Background Radiation is my weekly round up of the terrible news that exists like a toxic static noise in the background of LGBT people’s lives. I call it Background Radiation, because while playing Fallout, you have to watch for your radiation levels. Some areas just have a lot of background radiation, and it impacts your characters survival.

For LGBT folks, these kinds of events illuminated in these news stories are just like that background radiation. It’s a constant level of background hate that permeates through our existence.

Here is this weeks list of bigotry, hate, and legislative attacks.

Headline: Tennessee just passed a new law meant to undermine LGBTQ rights
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/04/tennessee-just-passed-new-law-meant-undermine-lgbtq-rights/

House Bill 1111 and its companion Senate Bill 1085 “requires that undefined words be given their natural and ordinary meaning, without forced or subtle construction that would limit or extend the meaning of the language, except when a contrary intention is clearly manifest.”

Apparently it’s difficult to pass explicitly anti-LGBT bills in Tennessee. Instead they are passing this farce of a bill, forcing the definition of “Mother”, “Father”, and the like so that it’s previously inclusive definition that helped out other gender identities could be nullified. It’s a way to push things towards a heterosexual gender binary.

It’s a lot of weasel words, to do it.

Headline: Staff leave North Carolina college after being told to oppose marriage equality
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/04/staff-leave-north-carolina-college-told-oppose-marriage-equality/

Two employees are quitting the North Carolina Christian college after they were told they had to sign a covenant opposing same sex marriages. Students are protesting, with some of them planning on transferring to other schools.

Headline: Kentucky Judge says he won’t hear gay adoptions because it could never be in child’s best interest
http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/04/28/judge-says-he-wont-hear-gay-adoptions-because-could-never-childs-best-interest/307579001/

I guess he’s just going to ‘Kim Davis’ this, and refuse to do his job because in an order issued Thursday, he said “as a matter of conscience” he believes that “under no circumstance” would “the best interest of the child be promoted by the adoption by a practicing homosexual.”

Can we take a side step away from this breath taking bigotry to look at the phrase “practicing homosexual?” Am I supposed to be practicing? Will it be okay if it’s just with my husband? Is there a test? Are there study materials? At what point will I graduate from practice to the big game?

Headline: Houston, Texas: Flier spotted at Montrose bus station encourages LGBT people to commit suicide
http://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2017/04/flier-spotted-at-montrose-bus-station-encourages-lgbt-people-to-commit-suicide/

Someone took the time to create a fliers telling LGBT people to kill themselves and put them up in bus stops around Houston.

I often find it astounding how much time and effort these people put into hating LGBT folks. I mean, they created an artistic flier, and had to drive around (or bus around) and put the things up in Houston. Someone wasted their time doing this.

At what point in time do these people ever consider if they had put all that energy into building something up, that they would have been able to move mountains?

Headline: Alabama Governor Signs Law Allowing Adoption Agencies to Discriminate Against Gay Couples
http://jezebel.com/alabama-governor-signs-law-that-allows-adoption-agencie-1794921806

This is another adoption injustice for same sex couples. This time it’s not just a lone judge, but a low. It allows adoption agencies to refuse same sex couples for religious reasons. I guess they would rather have children without homes, than allow gay couples to adopt.

Headline: Mississippi Man Sues Funeral Home For Discrimination After It Refuses to Cremate His Deceased Husband’s Body
http://jezebel.com/man-sues-funeral-home-for-discrimination-after-it-refus-1794875266

Despite all the stuff that’s been going down this week, this has got to be the one that made me the angriest. What kind of person refuses a dead man at a funeral home because he is gay? I mean, talk about kicking someone when they are down.

I worked with geriatric psych patients as a nurse, and because of the age of the population, I had a lot of interaction with funeral homes for pickups. I cannot imagine this level of bigotry and unprofessionalism on display over in Mississippi with this.