AKA Goodbye, Goodbye (Version 2)

Well how about this? Anyone remember that I used to rewrite and rerecord all my songs in an endless loop of songwriting practice? Anyone? No? That’s okay. I’ve written about a billion songs. In any event, I’ve reworked a song from way back in 2011, Goodbye, Goodbye, which was about the Arab Spring. Read up on and listen to the old version here. This new one is all about the bathroom law that was passed recently in North Carolina (among other places).

Wait, a song about a bathroom law?

First off, what the heck is a bathroom law? Try reading up on it here, here and here. I’ll give you a couple, two-tree minutes to read those.

So, yeah, it’s a law that some laughable people in North Carolina passed to say who can use what bathroom and where and when. Now, I’m too young to remember segregated bathrooms to separate people based on skin color, but this seems similar to that. No?

I may be simplifying it and I may have written a simple song about a complex issue, but what exactly are people in support of a law like this trying to accomplish? Some say it’s to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. I say that whenever I hear someone use that as a reason to do something, it’s probably for some other much more nefarious reason.

Then, why write a song about a bathroom law?

Especially a song that is basically saying, “See ya later, North Carolina. I can’t deal with you anymore.” Is that the true nature of the law? To make the LGBT community just get up and leave.

Is it better to stick around and fight for a place you call your home or just pack up and say, forget it. Who wins in either situation? You either keep your home, but have to live with terrible decisions by terrible people, or you move far away and have to leave your home.

How insane is that to make a law that causes someone to question their home, the place they were raised, the place they identify themselves with? That is not creating or maintaining a safe environment (PROTECT THE CHILDREN). It’s creating discomfort for everyone when one group is segregated. It highlights everyone’s differences. If someone is different than you, then you, in turn are different than them.

YOU’RE DIFFERENT TOO.

If they aren’t normal compared to you, then you aren’t normal compared to them. NO ONE’S NORMAL. And then where do you fit in if you aren’t normal? Who’s hand do you hold? Who’s lips do you kiss? What bathroom do you use? Where do you feel safe and secure and at home?

So instead of thinking about any of that or questioning yourself at all, go ahead and make people that aren’t like you feel so unsafe that they don’t want to live by you.  But then, of course, that solution only leads to you seeing and feeling your differences. It’s like the book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. One thing ALWAYS leads to another. And thinking about that book leads me to thinking how at my daughter’s pre-school there are SHARED BATHROOMS. Boys and girls in there TOGETHER. Who’s worked up about that? Who’s protecting the children?

Maybe, in America, we should just all get our own personal bathrooms everywhere we go. (I think they call them colostomy bags.) Then you never have to be around anyone that isn’t exactly like you.