Queer life. Life as a queer. What could be more queer than life? Everything important happens in your head, you know.
Where does 'you' stop, and everything else begin? Take a piece of very fine sandpaper and gently rub your arm. At first nothing seems to happen, but before long there is pain and then blood. Have you found yourself? Was the previous layer of cells not part of you, but rather the boundary between you and everything else?
The difference between that piece of sandpaper rubbing your arm and someone's finger rubbing, say, your left nipple, is what? On your side of your skull, it probably feels better (but at least you know whether it does or not). You really want to believe that the person attached to the finger rubbing your left nipple is having more fun than did that piece of sandpaper, but that can at best be a theory. You cannot know another person better than you can know a piece of sandpaper.
What are the implications of this wisdom to a discussion of family values?
Given that there is no way, absolutely no way, you can be certain of what any other person believes or feels, which makes more sense?
(1) Line everyone up, tell them what to believe, administer an oath ("I believe in..."), then arrange dire consequences for behavioral evidence that the oath didn't take.
(2) Ask people what they believe and how they feel, and talk about making a world in which they are free to be like that.
If you think #2 is the better choice, congratulations! You are queer.
You knew that, huh? Okay, my advice for living the queer life is to listen to yourself, believe in yourself, and help make a world in which everyone is free to do the same.
There are a lot of complications to making that work, but that's what life is for, working out the details. Go to it!
[Published in the fall 2003 "Welcome" issue of Q*News at Michigan State University.]