-7,.-,.—..-V.-—_. ..,..,...,.. . . .

Well, I went out and bought
Oa Weed Eater last night. I

really don’t want to play ll1.l‘T
gardening game. I can remember
Grandma Lynch on her hands and -
knees yanking crabgrass out of her
lawn interminably. While it’s true
that she grew the best corn, straw-
berries and beefsteak tomatoes in
the world, I understand why my
father became an avid apartment-
dweller. lt’s ridiculous to spend sig-
nificant parts of one’s life pulling ‘
weeds.

Which got me thinking
about how much of gay life these
days is spent wresting out noxious
growths of the anti-gay sort. Once
we were the great unmentionable,
now the people who revile us can’t
seem to speak of anything else. I
fear that the carefully laid plans of
the right will succeed and W. will

 

to produce their hateful words.
Such a smattering of them just after
the oppressive winter did not seem
to require sharp weeding hoes and
cutters.

But look at how they’ve
spread tough tangled roots through
this democratic soil to block gay
civil rights. Imagine needing a con-

I understand why my
father became an avid
apartment-dweller. _
It's ridiculous to spend
significant parts of one’s

be reelected in order to squelch us.
There is no way rational people can
vote for him, but by raising this
ruckus over our patient requests for
equal rights, the populace is being
frightened into making irrational
decisions. I-low awfirl it must feel
to be told that gay people are
destroying marriage and the family,
the very core of many Americans’
lives. Some will vote Republican in
the belief that they are defending
themselves and everything they

. hold sacred.

Out, damned weeds!

Look at the weeds sprouting at
every reference to gay marriage. At
first they were lively early spring
green shoots, a handful of protest-
ers in Portland and San Francisco.
This is to be expected — a sign of
the healthy soil of free speech.
Their biblicized signs could be
laughed off and we could pity them
for the venom they must live with

life pulling weeds.

stitutional amendment, much less
50lof them, to defend heterosexual-
ity against you and me. Yet we
have to reckon with these ridicu-
lous efforts or they will take over
the life of the garden, sucking the
nourishment from the soil, casting
dank shade over everything we’ve
painstakingly grown. The belief
systems of the non-gays who find
us pernicious go deep and can
sometimes tap into scarce water,
leaving us strangling from a thirst
to just live our lives. That’s how it
was in the ballot measure wars -
eventually all our energy went into
the fight and drained our lives.
Which, of course, was the intent of
the naysayers.

Look at the thomed stems
and hairy leaves that steal space
from the gentler, carefinlly nurtured
plants. How come we scare them
so? What was it with that Southern
county thatjust tried to legislate us

out of town? Kentucky is back to
considering a measure to stop gay
couples from adopting children —
didn’t we already win the battle
against that weed? Look how nasty
Virginia’s getting, with conserva-
tives trying for a measure (it failed)
that would have prevented same-
sex couples from getting subsidized
home mortgages.

Look at these perennials,
these persistent, ugly weeds, resist-
ant to freeze and drought and care-
fully wielded cutting tools. When a
couple wants to marry, to adopt, to
buy a house, share health insur-
ance, inherit from each other or
even, it feels like, plant a garden
together, the weeds of ill will
spring from the earth again and
again. Do I prepare my garden only
for these weeds to thrive? It is as
true of human effort as of gardens
that the soil which is good for the
flower is also good for the weed. It
seems like gays just start to blos-
som, when suddenly anti-gays are
everywhere, trying to crowd us out
with unconstitutional laws, suspect
polls and violence. '

Some of the most trouble-
some of these weeds, like
bindweed, the stuff that sneaks
underground and doubles, triples
itself every time a root is cut, can
come up looking pretty. Bindweed
can be mistaken for morning glory.
In politics bindweed wears suits
and ties and has the fragrance of
flowers in afiershave and perfumes.
They are the most ambitious of the
plot. They look for backs to climb
on. When every other minority
group is made off limits to them,
they stand on us and shout about
the way the pansies have invaded
and are overrunning the garden,
when it is the parasitic weeds that
survive by attacking us.

Well, heck, no more Mr.
Nice Guy. I’m not kneeling on the
gardening kneepad for these weeds,
cautiously exposing their roots and
yanking them out one by one. I’m
going to set up this Weed Eater and
mow them down. I expect the next
election will take care of the other
little nuisances. V _

Copyright Lee Lynch 2004. Lee
Lynch is the author of eleven books
including The Swashbuckler and
the Morton River Valley Trilogy.
She lives on the Oregon Coast. '

        
 
  

S C m G l‘ C

Foundation ol: vermonl

  
     
   
   
   

Our Mission
The Samara Foundation of Vermont is a
charitable foundation whose mission is to
support and strengthen Vermont's gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgendered communities
today and build an endowment for tomorrow.

Todd Lawrence

Sales 8 Leasing Consultant

Please call 802-865-8226
(1 -800-833-60 1 7 x-8226)
for information or appoztntrnent
1 620 Shelburne Road
South Burlington, Vermont 05403

eritage Toyota 8 Scion

Buying or selling a home?
' Because our team is dedicated to provid-
ing the best possible service to all people
we are proud of our ties to the GLBT
‘ community.

Specializing in
Addison County
www.langteam.com
(802) 388-1000

 

George Brewer
REALTOR,
CRS, GRI, CRB, ABR
|angm|dd@sover.net