Sunday, November 21, 2010

I Was Victim To The Dumbest Hate-Crime Ever

We live in a duplex, my dad on one side, my wife Nicole, my son Jonathan, and me on the other. It's just outside of the village of Minoa NY, and the property butts up against a Little League baseball field. It's not in a neighborhood really, just a house you pass on the road out of town. Jonathan goes to the elementary school about a quarter-mile down the road. It's pretty quiet.

Let me preface this story by informing you that I am not gay. I have very good friends who are gay, but I am not myself gay. My father is also, to my knowledge, not gay. My wife is also not gay, excepting if Kate Winslet were to show up at the door. As yet, Ms. Winslet has ignored my invitation. Jonathan is six, and is obviously still developing his personality, but despite his occasionally walking around in Nicole's shoes, he appears to also not be gay. He recently stated that Gwyneth Paltrow in the character of Pepper Potts from the movie "Iron Man" was "hot", a comment that lends itself to not-so-gayness. We are however, outspoken advocates of gay rights, such as the rights of gays to marry, and anti-bullying legislation. My family took part in the Syracuse Pride parade in June. Jonathan rode on my shoulders while we walked, helping a friend of ours carry a float for a parents of gay teens group. None of us though, are gay...or so we thought.

Last night someone decided write the word "gay" on the windshield of my car and place a dead possum the back of on my dad's. My dad saw the possum first this morning, going to get the newspaper. He was understandably confused. I first heard about it from him when I woke up and was also confused, and not really even sure what kind of dead animal this was, my contact with possums being fairly limited thus far. My cousin Sue and her boyfriend Mike came over to help my dad with something and Mike confirmed that yes, it was (once) a possum and he threw it into the woods. We just chalked the whole event up to bored Minoa kids with nothing better to do with a dead possum on a Saturday night. It wasn't until this evening when I had to drive my cousin Dan back to Utica (he'd come to Syracuse to go to karaoke with us last night), that I noticed the word "gay" written on my windshield. It seemed to be written in mud. I needed to get Dan back to Utica in time for his gig tonight at Cafe Tramontane, so I just used my wipers for a bit and got going. When I got back I took a little bit better look and discovered that it was not mud. It was, in fact, shit. Yes, someone had decided to express their homophobia upon my car using an actual piece of shit as their pen. I do not know the origin of the shit. It may be human shit, it may be possum shit, it may be the shit of a third party. Tragically, we will probably never know the source of the shit.

The bizarreness of the methods of this act are trumped only by the logical assumption that the perpetrators of it believed us to be gay based exclusively on our common selection of a Toyota Prius as our car of choice. I drive a 2006 Toyota Prius, my dad drives a 2009. Somehow, this signaled to a, presumably nearby, homophobic individual who was bearing both a possum and a quantity of shit, that we must be gay. Who else but a gay person would want a car that gets 45MPG? Who else but a family of gay persons would have two such cars? My disappointment in the fecal artist extends beyond the act itself and into the massive logical fallacies employed. I can only assume that the act, or the reasoning behind it anyway, was premeditated. "See that house with them two Priuses. Someone gay must live there." Then they waited until they had both a dead possum and some shit, the former of the two being, I would think, the more difficult to come by. In fact, it would not surprise me if it was the acquisition of the dead possum, and an ensuing debate over how most homophobically to dispose of it, which led Poo Picasso to remember that obviously gay-containing house with the two Priuses.

A policeman came by to take a report. He was unsure if this qualified as a hate crime as Prius drivers are not currently considered a protected minority. He seemed to think it was the trouble-making kids down the street, but had nothing more than a hunch to base that on. He declined to take a shit sample for analysis.

Please let me underscore here the seriousness of actual hate-crimes and the importance of enforcing hate-crime laws. Please also understand the fuel-efficiency a person seeks in an automobile purchase has no correlation whatsoever to what gender they are attracted to. One last thing, please also do not take this as an indictment of the village or people of Minoa NY, excepting of course the massive dickhead who smeared shit on my car last night.