The Stupidity of Humanity, or the Musings of Mr. Bradley ii

People can be very cruel sometimes. They hurt each other and manipulate each other and kill each other, if not always physically. Why, though? Why is it that we are so insecure about ourselves that we have to take it out on those around us?

Small series of anecdotes: I always ride the bus home. I always sit at the front. It's an easy seat to get to, and very few other people will get there anyway. Plus it gives me a great vantage point to ogle the new bus driver Jake. He's only 23, maybe 24, with these gorgeous blue eyes and that kind of to-hell-with-it hairdo. You know, the kind that guys wake up with and then never do anything about it. I've done it a lot, and it can be incredibly awesome or incredibly stupid.

Anyway, so I'm sitting in the front, all by myself, no one else for like, five rows. And this major major douchebag gets on the bus, deep in conversation with his mom. The one line I hear as he passes is, "Because there's always this little shithead who sits at the front."

Well. Thank you for the ego boost.

You see, Parker and I had never gotten along anyway. Ever since I came out to the bus during an argument over Proposition 8 in December 2008, Parker seems to have made it his life goal to taunt me. He's constantly saying how that fag can't be on the bus, how that fag should be locked up. Yeah, same to you. His favorite greetings are "Hey, fairy" and "Morning, fag kid." Invariably I want to respond "Good morning, bastard." Though I never do.

He doesn't even make an effort to talk behind my back. He loudly discusses me when I'm only half a bus away. (Though I'm used to that by now—once there was a group of sophomores in the very back talking about that gay kid at the front. Unaware that I could hear them, they all turned to look at me at once, only to find me waving flamboyantly back at them. Okay, so I don't help my case much sometimes, but more on that later.) One day I just couldn't stand him asking the air around me if I would do him or not, and for the first time I actually talked to Parker. I said something to the effect that I wanted to sink my teeth into him, as a metaphor of course, and why on Earth couldn't they hear the dripping sarcasm in my voice?

Shortly thereafter Parker stopped riding the bus. The next school year comes around, and here he is again, talking about how he hates the bus because of the little shithead at the front of it.

I know I bring a lot of the comments on myself, what with my ever-increasingly bright and colorful wardrobe, recently pierced ears, and an affinity for rings and nail polish (but only when I can get some). Parker always has to comment on whatever I'm wearing/sporting, which has really gotten annoying since he ran out of original putdowns. "Only gay people paint their nails," he says. No shit, Sherlock. I thought you knew that months ago? Or is it just now hitting you that we exist and we're closer than you think?

What I don't get is why Parker, with his acne-free face and beefy body, the kind any man would kill for if he didn't have to work out to maintain it, is so insecure with himself or his sexuality or even his popularity, I don't really know, that he has to put me down to build himself up. I mean, yes he's got the smoldering good looks and the contours of the Grand Canyon, but the sour personality underneath puts me off completely, something I've told him more than once. "You have nothing to worry about," I would say, conspicuously running my eyes up and down his figure before shrugging and turning back to whatever book I was reading at the time.

So why is he still convinced that as a gay man all I want to do is ravish his poor, poor body? Oh wait, I forgot. A gay person couldn't possibly be looking for love in this world. No, gay people are all about sex. It's all I think about! That cloud looks like people having sex. That cake makes me think of sex. Reading a detailed description of the construction of the Eiffel Tower makes me think of sex. It's everything to gay people! They'll stop at nothing to get it, even if they have to ravish every good, upstanding straight person to satisfy their deviant, carnal desires.

Wow. That makes me sound like I actually have an interesting life. I probably go clubbing every night, waking up hungover in the arms of some muscly stranger I've never seen before, our clothes in tatters from our fits of passion and my body aching from the rigorous activity. At least that way I'd be getting consistent exercise.

