“THE  60%  SOLUTION”                             

by Michael Kirwan

      Recently the great state of Texas has decided that gay people are too depraved, disgusting and hell-bound to act as foster parents for children who have been abandoned by there biological progenitors. These infants, toddlers, kids and teenagers would apparently be better served in an institutional setting than with a loathsomely queer family or individual willing to take on the responsibility and care of these orphans according to the Texas legislature. Charming. These God-fearing Christians are all about compassion and understanding and have obviously given the issue a great deal of thought. I live in Florida where fags and dikes are still permitted to foster children but where it is illegal to adopt. As the Bush administration pushes onward, as the Christian Taliban ascends to a more prominent level of power, As fear, ignorance, illiteracy and financial uncertainty spread throughout the nation, we queers are being more and more targeted as easy picking by the Right Wing lunatics. Even I write this there is a cadre of Conservative judges being installed who will further strip us of our civil rights in the future. I think it’s time to negotiate with these assholes.

      Since we are denied the privilege of serving our country in the military (because our very presence incites fear and hostility), since we cannot marry whom we choose, because of the foster and adoption restrictions and the fact that we will lose whatever protections we have concerning employment and housing when this judges are on the bench, it is a fact that we are not full citizens of the United States of America. We are not accorded the same rights as the rest of the populace. Let’s just accept it. But it makes sense that since we are sub-citizens, a distinctly discriminated against class, that we only pay 60% of the taxes we are instructed to fork over every April. Not only should ALL OF US only pay 60% of the tax burden but we should have that 40% of the taxes we have already paid in the past returned to us with interest. Then they can treat us as badly as they please. They get to revile us in public and classify us as deviants and perverts and we get to keep a goodly sum of our earned income every year. If we ALL did it, if we ALL deducted the 40% to compensate us for our abbreviated rights, what could the government do? Lock us all up? It would be quite a feat for them to absorb three or four million extra prisoners all at once. And that’s not even counting the folks out there who might think that pocketing 40% of their tax debt might be worth sucking a few dicks for. Or the next batch of queers, or the generation after that. This would be OUR “Boston Tea Party”. The great homo-revolt of 2006 (we’ve already been suckered into paying this year).

      One of our main problems has been representation. Why don’t we have gay leadership that rallies us in times of crisis? Why isn’t there someone (or some organization----although a single voice is more effective) who can guide us collectively towards a better tomorrow? I’ll be glad to fill the position until they assassinate me. These religious creeps are our enemies. We’ve got to unite against them if we are going to elbow our way into our rightful place at the table of humankind. Forget voting, forget compromise, forget waiting patiently for things to magically get better. They won’t. It’s time for action, it’s time for us to stand nose to nose with these filthy Motherfuckers and tell them our demands. Either give us the exact same constitutionally recognized EQUAL citizenship in EVERY aspect of our lives or live with the 60% Solution. Give us our human rights NOW or start printing up our retroactive tax refunds. Every goddamned cent that any queer has ever earned in their lifetime has to have the 60% Solution applied to it and then we’ll acquiesce to their bigotry and idiocy.

      Of course, should I ever get my sub-citizen refund I’m taking it and moving to Spain or Canada or someplace else on the planet that isn’t being run by morons and assholes as fast as I could book a flight.         

The End