If Kamala Harris had won Tuesday's election, I would have announced I was stepping down from Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters and closing shop.
I'm sure some of you have noticed that I haven't been blogging as much as usual. Well, this blog is 18 years old. I began it when I was 35. Now I am 53 and things aren't moving along inside me as quickly as they were back then. Also, as some of you know, my dear mother passed away two years ago and it has still taken a lot out of me.
Furthermore, I think blogging is a little passe. This is the age of substacks, podcasts, and people looking to brand and market themselves. All I ever wanted was to educate folks on anti-gay lies. I think I've accomplished this on many levels. In addition, I got a bit of notoriety and a few awards out of it. I figured a Kamala Harris possible victory would allow me to go out on a high note.
But as we know, this didn't happen. I could still hang it all up, but I won't. For one, I ain't going out like this. I've spent too much time and effort on this blog to end it on such an awful note. I've got too much pride and, yes, ego to allow that to happen.
Secondly, Tuesday took me back to 2004 after another presidential election. George Bush was re-elected then and it was on the strength of several anti-marriage equality referendums which were also on ballots across the country. He even got assistance from Black pastors. As a black gay man, that vexed the hell out of me. So much in fact that I help to start one of Columbia, SC's first Black LGBTQ organizations called Palmetto Umoja.
The other thing I did was to begin working on a book about religious right lies. It was later self-published and wasn't exactly one of my best efforts. But a side project of my book effort was to create a blog to promote the book.
This blog right here
Believe me when I say there is nothing like a reminder of one's origin to put things in proper perspective.
Between the creation of this blog and today, I have seen and covered a lot of the times when my community have been found itself fearful for the future. From the passing of Prop 8 to several ballot initiatives passed via smearing us as pedophiles. I've also seen and covered a lot of victories from Obama's election to seeing marriage equality become legal via SCOTUS.
I am not going to attempt to predict the future because I don't know what's going to happen. I do know that unfortunately, things are going to get ugly before they get better. And we had better be prepared to fight and get at least as ugly as legally necessary.
As you can tell by the above picture, I have no problem with getting ugly (you can take that however you would like.)
But I can tell you that I intend to be here to educate you, get you angry, make you smile and laugh, and basically feel empowered. I may not blog as much as I used to, but I will keep up. I will also keep you up on as much as I can. Lastly, I intend to extend what I cover. And definitely be more caustic. It's time to put that stereotype of being the "vicious queen" into effect. But only just a little.
The bottom line is as long as you're reading, you can count on me to continue writing. And I intend to raise some serious hell.
