They Tried to Outlaw Elvis, Too

And how’d that work out?

He became even more of a superstar because a bunch of uptight fuddy-duddies couldn’t deal with all the hip waggling. They just blasted a giant spotlight of rage on him and all the kids said, “That’s what I want,” and well … Long Live the King.

The Stones and the Beatles had to be demonized, too, of course (not that any of them were particularly angelic, except maybe Ringo, bless his heart), and of course any woman singing about desire or enjoying “it” or wanting “it” was threatened with boycott and ban. Little Richard, the King and Queen of Rock’n’Roll, was all but banned in several states. But they all persisted. It never worked. You can’t put genies back in bottles. Once the proverbial cat is out of the mythical bag, well … that cat learns quick not to go anywhere near the asshole holding the bag ever again.

My default is to rebel, always dig my feet stubbornly in against whatever the current authority is trying to shove down my throat and resist for all I’m worth.

We’re here. We’re Queer. Get used to it.

Or we’re Pagan, or Atheist, or Satanist, or Wiccan or Whatever-not-White/CIS/Christian they get a bug up their collective butt about this week.

Why do so many people have to hate what doesn’t look like them? Why the hell do we terrify them?

I have a suspicion that it’s because we decided The Game wasn’t working for us, so we took ourselves off the playing field and made one of our own. As a consequence, we’re so … completely who we are, and we look really whole and happy, and clearly God isn’t punishing us for being different, so what the fuck is up with that?

Also maybe there’s a little bit of, “I can’t be who I am, so why should they be allowed to be who they are?” rabbling around in the stew.

Ah ha! So telling. I saw a news article on Google News the other day, about a study that found, basically, that watching porn is 100% positively correlated with being extremely religious. And the gayer the porn, the more rabidly fundamental. I confess, I didn’t read the whole article, just enough to shake my head and snicker a little bit, so I’m not an authority here. But damn, if that study holds up … wow.

But “I can’t be who I am.” Why not? Seriously, why can’t you? Because it would be uncomfortable? Embarrassing? Because it would kill your aged mother? Because White Jesus is standing over you with an AR-15 (now with handy SCOTUS-endorsed bump-stock!) threatening you with eternal damnation if you so much as hum a show tune?

Well, you know what, you keep up that incandescent rage. You keep throwing all that attention on these bright, shiny, happy people who are simply living their truth, and just like Elvis, we will rise.

My friend Christine Moad (Miss Christine) and I wrote a song a couple years back, which is being released this Pride Month. It’s about how the haters are gonna lose. Enjoy!

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