WTF Homophobia

I enjoyed the Pride festival this weekend, as always, but I feel like I encountered more homophobia this year than any other in recent memory.

Friday night, two of my gay friends got kicked out of a Gopher State Airport Taxi by the homophobic driver (who picked them up at Jetset, mind you). Saturday afternoon, I watched from Lurcat as police cuffed and arrested the born-agains sporting "FREE BIBLES" tee shirts for trespassing on park grounds. This morning, someone sent me the link to a video in which a gay man is harassed by a group of kids as he walks home from the festival. I don't care to watch it, but the comments indicate that they walk past three security officers (not from the Minneapolis Police Department) who do nothing.

I realize things could be a lot worse here, in the city that boasts the third largest Pride festival in the country, but it still shocks me that people are so ignorant and malicious.

Meanwhile, an Athiest who writes a sex column dares to disprove the wingnut argument that homosexuality goes against the word of God. I haven't heard one peep of negative feedback yet, which further proves my theory that vita.mn (and Girl Friday) readers are of above average intelligence.

Kate Nelson, Me, Erik Janzen (Photo by Dan Phan)
Unity Basketball's First Annual Pride 3-on-3 Tournament

Comments

[Alexis]

I roll so VIP, they have to give me 2 badges.

(J/K, one of them is Erik's.)

[Crystal (Cafe Cyan)]

Alexis - you rock! It makes me so sad that things like this still occur (really people, what's the purpose in being hateful?!?), but it makes me happy that you (and others) speak out against it. Yay to the Vita.mn readers too.

[Deb]

Quite discouraging to read/hear about negative incidents! Oh, those weren't Mpls. officers who walked by, they were private security guys who did nothing (see article in this morning's Strib).

[Gal About Minneapolis]

Here's another video of the family being arrested, but this one has a really hot guy selling Marriage Equality T-Shirts!

http://gannett.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/gannett-kare-3323-pub01-live/current/launch.html?maven_playerId=articleplayer&maven_referralPlaylistId=playlist&maven_referralObject=1166847230&maven_referrer=staf

It was the highlight of the weekend.

[Tara]

I think it's a safe bet that very few fundamentalist-religious prudes read your sex column, and those few who might probably would not admit to doing so, which makes it seem very unlikely that you would get a response from one of them trying to counter the scholar you interviewed.

Dropping the very same bomb on my Facebook wall a couple months ago, I raised the ire a rather well-read divinity school grad (who spend a lot of time studying translations, though through the lens of his already-established theology) who really challenged me to think about and refine my arguments.