Irony

It was the fifth of August 1996, a steaming hot day in Georgia. My overalls stuck to my thighs, and my cotton candy ice cream cone melted as my mother urged me to eat it before it melts all over my hand. Early that morning we attended church, due to my good behavior I earned the now melting ice cream cone. I trudged down the street holding onto my mother’s hand, almost being dragged as my sweaty legs slumped under me. We approached another church, just up the street from mine, and a group of men were standing outside; screaming and yelling. My mother told me to look forward “Don’t say a word you, just keep on walking” she said while wagging her finger in front of my face. “Well why Mama, what those men doin” I said confused. “Just keep on walking, don’t say a damn word” my mother said, she seemed afraid almost. I was about six at the time, just learning how to read, and their signs caught my eye. I stopped in the middle of the men, trying to read their signs. “Th-The Bible says-says no ho-homes” I read confused “Mama, why don’t the Bible want any homes?” I continued to ask her. “ I told you not to stop, that says homos not homes, now let’s go I have to make lunch” my mother said while tugging angrily at my arm. “No, let er stay, let her learn the right ways to be brought up” one of the men said blank. He knelt down and looked at me dead in the eye, getting closer to my face he said “Now little girl, has your momma taught you about sexuality yet”. I shook my head, frightened by the stranger. My mother tugged at my arm hard, and said to the man “She’s really too young to be hearing about all this, we must be going” but the man insisted, and seemed to frighten my mother so she backed away.

 “Now look here little girl, all I’m gonna tell you is that the only love that’s acceptable here, in this country, and by God, is a man loving a women, and a women loving a man, you got that?” he said closer to my face than before

“Well sir, why?”

“Because the Bible says so, don’t question it”

“But sir the Bible says love everyone, so I can’t love my mama because she a girl?”

“Well uh, no not exactly like that..”

“Well then what exactly sir, because my church say that God love and accept everyone, and my church say that lovin’ everyone is okay sir”

“Well, uh, well..”

By then a large crowd of people gathered around, women, children, grown men. All of them intrigued by the man and I’s conversation. As the man ran out of things to say ,people began to clap, and I never understood why for a very long time. My mother and I walked away that day, and I didn’t understand that I had put this protestor at a loss for words. I was too young to understand, but those people around me they clapped, and that man, well he shut up. In all honesty, this story was repressed somewhere in my head until two years ago, at my uncles wedding. It was the first gay wedding in my town, no one seemed to oppose it. My family was excited for my uncle and his husband, and the rest of my small town seemed to be too. When my mom stood up to make her toast, she didn’t praise my uncle’s like most of the other guest. Until she told this story, and both of my uncles were at a loss for words. As for the man I argued with that day, in front of the old church, well he’s now happily married to my uncle Jimmy.