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Sun.Apr.15.2007

1:04 am EDT        36°F (2°C) in Effingham, IL

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This installment of Larry’s Phat Page finds me heading back east again, toward a delivery in Pennsylvania on Monday night. Actually, I can drop the trailer there any time I like on Monday; from there, I will pick up an empty trailer and head to our company shop to get some needed service done to this truck.

I’ve decided that for this update, I’m going to play a little game of “open the mailbag.” Most of the legitimate (i.e., non-spam) e-mail I receive through this site can be categorized as one of two things: (a) questions or comments related to my highway pages, or (b) people seeking advice on any number of gay-related topics. I do get a few other interesting e-mails, though, including the occasional piece of anti-gay hate mail, and it is the latter type I’m going to share with you tonight.

The following message showed up in my inbox on March 27, from a site visitor named Eric who obviously couldn’t find his “CAPS LOCK” key or his spell-checker:

JUST WONDERING HOW COME NO PICTURES AND AS FAR AS YOU LIFE YOUR LIFE THAT IS YOUR PESONAL BUISNESS AND JUST WONDERING WHY YOU WOULD POST THAT HERE CAUSE MOST COME FOR THE HIGHWAYS AND YOUR CHOICE OF LIFESTYLE REALLY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIGHWAYS

This is rather interesting on several levels. For somebody who questions my mentioning that I am gay here, and refers to my being gay using the blatantly false “fundamentalist ‘Christian’” talking point about a “lifestyle choice,” I wonder why it is exactly that he would want to see a picture of me — one wonders if he is a classic case of “those who protest the loudest usually have the most to hide.” As to the assertion that “most come for the highways,” even a cursory examination of my site logs and statistics shows Eric to be wrong; overall, the traffic to those two sections of my site is roughly equal. I probably have more links from other sites going to the highway pages, but the essays in the “Being Gay” section see plenty of traffic from Google and Yahoo! searches.

Eric’s question about “why [I] would post that here” is pretty effectively answered by the ignorance he displayed in his e-mail. Obviously, he is among those who want to force gay people back into the closet, unseen and un-heard, almost like children who are not allowed to make their own decisions. Those of us who refuse to live our lives in such a state of denial really need to stick our necks out there and make the truth known, even when people like Eric want to pretend that we don’t exist — and that is why I talk about my being gay here. It is an important God-given part of my identity — but far from the only part, as my inclusion of the Highways section quite clearly illustrates. Put together, those two sections help the world to understand the truth that we are multi-dimensional human beings with many varied interests, and not the sex-crazed, six-foot walking penises that so-called “fundamentalist ‘Christians’” mendaciously portray us to be.

Some people, like another visitor named Russ, don’t even bother to read what I have to say — they just keep hammering their anti-gay, anti-Christian mis-interpretations of the Bible on me. Have a look:

I will not argue or judge you, but you need to read Romans I verses 18-32.

Uhm … as if I haven’t already read it and shown what the correct way to read it is? Seriously, I wonder what people with Russ’ attitude really hope to accomplish — do they honestly think that if they just keep bashing gay people over the head with the Bible, then said gay people will magically “turn straight”? As proven by the massive failures of the so-called “ex-gay” movement, we know this is not going to happen. Clearly, this kind of attitude can only be motivated by hatred, and contrary to Russ’ claim, it is a form of judgment.

I responded to Russ, suggesting that he actually read what I had to say in “How to Out-Argue a Fundamentalist,” and he replied back, saying, “… there is only one Bible, and it is very clear.” I might remind Russ that the Bible is also “very clear” on a few other things: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:31) “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned.” (Luke 6:37) Perhaps Russ ought to be reading the Gospels before he tries to convert me to his obvious mis-interpretation of Romans.

Finally, I’m going to tell the story of a more humorous e-mail. Some of you may remember my March 9 entry, in which I made a suggestion I intended to be tongue-in-cheek: that ABC News radio reporter Pam Coulter change her name to avoid possible confusion with a certain Hitler-adoring piece of shit that has a huge Adam’s apple and claims that the word “faggot” is “just a schoolyard taunt.” Ten days later, I received an e-mail from Pam Coulter herself, in which she acknowledged my smart-assedness thusly: “I cannot follow your recommendation to change my name, because I really like it, [and] I’ve had it a long time …” I thought it was a pretty funny exchange all the way around, although as I said in a response to her, I was rather impressed to be getting an e-mail from a semi-famous personality like her. I guess I have a lot bigger reach with this site than it sometimes seems.

Time to sleep. More of Interstate 70 awaits me tomorrow, and I need to be rested in order to drive it.