat between the yellow stars and pink triangle. Hell, I'd look like a bowl of Lucky Charms! At the root of it all I just wish that we didn't have to push who we were into everyone's face.

(Prepare yourself for me to be serious)


I guess what I really want is for people to see me for me and judge me for who I am as a person. Love me for my merits and flaws or hate me if you don't think I'm all that great. I can respect that but I don't want you to judge me based on some symbol that a bunch of people figured out could make them a lot of money from the overzealous.

I'm not one of the fortunate gays who "pass", as the light skin blacks did in the day. I'm effeminate. I don't purposely try to put it on, it's just who I've always been. And much like the discrimination in the black culture (which I've learned from loving a black man for 17 years) the gays don't much like us, the feminine ones, because we keep the stereotype alive. Funny to me are the big muscle gays who could rip your head off but when they open their mouth it sounds like gas is escaping somewhere. But God love 'em, that's where they are in their own head.

(And we're back)


So why put the rainbow on your car people? Don't you know it will shoot your resale value to hell? I don't care that they have Goo Gone now. It may do what you think it does, makes you just like the straights. But in the end, is that what you want? Isn't it diversity we're supposed to be celebrating by who we are and how we live our lives? Do we really need a rainbow? Much less on our cars? Well, I guess that's where your head is and I should respect it but you should know, when we drive past you lesbians, we all get it - take the rainbow off your car and Don't Get Me Started!