Hypocrisy

                It’s easy to say you stand up for certain things until faced with a situation where it becomes uncomfortable for you. Things like marriage equality and equal rights. It’s easy to say that you stand up for transgender people, so long as you never actually have to. It’s amazing how fast people can change. How one slip can show true colours. How even the smallest hint of something that’s different from them can cause people to act out.

                I’m not straight. Many of my friends are, especially the male ones—actually all the males are straight, and all but one of the females are not. They’re all very supportive of my life, but in subtle ways they, the males, show that they don’t think of it as being important, or demean it to some lesser thing. Whenever I have a post that gets a ton of attention, they shrug it away as just being about queer stuff, like that’s less important. And some of them will get visibly uncomfortable at the mere thought of gay guys. Heaven forbid two fictional males with great chemistry be more than friends. They have to be straight! Or else it’s just so very wrong.  

                People will always support things until it becomes an inconvenience to them.

                When I was a child, my uncle always said he was a big supporter of equal rights. “People are people!” He would say, as I sat on the deck with him, playing with toy trucks. “Everybody deserves an equal shot!” He would say, as we watched baseball on TV. Then people began getting equal rights, and his office building began to become more diverse. “Gotta be careful with these people; never know where they’re coming from.” He’d say, as we drove to the park. “Gonna be out of this job soon, they keep hiring more of those people,” he’d say, as he took a pull from the bottle.

                When I was a teen, my friends would say that marriage equality was wrong, and a sin against God, as they went out and drank every weekend. “Those gay people are sexual deviants. God doesn’t like when people do that,” they’d say before committing adultery. “God says we have to love everyone, so that’s what I do!” They’d say before slandering and condemning people who were different from them.

                Hypocrisy always has a hold on the world. Hypocrisy always holds people’s hearts.

                As young adult, my friends will celebrate the victories of the queer community and pretend that they can relate. They will cheer for equality, yet complain when fictional characters come out. So many accept lesbians with open arms, but the thought of two men together disgusts them. They want the refugees to come, so long as they don’t come to their towns. They want religious equality, so long as no one opens a temple in their town. They want an end to violence, yet hold tight to their guns.

                Hypocrisy runs the world. Hypocrisy runs their souls.

                Standing up is so easy, when all it takes is a single word. Standing up is hard when it actually takes time and effort. Standing up for something becomes a chore if it changes things. Standing up is hard when you actually need to accept people and change your own inner thoughts.

                People always say they’ll make a stand for things, people will always cry support, but they shy away when the time comes to actually act. Saying that you stand for something when you don’t truly doesn’t help, it makes things worse. Speaking out without action doesn’t help, it hinders.

                So many hypocrites. So many falsehoods. If you say that you’re going to take a stand, damn well take it.