My week started out with back-to-back weird interactions with people.

On Sunday, I had to go to Walmart. Yeah...I know...already crazy. Walmart. And on a Sunday. Crazy talk.

The homeless guy who is always by the car wash in front of the Walmart was standing there with his sign. I rolled my window down and asked him did he need anything out of Walmart. He said some food would be nice.

Cool.

I got him some food from the deli and a couple of pre-made salads because everything in the deli was fried and I'm old school and believe meals should come with veggies of some sort which are NOT fried.

When I walked out of Walmart, he was standing across the row from my truck and told me that the police had made him move.

Cool.

I handed him the bag with his food and told him that I'd thrown in some salads too. He thanked me and said something about not having veggies in a while. Then?

He hopped in the truck he had been standing next to and drove off while I stood there and watched him drive off.

Now, I know homeless people and people with immediate needs sometimes have vehicles but I was just so startled because I have honestly never seen someone who'd been standing on the road with a sign asking for help, drive off into the sunset after someone had given them something.

It was odd.

On Monday, I had to have a plumber come out to do some work. The gentleman was extremely nice. Good people. He invited us to his church and kept trying to get me to change my mind about coming. We kept talking and got on politics. He mentioned the new laws in South Carolina and Mississippi about "religious freedom" and transgender bathroom use. He shared that there was a gay couple in his church that everyone loved who were just great people and he hoped they didn't feel some kinda way thinking that everyone in their church supported the law. Then he said the law in SC was something he supported, however, because...

Him: I don't want some grown man in the bathroom with my 9-year-old daughter.

Me: How would she know? Is she looking under the stall divider? Remember, women don't use urinals, we have doors that we can lock. Also, the woman is NOT a man, she has been reassigned as a woman and, if your daughter HAD looked up under her skirt under the stall she would see the same software.

Him: I just don't want it to happen. I mean, they could do something to girls in the bathroom.

Me: Or they could be so terrified that they are going to have to deal with some crazy mess just because they were in public and had to use the bathroom that they used the bathroom so fast you didn't even notice them. Did you ever read the book "Middlesex?" What about the people who were born with a little bit of this and a little bit of that and their parents, with guidance from their doctor, took action to assign a gender and, unbeknownst to them, assigned the wrong gender just trying to make their baby "normal?" Do you think that poor child deserves to be persecuted for the rest of their life? I mean...ya think that's how God wants you to handle it?

Him: Well, I don't know about all that. I just know how I feel.

SIP: *sigh*

Such a simplistic view of a very real problem in the lives of some is cringe worthy. To me. As many defects as people end up having...yeah...okay.

Dude left so fast he forgot his utility knife. I put it under the sink in the bathroom because I'm not in the mood to see him again.

I’m a Transgender Man in North Carolina. Here’s What the Bathroom Law Means For Me.

I'm actually still feeling some kinda way. I never remember anything about using the bathroom in public because my focus is on getting in and out of there with minimal time with major hand washing. Do people hang out in public bathrooms and that's how it comes to be that this is such a major issue? Are transgender people in South Carolina holding sit-ins in the bathrooms naked from waist down?

I should have asked him could I still come to his church if I was transgender huh?

The MIGHT.BE homeless guy did end up making me laugh cuz really...had you seen me in the parking lot watching him drive off...it was Seth MacFarland movie funny. I was just standing there like, *BLINK,BLINK,BLINK*

Eh...I guess.

Have you had any interesting run-ins with strangers recently?

The morning after the last episode of "Empire" I fell down a rabbit hole following links while reading recaps. (I enjoy reading what others say about the show when they have a good voice. LOL!) I kept falling and falling tumbling head over heels until I landed on an extremely precarious ledge watching a YouTube video with 4 Black men sitting around in old school Black power meeting fashions discussing the show. Like...I had to *BLINK* and get my mind right because what I was seeing looked as if it was from 1969...but they were discussing a show from 2015...that was on just last night.

Moving on...

The main guy began to say just how dangerous the show is to Black people because of how it is pushing the gay agenda on us and how the gay agenda is a major contributor of the downfall of the Black family and community.

I put my hand up on the slippery wall behind me from the ledge I was standing on...feeling the ledge crumble under me as I scrambled to get the hell up outta there. I closed my eyes to the daishikis and caps without bills and pulled myself up. Along the way, I clicked on another video with a young man who, I'm sorry to say, LOOKED gay and SPOKE gay (I know that sounds horrible...but hey...he did) pretty much saying some of the same things.

And I was puzzled.

When my head cleared the dankness of that hole and I started breathing clean air again...it made me start thinking of this GAY AGENDA.

I have gay family, framily and friends. We all do if we're honest with ourselves. I'm pretty close to many of them and we share our life. I thought about what their agenda seems to be when I'm talking to or being with them and I'll be honest when I say...such conversation never comes up. Maybe because we're all comfortable being ourselves with each other. But again...maybe because THE GAY AGENDA is pretty much just having the same things we straight people take for granted. If that is THE GAY AGENDA...cool. No biggie. You want to love who you want to love, you want to not be discriminated against, you don't want to be targeted violently by hateful azz people, you want your spouse to have the same benefits as that of a straight couple spouse, you don't want to suffer the pain of being ousted from your spouse's hospital room on their deathbed by their "legal" next of kin who believes your love is immoral.

