This week marks another turning point in gay rights (go Maine, and we’re hoping New Hampshire’s Governor signs, too). A little reminder that there is still a lot of opposition from certain quarters, but with friends like John Stewart I’m certain things will continue to work out!
I especially like the way Stewart handles the claims made by these bigots that they all seem to have "gay friends."
Unless they name names of their "gay friends" (which they never do), I refuse to believe that these bigots actually have any gay friends. When they make these claims, they're thinking of how they once enjoyed an episode of Ellen Degeneres and had a fantasy that Ellen was their real life friend.
In Honor of Maine.
5/50 states walking on "legal" or legislative grounds.
20/50 states Ban Homosexual Marriage by some sort of state constitutional article or ammendment.
20 grounded in the choice of a pluralistic society
Who will get to 26 first? I guess that's what it all about isn't it.
Apparently activists want to cause outright division of the states over the matter.
http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=…
Karl
It makes you feel icky, doesn't it.
Tell me – what harm does a gay couple do to you? What harm do you suffer by allowing them the same legal rights as you?
20/50 states whose constitutions are still reeling from the banning of slavery. States who still say that you need to be Christian to hold public office (despite that tricky old first amendment).
Apparently fundamentalists want us to stone people for adultery.
See I can play the stupid, senseless, outrageous meme game too.
It's time to grow up, Karl. We adults want to get to work, now.
Tony,
Bear in mind that Yahweh torched two cities because men in those cities were sucking other men's cocks. Women (we assume, we aren't told, they don't figure in the story) are holed up licking each other's clitorises.
I wanted to put that right out there on the table, because when you ask "what harm does this do you?" you have to take into consideration two things: fear of divine retribution due to what your neighbors are doing and the "Yuck" factor.
I have a lesbian friend with whom I share the same taste in women. We sit together occasionally and discuss our fantasy boffs and we discovered that what we find really sexy coincides to a remarkable degree.
If you have trouble with that kind of a conversation, then the Yuck Factor is probably high for you. A little good ol' boy in the back of your head is going "Ooh, that's not right!"
As to the first, you have to keep in mind that Yahweh is a really bad shot. I mean, according to a (scam) letter sent around a couple years ago by Ben Stein, Katrina happened because god was pissed people in other parts of the country had banned school prayer. So why did New Orleans get it? Well, the message is what counts, not its diction.
So the harm is two-fold: you as a traditional, devout man-woman kind of person might end up wiped out as a result of the couple down the street getting married and naked and they both happen to be the same gender. And, you have to put up with shivers of revulsion more often and be unable to feel justified about them.
And yes, this is a snarky remark. But I also think it has a lot of truth in it.
I hadn't before considered having that kind of detailed conversation with my lesbian friends. Not that I tend to have detailed conversations about sex with my heterosexual male friends either. Sounds like an interesting conversation to have with a lesbian . . . Perhaps this sort of conversation sounds repulsive to gay bashers not because the specifics would actually disgust them, but because they might discover how shockingly ordinary gay sex might start to look to them, through the eyes of a gay person.
I agree entirely with you about the yuck factor. Disgust has been elevated into a "moral" issue. See here for example.
I have never said there are "icky" things going on between sexually active people, whatever their sexual orientations may be. You place that into the minds of those you believe are intolerant, revealing your own intolerance of others with a different perspective.
My opposition to the matter comes over the eledged "values free" labels people try to claim about the nature of their sexuality.
Nothing a person does with their physical body permanently defiles the person, unless they do receive some sort of physical ailment from the activity. Even pedophilia doesn't defile those who do it, physically.
However, when young people are used as "property" of older people who feel somehow prividged to show others how to "grow up," it difiles the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated experientially into sexual actuvity that will begin a conditioning process that will lead them in one direction or another sexually from that time on.
Sometimes there are no long term consequences, other times there are consequences that people really don't want to talk about.
Any behavior that ends with others haveing less degrees of freedom to either consent or not consent to what they are experiencing is against individual freedoms.
