Today, I went to the local market near Grrr's house to buy an ice cream bar. I had eaten one from her freezer after entertaining her cat while She and Hubby were out of town.

At the market, there were several people dressed in the standard issue Mormon ensemble. There seemed to be an event that brough many people from out of town. I had noticed as I drove past the temple that there were groups of people, some having signs that said things like 'Fairfield Ward'.

The parking lot of the market had quite a few young people in it, interestingly enough, Mormons blasting hip hop from their cars. All greeting one another quite happily but bristling as I walked by, going silent and such.

I am generally a cordial person, so when I get close enough to a stranger and we make eye contact, I smile, and say hello. In this case it fell on hostile and deaf ears. Everyone I passed in the store turned their eyes from me and yet said hello to others. I felt like an anthropologist transplanted into the mid-west.

I forget how much I blend in in the Bay Area in a way that makes me not necessarily dykey, but if you were to put me and many places east of here, they would brand me a diesel -dyke. Really, I am not that butch, but some places are adamant that a woman look a certain way.

So the Mormons have some really good things about their community. They come together and assist when one family has difficulties like hospitalization. They are frugal and do things themselves rather than hire another. They try to be 'good' people.

The dark side reveals though that they have also campaigned fervently against any legislation allowing non-heterosexuals the right to marry. Their Prophet even sent out letters to encourage all mormons to donate money to any cause against gay marriage.

That I do not fit the image of what they see a woman fitting somehow seems to offend. i don't exaclty nderstand this since I am not Mormon, but there it is. I have experienced this more than once. Oh well. I have no plans on giving myself over to the White Salamander anyway.

The issue though is that I forget that people who stray from the iconic look of their gender are forgiven less in other places. Interestingly enough, when I returned to Grrr's house in order to restock the freezer and play more with Ophelia, I meandered on to the Logo channel and found a documentary on gay bars in not-so friendly places.

The people interviewed spoke of a place where a person could be accepted, a shelter from an unforgiving and hostile world. There was a piece on a man who was tortured and burned alive, an interivew with Reverend Phelps, and a description of a secret bar in his home town that was eventually seized and sold by the local community.

I forget that there are many places that are wholly intolerant of a person who diverges from the norm and treats those people as if they were less than human and in some cases, less worthy than a dog.

My creepy moment at the Woodminster Market was nothing compaired to what many people experience elsewhere every day.

My heart goes out to those people.