Not that I don't want sex with men, I mean cause it sounds great and wonderful if slightly terrifying when I think about the vulnerability of it, but I really just want to find love. Don't we all want someone who thinks the world of us, who can argue without making us mad, someone who calls just to hear you talk to them, who we can snuggle with on the couch while watching The Notebook? Someone we can hold hands with and spend time with and generally live our lives with? Why is it that some people can get all that by default, while others are doomed to live lives of wild partying and nightly orgies? It just seems so unfair that all those women get love, and I'm stuck with the lust, because any self-respecting woman would never lust after a man's body. After all, don't we gays do that enough to compensate?

In my friend's history class, they were discussing the origins of America, the pilgrims who sailed here looking for a land where they could worship as they choose. Some idiotic student points out that no, we don't discriminate in America anymore—what a terrible notion! I hate to burst whatever glowing happy bubble you live in, kid, but yes we do.

It's not that I think gay people need to be able to marry, though I do. (My friend and I discussed this once—she says that marriage should be for heterosexual couples and something else should be for homosexual couples. I think that's like denoting a straight man with fashion sense as metrosexual: entirely pointless, because why give something a new term just because it makes you uncomfortable? There's never a law that a man can't be straight and have good taste, but they have to denote him as a whole new category.) It's more about the equal rights, things like visitation laws and inheritance rights and stuff that straight couples get but gay people don't.

Today in the library I helped put up a display of multicolored socks, accompanied by the quote "Choose your friends by their character and your socks by their color. Choosing your socks by their character makes no sense, and choosing your friends by their color is unthinkable." (Anonymous) Because when you really think about it, things like skin color and what you do in bed with other people are so far down the list of things that matter in a person's character that they nearly cease to matter at all.

A few arguments as to why homosexuality is wrong:

1. It goes against God. Well, a lot of things go against God. Another great quote, despite its length: "An engineering professor is treating her husband, a loan officer, to dinner for finally giving in to her pleas to shave off the scraggly beard he grew on vacation. His favorite restaurant is a casual place where they both feel comfortable in slacks and cotton/polyester-blend golf shirts. But, as always, she wears the gold and pearl pendant he gave her the day her divorce decree was final. They're laughing over their menus because they know he always ends up diving into a giant plate of ribs but she won't be talked into anything more fattening than shrimp.
Quiz: How many biblical prohibitions are they violating? Well, wives are supposed to be 'submissive' to their husbands (I Peter 3:1). And all women are forbidden to teach men (I Timothy 2:12), wear gold or pearls (I Timothy 2:9) or dress in clothing that 'pertains to a man' (Deuteronomy 22:5). Shellfish and pork are definitely out (Leviticus 11:7, 10) as are usury (Deuteronomy 23:19), shaving (Leviticus 19:27) and clothes of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19). And since the Bible rarely recognizes divorce, they're committing adultery, which carries the rather harsh penalty of death by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:22).
So why are they having such a good time? Probably because they wouldn't think of worrying about rules that seem absurd, anachronistic or - at best - unrealistic. Yet this same modern-day couple could easily be among the millions of Americans who never hesitate to lean on the Bible to justify their own anti-gay attitudes." (Deb Price, And Say Hi To Joyce) The quote really says it all. Why use the Bible in your defense when I can just as easily use it in mine?

2. It goes against Nature. Um. Hello? Animals have gone gay for forever. The gay penguins in New York that adopted a rock for an egg. The dolphins that do what dolphins do. The dogs that hump each other. How can you say we go against Nature when Nature's doing it all the time? Honestly.

3. If we give gay people equal rights, we'll have to give them to everybody! Well, who wants equal rights? They're so overrated there's no point anyway. But what about all those prostitutes and beastial people, wanting to get married to everyone and everything? Those poor goats! Well, what if (and I know this is a radical new policy) we define a marriage as between two legal consenting adults? That right there takes care of the goats, at least. As for the prostitutes, well, they're going to sleep with everyone anyway, so why are they fighting for marriage rights in the first place?

Anyway, people are just really stupid in general. I know I am sometimes, but I do my best not to be. Why can't everyone be like that?