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…
About this excerpt,
Because my publisher took a pretty steep nosedive in 2008, volume 3 of STEADY BEAT was put on hold. The entire book was already penciled and half inked. For all that these pages are now fifteen years old, and for all that my style has changed so much (I can actually draw guys and adults now!), this particular chapter is still special to me.
This was my own coming-out story in the 90’s, before same-sex marriage was recognized by the US Supreme Court and before the national dialogue had shifted towards being more accepting to LGTBQ rights. I had never even heard the word “lesbian” or “gay” until 6th grade when my best friend used it, just as Sarai’s best friend does with her. My Christian youth group (back when I was still Christian) was where I was told I was going to hell for the first time. But…how could love be a sin? Wasn’t G*d supposed to be all-loving? The hypocrisy was certainly not lost on me.
Look how far we’ve come since then. Look how far we have yet to go. Queer people still go through this, still get told that we are disgusting or should be ashamed. Perhaps not as frequently as when I was a teen, but even once was enough to lose friends to suicide and depression, or to prompt them to run away from home, to ruin good, nice, beautiful people’s lives forever. It wasn’t fair and it never will be. How can people hate others for the simple, universal truth of love???
Let’s be good to each other. Let us uplift one another. Let us accept our fellow humans, regardless of who they love, the color of their skin, their culture, their background, their IDENTITY. You know what actually matters? What matters is being kind, being loving, and lifting those around us, up with us. For as the tides rise, we all rise with it. Let’s all be better, kinder, more loving humans together.
Enjoy.
Rivkah
June 15th, 2020