Good legal advice

can make all the difference.

V

Langrock Sperry 8: Wool takes
PRIDE in contributing to the
advance in civil rights for gay  
and lesbian citizens, and to
making our state a better place
  for all Vermonters.

Langrock Sperry & Wool offers the services of 22
lawyers with over 300 years combined experience in
all areas of the law — including two lesbian
attorneys with special expertise serving the legal
needs of the g/l/b/t/q community

SUSAN MURRAY & BETH -ROBINSON
With offices in Middlebury and Burlington
Middlebury (802) 588-6556
“ Burlington (802) 864-0217
smurray@langrock.com brobinson@langrock.com

Langrock Sperry & Wool, LLP

ATTORNEYS AT LAW

Nancy Ellen ‘Judd, MA
Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor

COUNSELING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

§802§863.2084

2 CHURCH STREET, BURLINGTON VT 05401

 

reams I ADULTS i INDIVIDUALS 1 couPi.Es

Verbal Arrows

am a butch, I take the verbal
arrows straight to my heart.
Forty-three years after coming
out I am still a walking target for
abuse. Aren’t I too old to have to
suffer these ignorant young fools?
Or old ones, like that fool
in the white house. The fool that
about 50 percent of American vot-
ers support. I don’t need statistics
to tell me that’s the 50 percent that
still fears and hates me because I
am queer. It’s not over yet.
Ousting the fools from the hill will
help, legions of us marching for
our rights will help, insisting on

' living freely and openly will keep

us stronger and more healthy, but
as long as this country’s leaders
are having a field day dismantling
democracy, there will be homo-
phobes, anti-Semites, racists and
bigots of every stripe unabashedly
encouraging their younguto tor-
mentanyone different from them-
selves. ‘

Why didn’t I just cross
the street and say to the kids who
were harassing me, “Did you want
to say something to me? ’Cause I
have something to say to you.’ I
have never hurt you. Let’s learn to
live together.” That might have
stopped their foul tongues,
momentarily halted the words they
learned from their elders.

I didn’t because it never
even occurred to me. My head is
still somewhere back in the 1950s_
when the word queer was whis-
pered, was only an insult.

I have a mindset that
expects castigation. I spent so
many years dreading the taunts,
the blows, the busts, that there is a
track of fear worn deep in my psy-
che right between the track where
my defiance resides and the track
of optimism. My first.-thought is
about how soon I can sell my
home, my beloved sanctuary. My
second, that the permission’s been
given from on high, vilification of
gay people is being encouraged

again — not only by the social con- '

servatives in power, but by ven-
omous religious backlash. Some
Episcopal men in skirts would
rather start a new church than have
a gay bishop. The"Catholic head
honchos, perhaps to distract from
their child abuse scandals, are
preaching against gay marriage.
The message gets to me in the
form of these wisecracks that grow

  

louder and lewder over the
months. '

My third thought is that
these are disenfranchised
teenagers. There’s obviously not a
lot of money and English is a sec-
ond language to them. Should this
make a difference? Sure, it should
make them more sensitive to peo-

country’s leaders ”

Fat chance.

Here comes my friend
now, come to walk, just walk in
peace — until the taunts begin. I
will, of course, do what the anti-

ly moral Catholics insist is right, I
will turn the other cheek. It’s all I
know to do, all l’ve ever done

was pelted with words whose
meaning I didn’t, understand. I
keep on keeping on, walking with
my head high, trying to find the
positive in all this. I bless them
through gritted teeth. I breathe in
all the light I can absorb and thank
the goddess for giving me the
strength to keep this up’ these 43

gay Episcopalians and the staunch-

even before I knew I was gay and I

live my life in safety? Go straight? I

l
1

years. I breathe out peace and ask '
the universe to help my abusers to ‘

As long as this

are having a field day
dismantling democracy,
there will be homophobes,
ranti-Semites, racists and

bigots

ple who share their caste of Other.
But it doesn’t work that way;
instead, it makes me more sympa-
thetic to them. I rage, I cry, I
understand.

What I’d hoped for here
in the’ quirky, old part of town, was
some anonymity, but I don’t dress
anonymously, I don’t walk anony-
mously, I don’t write anonymous-
ly. Even gray-haired, when I’m
supposed to have reached blessed
invisibility, they ‘notice the butch
walk, my companions. Do I bring
it on myself, hugging my lover
hello or goodbye in broad day-
light? Do I bring it on myself,
walking with my short-haired
friend? What do I have to do to

of every stripe.

love, not hate. I shrug off the ver-.
bal arrows and turn the corner,
where I rant to my also-wounded
friend.

This war has been raging
against us forever. Damn, it hurts.
Within a few minutes, though —
and until next time — we’re laugh-
ing. After all, we’re the lucky ones
— we get to be gay. V

Copyright Lee Lynch 2003. Lee
Lynch is the author of eleven
books- including The Swashbucklef
and the Morton River Valley
Trilogy. She lives on the Oregon
Coast. ' '

jg, :'