If It’s A Choice, My Zygote Chose Balls: Making Sense of Senseless Controversy by Jeremy Hooper
My Goodreads rating: 5 of 5 stars
The LGBT community has been under attack by conservatives and religious fundamentalists since before Adam and Steve had their first chance to shake their groove thing at the first Eden Happy Hour (at which I’m sure God was handing out the microphone for karaoke and welcome everyone in with wide open arms regardless of taste in music, drink or sex).
Jeremy Hooper (of www.GoodasYou.org) has written a smart, witty and deeply personal pilgrimage from closeted upbringing to proud advocate for human equality in which he debunks the senseless claims made by the likes of Maggie Gallagher and her NOM cohorts, Family Research Council and numerous other denizens of the “‘mo foes” army. His words are carefully chosen: cogent yet calm, targeted yet tactful, intense yet in touch. With each of their claims, he takes their words and peels back the reasons they profess for their bigotry (though they’d have you call it “preservation”) and exposes them for what they are: inhuman. His goal is simple. To love each person as (fill in the blank with whatever god, guide, mother, father, friend) intended and abolish hatred.
See, Jeremy Hooper knows something that the “‘mo foes” don’t… they can’t win their argument. Time and time again the world has seen bigotry fall away as the new generation grows, comes into its own understanding of family and community, strips away the labels of its predecessors and teaches the next to make the next steps even grander.
Get this book. Right now it doesn’t matter if you agree with him or me. What matters is that you read it.
If you don’t agree with the freedoms desired by the LGBT community, read it to understand this intensely personal story and how the argument against the freedom to love has affected HIS life. Read how the hurt has shaped him and countless others.
If you do agree and you believe we should all be free to love that one amazing person that we’ve dreamt about, read it. You’ll remind yourself why we dream in the first place. Just read it. And think about what it means to want, to love, to be a human being.
Tommy Karr 