Seems pretty basic to me.

But the way those men sitting around the table were discussing THE GAY AGENDA...it was as if they saw something I never considered. Some evil, banal part of being gay that exists on the other side of acceptance. Like...the world would never, ever be the same good that many of us believe it to be, again...if gay people were...well...gay.

I mean...we can all agree that gay people exist right? I'd hope so. I mean sheesh...no brainer there. What are WE supposed to do with them if we aren't supposed to accept them? And who are we to even think we have a choice in if they get to be gay or not?

I stopped thinking about it because those types of conversations always bother me. I moved on with my week.

A conversation lead me right back to thinking about it recently when someone whose opinion I respect shared with me that they believe homosexuality was a sin. I'd never heard this person actually say this out loud before so it stopped me. I have a tendency of having selective memory when it comes to those I love so hey...maybe they've shared this before and I just choose to skip on past it and subconsciously knew to never bring it up in conversation with them again so I could keep my level of respect of their opinion intact. The conversation wasn't contentious. I shared that I didn't believe it was a sin stating that the Ten Commandments were pretty clear as to what is considered a sin and well...homosexuality isn't listed. The person is a good debater so they stated their belief didn't come from a place of hate and that they accepted that gay people existed but yes it is a sin.

And I struggled to put together the connection of the conversation we started with to where we were.

Knowing me as I do...I decided it was time to end the conversation. I simply didn't want to discuss it any longer and got off the phone. I was disappointed in the person and, my not being able to continue to discuss it with them, disappointed them in me.

"Sometimes we get disappointed."

When my husband came home from the golf course, I was still feeling some kinda way and I discussed it with him. He shared with me that I'd probably be really surprised at how many people we knew actually felt the same.

And I wanted to know for sure so I sent out a text message to the people I'd recently spoken to via text that asked:

YES OR NO QUESTION: Do you believe homosexuality is a sin?

The answers started coming back immediately and I was shocked at the responses but I did note a few patterns and some things that really stood out.

1. Those I was the closest to, and interacted with daily, did not think it was a sin.

2. ALL the Black men (except for one) thought it was a sin.

3. ALL the White people did NOT think it was a sin.

4. The most Catholic Black woman I know did NOT think it was a sin.

5. Only ONE Black woman who said yes answered with one word. The rest who said yes, felt the need to explain their belief.

The most shocking person to me was an Elder Black man who I straight up thought was going to say yes. His answer? "No it's not sin...but it's nasty and I'm eating. Get off my phone." The more I thought about it however, and thought about him and how he lives his life...I should have expected him to respond in that exact way cuz he's a trip and he's the happiest man I know.

The exercise made me realize that there are no precursors for being yes or no on this issue but...if you're a Black man...you are probably going to believe it's sin.

I remembered in that rabbit hole, one of the "panel" members saying he understood Lucious not wanting his son to be gay and how Lucious wanting his son to be a MAN was admirable. I remembered thinking...Lucious killed his best friend at point blank range. He then stood up in the church house at his funeral and spoke. Lucious has killed countless other people and might drop Anika in that same river this week. Lucious cheats, sold drugs to his community to get his family out of the hood and let his wife go to jail for 17 years while he lived high on the hog she laid at his feet.

But...you're comfortable aligning yourself with the way Lucious thinks. Lucious clearly thinks he is God and owns the power to decide who should live and whom shouldn't live and HOW they should live.

Saints and sinners.

It all just made me think. My mind all over the place knowing the church's stance on this matter is one of the main reasons why I stay out of the church. Especially Catholic churches. One of the most poignant text conversations I had was with someone who doesn't believe it is a sin but still grappling with their "Catholic guilt" over the issue. She stated...

“If they are Catholic, they are “supposed” to believe it is a sin. But they can still embrace that person. “Love the sinner, not the sin.” But, for me (and this probably makes me a bad Catholic) I believe, since we all are already “sinners”, according to Catholicism, that the real sins are the ones that hurt someone else. I, personally don’t feel that homosexuality truly hurts other people, unless it is someone who is a [Catholic] homosexual and feels so conflicted inside as to hate themselves because they do not want to be that way.”

To which I responded...

“One of the major reasons why I fell out with the Catholic church early on. I believe they took that hard lined stance forever ago because they wanted to add additional guilt to priests contemplating or CURRENTLY raping little boys.”

And...we moved on as we do. We'll probably never discuss this issue again. I was simply wondering.

Surprisingly I was only disappointed in the response from the initial person I was talking to and I guess I need to deal with that. It's probably because I respect pretty much everything about them so maybe I'd put my own feelings onto what I thought they felt about this issue too. Like...taken for granted it was something we'd agree on and didn't have to THINK about.

But again...I have selective memory when it comes to those I love. You have to right? We all do. When we love someone...our mind justifies our love and creates blank spaces when necessary.

Again...this was simply a personal exercise for me. It didn't change anything. I just wanted to know and well...it's not something I discuss on a regular with people I don't interact with daily. There is so much more that could be said, of course, like another conversation about the deadly sins and if those are sins against God or against man and if sins against man are the same as SINS. So much that is up to personal interpretation.

And so much personal interpretation of things which don't affect many of us end up affecting those who are living that life.

So...I'll ask you the same: