At church this morning, half the service was about how wonderful she and Uncle Russell are, the way it’s been every week since the vote. One of the board members, Mr. Murdoch, got up and gave a speech about how lucky we are to have the two of them as our spiritual leaders. Then they took up yet another special offering for the New Way Protect Our Children Fund.
I sat there in the pew and watched as my parents and everyone else wrote out checks. The envelopes were stacked so high in the offering plates, it reminded me of those wobbly block towers my brother used to build in kindergarten. I don’t know about you, Harvey, but for me, the most satisfying part of building those towers was knocking them to smithereens afterward.
After church, all I wanted was to go home and lie on my bed and write to you, but my aunt and uncle were hosting a pre-Fourth of July barbecue, so dozens of us wound up stuffed onto their back porch. It was more of the same—everyone talking about how amazing they are, and how they’re single-handedly saving the country from sin, and how Anita Bryant must be thrilled to have such talented partners on the West Coast. I was close to puking by the end, so I told my mom I was going to the “office” in my aunt and uncle’s den to see if there was any work that needed to be done.
There wasn’t much. The phone was quiet, since it was a Sunday afternoon, and we’d just sent out a big mailing, so there were no envelopes to stuff. The offering plates were sitting on the bed, though, the envelopes already spilling out of their tower into a messy pile, so I sat down and started ripping them open and stacking up the checks for Aunt Mandy to take to the bank on Tuesday.
Every week we get envelopes in the mail with the same kind of checks. A lot of people want to make sure everyone knows they hate the gays, so they show it with their wallets. That’s a lot easier than doing the actual grunt work.
So there I was, sitting on the bed, ripping open envelopes and sorting the checks into piles—tall stacks for the $25s and $50s and $100s, a smaller one for $200s and $250s, and a tiny one for $300s and over—but I needed paper clips, so I opened the desk drawer and fished around.
Well, Harvey, guess what I just happened to find?
An old check register for the New Way Protect Our Children Fund. With all the money Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell have spent out of those generous donations.
You’d think they’d be spending it on stamps for the mailings, or advertisements, or getting brochures printed. You’d be wrong.
Harvey, that check register was absolutely full of payments to places that have nothing to do with anybody’s children.
One check was made out to a hairdresser. Two were to a golf pro shop, and most of the others were to some radio station in L.A.
I looked up the station in the phone book, and it isn’t one where the campaign is supposed to be advertising—but it is the station that reporter came from the night of the Miami vote.
It’s also the station my aunt and uncle have spent the past three years begging to give them an hour-long show so they can, and I quote, “spread the Gospel to the ungodly.”
Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell are stealing people’s money, Harvey. It was all right there in that fucking check register.
Once I figured out what it meant, I wasn’t even all that surprised. This is completely the kind of thing they’d do.
They don’t really give a shit about gay people. I never heard either of them say a single word about “militant homosexuality” until Anita Bryant came along. All they care about is how many people know their names. Now they’ve learned they can bring in cash if they preach about how important it is to protect all us poor innocent kids from the evil gays.
So I took it. I put that fucking check register right in my purse, Harvey. Then I