Fighting off sharks

Warning: This is very personal.

I’ve been on vacation for two weeks. This is the first year we decided not to visit some distant land and have poetic adventures. Considering the current world state of chaos, we decided to stay closer to home and just do the things we love to do.

I have two dear, dear girlfriends who became even more dear during this blessed time off. One of them introduced me to sailing some nine or 10 months ago, the other got me into serious bicycling – although she and I spell “seriously” quite differently: 20 miles of up and down hills is my ride and her warm-up.

So just about every day, I got up, took a bike ride – earning the calorie-fest of a big breakfast – and then went sailing, often with dolphins at my bow, jellyfish in the swells and sunfish like Frisbees in and out of the water.

Idyllic. Then a few incidents which, at first, cut me to the quick – putting me back into the ugly tempest that’s been part of my life for the last number of painful years – and threatened to destroy the sense of safety and comfort I’d come to trust and value in this small coastal town.

I’d been scheduled for a book-signing at a local, independent book store. A local, weekly “magazine” published a so-called “review” of my newest children’s book, “Where’s God?” which never reviewed the book. Instead, the “reviewer” took the opportunity for a personal attack on me – someone she’s never met.

First, she impugned my validity as a psychotherapist by asserting that since I did not have a relationship with my mother for the last two decades, I could not possibly have anything to offer people in need of guidance. She then finished me off with suggestion that the only people interested in my book-signing would be those who wanted to visit a homophobe.

My heart was so hurt. Frankly, my mother’s lack of mothering hurt both me and my sister our whole lives; to have a “journalist” use that fact against me is adding insult to injury – but it is the way critics, who don’t seem to be able to argue adequately against my traditional positions, try to discredit me in the eyes of others.

Furthermore, my two dear lesbian friends were equally devastated to see me attacked as a homophobe. They both realize that we disagree on a number of philosophical points, but we still share mutual respect and affection. The homosexual activists and other liberal activists don’t seem to be able to disagree without attempting to destroy the opposing position.

Nonetheless, the book-signing went off well – so well that we ran out of books some 20 minutes into what was to be a two-hour book-signing.

But my heart hurt from that unprofessional, vicious, personal attack. Until the following week, that is, when two letters to the editor were published in my defense. It brought me to tears. I am used to most folks ducking out of the way, not coming to the support of me or my right to a position.

Then, that same week, as I was leaving a restaurant with my husband, son, sister, two nephews and my best male friend (“gay”), a fellow seated with two others actually yelled out, “There goes a hypocrite!” Frankly, I’d had enough. This was a public attack and I was no longer going to walk on by.

“What do you mean by that?” I said back to him. He was clearly surprised that I retorted. He looked very uncomfortable and mumbled a bit. Women at the next table told me to ignore him, that it wasn’t worth it. I said back that it was. I asked him to define hypocrite. He said that it was somebody who said one thing and did another. I asked him to give me one example of how that fit me. He tried to hide behind his menu. The two other men were silent. Everyone on the patio was riveted. When he wouldn’t answer, I told him to “… stand up like a man and defend his statements.” At that point, he got up and walked over to where I was standing.

Frankly, I let him have it. Years of these unfair, ugly, hurtful, destructive and untrue, dirty attacks had to be addressed here and now. I challenged him immediately. I asked him if he were “gay.” He said it wasn’t the point. I said it was definitely the point. I told him that he had chosen to embarrass me in front of strangers, in public, when I was with my son and family. I asked him what he thought gave him the privilege of breaching all those rules of decency.

He said he’d listened to my radio program and that I didn’t show compassion to homosexuals. I asked him how he was role-modeling compassion by assaulting me verbally, in public, in front of my son. He said homosexuals have been on the receiving end of prejudice – to which I said, “I’m female and I’m Jewish and I’m Dr. Laura. Homosexuals don’t corner the market on experiencing prejudice.”

Gary, my friend, asked him how he imagined that we could be friends if I were hateful towards “gays”? I told the fellow that the compassionate product of the homosexual activists’ attacks on me, my personal life, my career, was his yelling at me in public. I also said that he knew nothing about me or my life – that he was parroting what he was brainwashed to believe because that served the activists’ agenda. He listened.

I could see that he felt badly about what he’d done. He apologized. We shook hands. I delivered a copy of (lesbian, feminist activist) Tammy Bruce’s book “The New Thought Police,” so he could read the truth about the homosexual activists and my public positions. We parted in peace.

I have been asked over the years to present myself more personally – as I have in this column. I have resisted due to a desire for privacy and a real fear that opening up would be like spreading blood in the seas – the sharks would come. Well, they come anyway. Maybe its just time for me to open up more.