the small town i live in (pop 1600) has a regular
event every 5 years called "Homecoming" that
beckons everyone smart enough to have escaped
to come back and spend some money .... comes
complete with all the rinky dink nonsense of a
small town event: booths, parade, local HS show
choir performance, yada yada, right?
sooooo i am a VERY active board member in the
local chapter of the national advocacy group
PFLAG (P-FLAG): parents, family/friends of
gays and lesbians (totally inclusive of the oft
abandoned transgender commmunity)
OUR booth happened to be almost directly across
the street from a local café owned by.... yep, you
guessed it .... a JW!!!! and as is the custom on this
bay, in these small towns, all of which funnel their
JW population to the one KH in the area, there
was a swarm of JWs hanging out in front of his
café to watch the parade.... incl the elduh who
had conducted the BS that met at our home for
a solid decade..... and his VERY pregnant wife
and their 4 kids....
i was sitting under an awning next to a gay
ex-priest who became some sort of other
denomination minister, the female lutheran
minister who is the chapter leader for PFLAG
and a retired real-estate agent who is one foot
out of the closet, having recently moved in with
her 80 year old partner (they grow 'em hardy here
in the northwoods)... we were all quite animated
and chatting up the crowd, hollering to the parade
participants and generally engaged in cultivating
awareness of our chapter and the activities we
present
the JW contingent was sweating in the sun and
basically giving us the stink eye... go figure
we were raffling off a quilted wall hanging to raise
a little $$$.... and not one of the JWs wandered
over to say hi or buy a chance.... what is up with that??
i get to turn in 11 hours for field service... as if any
other "volunteer" group gives a rat's rear end about
keeping track of that kind of nonsense..... all i know is,
in spite of being pretty wiped out, i knew i had made a
difference, a REAL difference in a community that surely
has LGBTQ people hiding in fear, who might now know
there is a group in their midst that works publicly to
advance the cause of social justice and equal rights
thru the PFLAG mission: support, education, advocacy!!!
i joked with the chapter leader when i pointed out that
this publicly "witnessed" activity might stir the ashes and
actually call for "official" condemnation (as far as i can
tell i have not been DF'd cos some still wanna chat) ....
she asked me what i would do if the edluh called and
i said i would ask him why he didnt buy a raffle ticket!!!!!