Alright..

My friend Matthew’s memorial service is this weekend. His family are Soldiers for Christ in the Salvation Army. I forgot what a homophobic organization they are, but slowly but surely, I’m being reminded.

We’re putting together a photo-montage of his life. We have oodles of pictures of Matthew but they have made us take out the drag pictures. No cross dressing photos allowed. (Hello. That’s a good chunk girl!)

Then they won’t allow us to have his partner’s poem at the service (male to male poetry?).

We’re abiding by all this to respect his family of course. The last thing we’d want to do is turn his memorial into a protest but I am reminded of what we can do as individuals.

The photo above is a 3-Dollar Bill (as in: queer as). I used to print these out several Christmas’ ago and drop them into the kettle in front of the department store when I passed those seasonal bell ringers. I thought it was a vocal, and non-confrontational way to remind them that there are donors out there who are unable to contribute to some of the good work they do because of their homophobia.

Of course, now that Ms. Kroc (of McDonald’s fame) has provided them with the largest donation in U.S. history, they probably don’t even wince at my folded three dollar bill. But, if ALL of us did this, across the U.S. EVERY Christmas, eventually over time, maybe they’d do the math of how many real dollars they’re missing out on. Even die hard Christian’s do math in dollars and cents don’t they?

http://www.cultureandfamily.org/articledisplay.asp?id=336&department=CFI&categoryid=cfreport

I, for one, will be resuming this practice, I hope you might too. Be well. I love you.

http://www.glaad.org/eye/stories.php