I was approaching the U.S. Supreme Court building across from the Capital, a year after their awful decision in Hardwick v. Bowers upholding the sodomy laws. For the first time I think ever, I was going to a demonstration not to be the detached photojournalist, but to actually count myself as a participant.   And to reenforce that I’d not brought any of my cameras (a decision I now regret, but so it goes).   I’d arrived via the subway, got off at Union Station and was walking across Constitution Avenue when I noticed there was a police presence already forming up.   As I walked past a group of them I heard one policeman, an older black gentleman, saying to his companions, “I don’t have no trouble with the older faggots…”

It struck me as a grim echo from another time and the bitter mockery of it made my head spin.   Yes, yes…nobody has any trouble with the ones that know their place.

This came across my news stream shortly after U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby struck down Utah’s anti-gay constitutional amendment denying same-sex couples the right to marry…

Utah weighs impact of ruling allowing gay marriage

While Utah’s attorney general strategizes an appeal of the ruling and Mormons take a softer approach in opposing gay marriage, others in the traditionally conservative state predict broader acceptance of the practice nationwide.

A quote in this leaped out at me…

For Hunt, 44, a bellhop at a swank downtown hotel a few blocks from the LDS church’s sacred Temple Square, the days have been spent discussing the ruling’s impact with family and fellow Mormons.

“Is it the end of the world? No,” he said, shivering in the 15-degree cold. “In the end, we have a message to the gay and lesbian people who live among us — we don’t hate you, it’s nothing like that. But we believe what we believe. And our conviction is strong.”

We don’t hate you…   No dear, of course you don’t.   As long as we stay in our place.   Bet you don’t have no trouble with the older faggots either.

How often I heard this crap back when King and Malcolm X were telling white folk they weren’t shining shoes anymore. We don’t hate them coloreds, they’re fine people…happy cotton pickers…dance with a lot of rhythm don’t they? We don’t hate women either.   How could you say I hate women…my god I married a woman…she’s a nice little homemaker…great in the kitchen…wouldn’t want her running a business though…that’s man’s work.

It’s disingenuous self serving sanctimony.   Sure you don’t hate Them.   You don’t hate Them as long as They know Their place and stay in it.   It’s when They won’t stay in Their place that the hate starts happening.   Torrents of it.

Ever wonder at the passions you see suddenly snap out of a bigot when they’re forced to…you know…behave like a bigot?   It is because now they have to see what monsters they really are deep down inside. You made me do this to you…I hate you for making me do this to you…for making me see what kind of person I really am…

After a few false starts I’ve managed the upgrade.   At some point I might start looking for another theme since I very seldom update the right column anymore.   But for now all I wanted to do was get the blog on the current version of WordPress.

I am also running a class reunion site here that has been woefully neglected and now it’s so far behind in WordPress versions it’s not even displaying anymore and I had to take it down.   That’s going to be a manual upgrade process I am not looking forward to…