The Pope says people like me are evil. The President supports taking away my marriage. Clearly, something has to be done about evil, immoral persons like myself. The homeland must be defended; the purity of the people must be enforced. Local preachers now take time out from their efforts to aid their community, to accuse people like me of stealing the thunder from their righteous cause. And the word is finally trickling down to the street. The young men may not read the newspaper, but they hear what their parents and peers are saying: It's time to kill the faggots.

This has been made increasingly clear to me as I go about my duties in the fair city of Portland, Oregon. Did you think Portland was a tolerant place? Maybe it is, because I'm still breathing. I drive a city bus five days a week, and I'm an androgyne, which is to say in the popular parlance, I'm a faggot, a queer, a dude in a dress, a sign that things have gone too far. I should be killed, or so I've repeatedly been told. I think that if the people who say these things knew that I have both male and female components to my body, they would still want me killed—maybe even more so.

It's just a matter of respecting the President, and the Pope.

The last couple of days have been pretty rough for me—yesterday I was loudly accosted four times--but at least no one has physically attacked me for a while. It's a good thing I don't live in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where a teenager took it on himself to reduce the queer population. Here is part of the report, adapted from a CBS affiliate:

"Police are looking for 18-year-old Jacob Robida of New Bedford. He is described as armed and dangerous.

They say Robida walked into a gay bar with a gun and a hatchet early Thursday morning, and started attacking customers. According to police, Robida went into Puzzles Lounge on North Front Street shortly before midnight and asked the bartender if it was a gay bar. The bartender... [told a CBS reporter] Robida then ordered a drink, and asked if there were any other gay bars in the area. The bartender told him there was a lesbian bar down the street.

A short time later, Robida ordered another drink, walked to the back of the bar room near a pool table, pulled out a hatchet and allegedly started swinging. Someone tried to stop him, and a 27-year-old man was hit in the face with the hatchet. The bartender says he and another person tried to stop Robida and the hatchet fell out of his hand. That's when he allegedly pulled out a gun. Philip says Robida fired one shot into the air, then shot the 27-year-old man in the face and two other people as well. The other victims are described as a man in his late 40's who was shot twice in the face and a 23-year-old man who was shot once in the stomach.

Two of the victims were flown to Boston hospitals for treatment, while the third person was taken to St. Luke's Hospital in New Bedford. There is no word yet on their conditions. Police are not releasing their names.

The bartender said Robida then pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger. But there was only a click - the gun was apparently empty.

"My heart is still in my stomach from that one," bartender Philip said.
... .
The attack is being investigated as a hate crime."
....
One of the first acts of political violence by the Nazis was to burn down the Institute for Sexual Studies, where gay, lesbian, and transgendered people were being studied and treated. That was in the early Thirties, and the attack was met with much popular approval. Science writer Deborah Rudacille has reported that the German people felt "raped" by the existence of openly queer people. Clearly, the homeland had to be defended, and it was a good thing the perverts were being given a message. Otherwise, who knows what sort of social degeneration could have followed, in Germany?

Speaking of fascism, the only real message coming out of the State of the Union Address was presented before the Chimp in Chief had a chance to speak. Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan was dragged out of her chair--which she was occupying at the invitation of a member of Congress-- dragged up the stairs in handcuffs, fingerprinted, taken to two separate jails, and interrogated for an hour. At first the Fatherland's news organs, like CNN, reported that she had been arrested for sneaking in a banner. When that turned out to be utterly false, the story disappeared.

The local monopoly chain daily somehow failed to mention the incident in yesterday morning's paper. But the story has legs of its own, partly because the thought police also evicted a Republican congressman's wife from the Great Pageant of Our Leader. The official excuse is that they were both wearing t-shirts that said... something. Cindy Sheehan had a shirt on that displayed the official, watered-down number of US troops killed, and the Republican was suspiciously displaying "support our troops" on hers.

At least, that's supposed to be the reason. Maybe they were lesbians. In any case, the message is clear: constitutional rule is over, done with, out of here.

Hail Emperor Bush! Nos perituri mortem salutamus!