in which emma becomes a troll

I lay the blame at the feet of Pam's House Blend, purveyor of leftist/feminist/queer politics and one of my favorite blogs, and a recent post there that linked back to the black hole, the moral void, the horrifying vacuum that is the blog of the ironically-named National Organization for Marriage (which, contrary to its title, exists solely to fight till its last dying day to prevent people from marrying).

I've been trolling*. I can't deny it. I've been trolling, though I like to think not (exclusively) in the antagonistic, argumentative, pointless way that is the common understanding of trolldom. I've been reading NOM's blog, and the comments therein, and feel like I'm stuck in quicksand, entrenched in a quagmire in foreign, in alien, territory. I've been trying to defend my truths, and question theirs, without being wholly difficult, but rather with calm and reasoned statements.

What I really want to shout (type) is, of course, "You're all going to die some day! And younger people are more and more tolerant, more and more supportive, of equal rights! And your grandchildren will discuss you and your homo-talk in the same hushed and embarrassed tones my generation uses to discuss how some of our grandparents used the N-word!"

It's like a scab.

It's like a scab, an inescapable itch, a cut on the inside of my cheek that I can't stop poking at and prodding at and cringing with a certain satisfaction at every moment of jagged sharp pain.

It's a group of people, a world view, that I just don't understand, and I feel like I'm venturing behind enemy lines, even safely ensconced in my office behind closed doors on my lunch break, even hunched at my desk at home when it's late enough that I should be in bed.

There's a whole other world out there, a world I sometimes forget, or only understand and think about in the abstract, and now that the curtain's been lifted I just can't seem to stop staring at what's underneath.

*Trolling: the act of purposefully antagonizing other people on the internet, generally on message boards. When done in a moderated internet community, this can result in banning. When done to uptight people such as fundies, this can result in hilarity. (As taken from Urban Dictionary)