No H8 is No Help

Now, forgive me for my previous rant being near immediately followed up by this, but two options present themselves readily. Either read/agree/disagree or ignore. Life is full of options like that. (Huzzah!)

My particular beef of the night is with the No H8 photos that are literally seeping out of every pore of the internet. I get it, you don’t like hate. That’s certainly a very sensible attitude. I’d be slightly concerned if you were a fan. My issue, I suppose, stems from how you choose to do something about it.

There are several courses of action that would, in theory, seem logical to pursue to aid this noble effort of creating a system of true equality in our society. Donating to a charity that provides anti-bullying education to children is one. Becoming active in politics to get progressive candidates elected is another. Getting involved in your community chapters of activist groups is yet another. There are several alternatives, obviously, and I will spare you the laundry list. 

The choice of action recently, however, has been to…go get glamor shots. Now, these aren’t your average run of the mill glamor shots, no sir-ee. These are “let’s put on white tee shirts, stand against a white background, get semi-to-obscenely overlit to make us look fabulous, put some duct tape on our mouths and take red and black markers to our face to show how amazingly active we are in our community” glamor shots. This is usually followed up by dinner, movies and generally not actually doing a damn thing to advance any kind of agenda.

Sure, they look wonderful on your Facebook wall. You have 50 comments telling you how lovely you look, how nice your hair is, how “I love the gays too!”, so on and so forth. You being generally gorgeous after photoshop doesn’t really help me get married though. 

I’m sure that some people have done remarkable things with their time and money, just certainly none of the people I know who’ve done this. I’m not naming names, of course, but these people have literally done eff all aside from this photo. Bless their hearts.

Come give me twenty five dollars, I’ll throw you under some fluorescent lights, give you some duct tape, ‘shop the ever loving shit out of you and give *all* the money to further my legal ability to marry my man and get the normal benefits everyone else takes for granted. That’s a little bit of a better deal than what you get with this mess.