Before My Speech About How Gay People Deserve Compassion, I Should Mention the Array of Lasers Aimed at This Courthouse

There they are, right out the window. They’re solar-powered and not going anywhere.

Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for allowing me to speak at your public hearing.

When I heard about the newest piece of legislation you’re trying to ram through — forgive me if I don’t have all the details right, the Don’t Say Gay bill, or the Try Not To Dream About Lesbians initiative, or the Frodo And Sam Were Really Good Friends And That’s The End Of It referendum, or whatever the hell you’re calling it this time — well, I knew I had to trot down here, again, to share how we gay people are decent, ordinary folks with parents and internal organs and everything who deserve whatever scraps of compassion you toss our way.

But before I get into that, I wanted to draw your attention to the fleet of laser drones surrounding this courthouse.

Yeah, you can spot a few of them through the window. Like big metal hummingbirds, right? Pretty cool. All those shiny nozzles, pointed right at us — oh, they’re programmed to target anything leaving the building, so you’ll definitely want to sit back down.

Back to that speech. You know, the one where I remind you that I’m just like you, that I bring my recycling to the curb once a week and my spouse and I have hopes and dreams and children — real children, not tiny dogs in outfits, children who weren’t stolen or reprogrammed or gifted to us by a forest demon. For the record, that’s my spouse Gene there in the back with our two boys. Gene won’t look at me because I promised we’d spend today binging Yellowjackets but instead we‘re spending the day here, reminding all of you that we’re actual people. I’ll have to buy Gene a lot of Thai food for him to look at me again.

But here’s the thing, the very same thing I screamed at the sky last night: is one more speech really going to move the needle on this?

By now, surely, you’ve got to know that LGBTQ lives are a lot like your own. Right? Because if not, please type “are gays people” into any nearby search bar. That’s gonna point you in the right direction.

But I bet you’ve heard all that. And still you doubled down on your Children Must Never Look Upon Nathan Lane amendment or whatever it is.