playing the victim

If you can handle it (beware: crazies):

If you don't feel like watching, here's my condensed version: "Hi, I'm Maggie Gallagher from the National Organization for Marriage. We're a group of bigots who believe in 'traditional marriage,' - the one where your wife is chosen for you and you own her and she has to be the same race as yo-- oh, shit, sorry, I mean traditional marriage after the 1960s, that's the one we're talking about. Anyway, huhuh! Silly me. We're just so tired of being persecuted for our beliefs and being who we are. We feel like we should be allowed to be bigots and not have people find out that we're bigots when we donate to antigay, bigoted campaigns. We're just tired of the 'name-calling.'"

And then Stephen Baldwin joins in, and really, I could care less. Are you Alec Baldwin? No, so I don't care. And neither does America.

So, apparently, the new trend for gay marriage opponents (the new strategy, is what it really is, since they're more transparent than saran-wrap with holes in it) is to play the victim. They're the victim of harassment, ridicule and, this is really hard for me to even type, persecution.

Maggie Gallagher is a victim of persecution. She's a member of a community that is being persecuted for their beliefs. Maggie, tell me, have you or your community ever had your ass glued shut as a form of torture so that you would die an unimaginably painful death simply because of your sexual orientation? Ever been beaten in the face with a fire extinguisher? Anyone ever protested your untimely funeral, saying that you deserved to rot in hell? Been called names mercilessly for years in school? Probably, since you're fat.

My point here is not the Maggie Gallagher's fat, even though she is, it's that these people are not victims and who are they kidding when they play the victim like that? I'd love to live in a world where they were being persecuted for their beliefs because an overwhelming majority of people saw them as the bigots they are, but frankly, we don't live in that world (yet).

You are not a victim. And if you are, you are bringing it upon yourself as you continue to be willfully ignorant to the injustice you're causing and the antigay rhetoric you're spewing.

There are people who make things happen, and there are people who things happen to. I decided a while ago that I was never going to be a person that things just happened to. Those people are complacent and passive. I never understood why someone would rather skew their situation and see through the eyes of the victim. You are not empowered, you are closed off, you are stuck.

When shit starts falling on your head, what do people generally do? They ask questions. That is, after they get the umbrella, hopefully. Here's the line of questions a victim asks:

• Who the fuck is making it rain shit on my head? (Who did this to me? Since you're a victim, it's always going to be someone else.)
  
• Why the fuck do they hate me so much? (Why me?)
  
• When will it stop shitting on me? (When will it stop shitting on me?)

Now, here's what an empowered person would ask:

• Why is shit falling from the sky? (What's going on here? I need to take a look at this crazy situation!)
• How can I make it stop, or save myself from raining shit? (How do I, being a perfectly capable and smart human being, bring an end to this?)

The victim sees themselves in a perpetual state of things happening to them, why me, how could you do this to me, oh my god, me!? Keep in mind there are the victims who are genuine victims of wrongdoing. But then you start playing the victim when help is offered to you and you refuse it - because you'd rather be miserable. You'd rather be alone, you'd rather be pissed off because it's easier than getting yourself up, assessing the situation, and growing from it.

The empowered person, AKA the person who is never victimized, asks the right questions. At times, it's much more difficult to be empowered than it is to play the victim. You can't waste your time wallowing in the comforting sadness that is "woe is me." You have to take a long, hard look at things, and sometimes, it isn't pretty. But you ask the right questions - you wonder how this is happening and realize that it might not just be someone doing something to you. Saying something is happening to you is self-centered and automatically puts you in a place where it's an attack situation. Whoever or whatever is causing you pain is an enemy. News flash: it isn't always that simple. Breaking news flash: sometimes, there are accidents and it's not all about you.

Sometimes, the empowered finds that they brought it upon themselves. Sometimes, they find that other people brought it upon them. Other times, they find it's a matter of circumstance and it's no one's fault. No matter WHO is at fault for the raining shit, their next step is not to wallow in the shittiness of their situation as a victim, but it's to find out how to stop it.

Maggie Gallagher, Stephen Baldwin, and all the victims who I know - get over yourself. You cute, but you ain't that cute. Ain't nobody that cute. Especially with shit raining on their head. Ask the right questions, get yourself out of the wrong situations. Choose not to be a victim. It's really that simple, and that hard.