PRIDE MONTH: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY

LINK to online version

In his June 8 letter to the editor, Sen. Parkinson lashed out at “instances of hate directed toward the LGBTQ+ community.” He then went on to lecture about flags, symbols, equality, love, acceptance, resilience, etc.

Given Parkinson’s righteous eloquence and his reference to “instances” (plural) and “hateful actions” (plural), one would think that war had broken out in the streets and gays were being rounded up and deported.

But despite Parkinson’s attempt to magnify the matter by digging up another incident from “a few years ago,” there is only one incident: the tearing down of a pride flag in Sinajana, and we don’t even know if it was actually a “hateful action” or a stupid one by just another screwball vandal.

Nevertheless, Parkinson gets good marks for being sharp enough to see an opportunity for free media not long before the next election.

Speaking of “hate” though, if one wants to experience it, you only need to speak up about the issue as I am doing now. Nothing labels you a “hater” faster or harder than having an opinion that doesn’t genuflect before the rainbow flag.

Back in 2009-2010, during what I call “the same-sex wars,” I found myself quite alone and at the center of things after legislation was introduced to legalize same-sex unions.

I ended up at “the center of things” not because I challenged same-sex unions morally but because I challenged the legislative shenanigans employed to try to slip the bill into law.

However, to take any position opposing the bill – even just demanding an honest legislative process – made you a hater.

I’m not sure why I cared about the issue. On a personal level, I don’t even notice or care about a person’s sexual orientation. However, reading Parkinson’s faux-Churchillian address to his “subjects” reminded me of why I entered the fray.

If there’s something that sets me off, it’s the abuse of little people by big people, big people like a senator, like Sen. Parkinson.

In this case (and in my opinion), Parkinson blows up a single pathetic act of vandalism into a Pride Month apocalypse, not only to send out his low-frequency virtue signal but to cast himself as an LGBTQ+ Lancelot even if he is only jousting at straw men, or is it windmills?

The same thing happened in the same-sex war thing. Other than serious missteps by the now-banished Archbishop Apuron (which I’ll get to), there was never any meaningful opposition to the legislation so there was no need to sneak the thing through.

However, the proponents weren’t looking to simply get a bill passed, they were looking for a fight, or more so, a stage, and a stage with a spotlight, a spotlight on them. So when no fight materialized, they created an army of straw men and attacked their manufactured “haters.”

The media at the time was all in. So the whole thing became a machine, not a political machine to legalize same-sex unions but a machine to elevate and aggrandize an in-your-face normalization of same-sex behavior, lifestyle, whatever you want to call it. And the machine rolled over and crushed into “haters” any little people who dared peep up with any thought to the contrary.

Actually, the whole thing was such a false fight that it would have gotten tired of itself and gone away but for Apuron’s ghostwriter priest at the now infamous Redemptoris Mater Seminary.

Said priest fancied himself a moral theologian and attacked the bill via a letter to the Legislature in which he referenced the beheading of homosexuals by Muslims. Unfortunately for the now-banished Apuron, the priest did not put his name to the letter but distributed it on Apuron’s letterhead.

And wham! That’s all the proponents needed. They had their straw man: a Catholic archbishop (Apuron) who would allegedly behead homosexuals. I still remember the news report showing Apuron running down a hallway with reporters chasing after him.

Ultimately, the legislation did go away when the sponsor withdrew it. On Catholic Guam you might think that it was withdrawn for moral reasons. It was not.

There was plenty of support for the bill and it would have passed but for a phone call one morning into a radio talk show by the then-director of the GovGuam retirement fund.

Said director outlined the probable negative impact of same-sex unions on the retirement fund and that was that. The sponsor withdrew the bill the next day.

Tim Rohr has resided in Guam since 1987. He has raised a family of 11 children, owned several businesses and most recently been active in local issues via his blog, JungleWatch.info, letters to local publications and occasional public appearances. He may be contacted at timrohr.guam@gmail.com