It's what proceeds from individuals own hearts in terms of wanting things to be as they believe they should be that cares nothing for what others believe and which wishes to silence the voice of others in what they believe. This is insideous, especially when it goes right to the heart of the deifinitions of the very social structures that have conventionally been used by both religious and civil understandings.
This is going to back lash something terribly upon those who keep pushing their views upon marriage that has always had both religious and civil denotations.
Those with a desire to have sexual license to do what ever the choose, with who ever they choose, whenever they choose push the limits of where to draw the limit of respect for the other persons involved.
Karl writes:—"My opposition to the matter comes over the eledged “values free” labels people try to claim about the nature of their sexuality."
It would seem apparent that people who wish to commit to each other in a manner both public and traditional are expressing a very "values plus" attitude toward their relationship. No one, straight or gay, who wants to be "free" (and I agree largely that there just ain't no such thing) in their sex lives is looking for marriage. The argument over gay marriage isn't about endorsing a values free sex life, but over legitimizing an alternative expression of quite mainstream values.
—"Any behavior that ends with others haveing less degrees of freedom to either consent or not consent to what they are experiencing is against individual freedoms."
Couldn't agree more, whether that loss of free consent comes under the aegis of marriage or not.
Karl, you poor sick little puppy.
Are you equating gay marriage with pedophilia? Not the same. The first usually involves rape, and the second is between consenting adults.
Oops, my bad. Re-read my link for content, why did no one point out my error?
http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=…
30/50 states have Ammendments to or Articles in their Constitutions that ban same sex marriages, or uphold the definition of marriage.
Is this number likely to grow and decline?
I can't say, but the pure stats of of 60 % to 10 percent is very formidable.
Karl – again with the 'young people being coerced or seduced into being gay' trope?
We've been there before. You may not use the specific word 'icky', but your revulsion at gay behavior comes across loud and clear.
Why don't you tells us what you really think? Sheesh! What kind of backlash did you have in mind?
The legal marriage issue has absolutely nothing to do with your religious definition of marriage. Nothing at all.
From a legal perspective, unless you get the piece of paper from a duly sanctioned officer of the state you ARE NOT MARRIED, no matter what religious mummery you engage in. That pastors and priests and imams and rabbis need to be registered by the state to perform the civil act of marriage might (just might) inform you that the civil act is the one that is legally binding and recognized, not the religious one.
I don't care what other trappings you decide to impose on the 'act' of marriage. All I care about is what's fair. And legally recognized marriage between two citizens that provides exactly the same benefits and recognition to those two citizens regardless of gender is what this is about.
I'm fed up with the FUD from fundamentalists. It's attack on this, and destruction of that. Why not try to engage positively, embrace the change, engage in the process as a willing partner, instead of your perpetual war on your fellow peaceful and law-abiding citizens.
Erich said:
"Unless they name names of their “gay friends” (which they never do), I refuse to believe that these bigots actually have any gay friends."
Which Karl then proceed to verify by positing the repeatedly falsified slippery slope argument of gay=child-raping. . .if the thread goes on long enough, we'll certainly hear about people marrying animals.
Mark, you brought back a fond memory of a college friend of mine. We also had the same taste in men, and were both single, so we would joke about which one of us that guy over there would go out with. (This was not the only thing we did, obviously, but it cracked us up all the time!) I've known many gay men and women in my life and found, amazingly, that they are just like the straight men and women – in that they are all different individuals with wants and needs, values and morals, which are personal rather than assigned to them along with their gender preference. Any broad brush that's used to paint them will necessarily stain a lot of straight people as well. Any restriction on their human or constitutional rights will restrict the rights of others. Anyone who can say that these are not true does not actually have gay friends – not in real life.
Alison – I heartily agree. Gay, Straight, Fat, Thin, Tall, Short, Pink, Brown, Yellow, Purple, Beige. There's no difference – any attribute you care to name is distributed among the human race – not among subsets of the human race (local in-bred clusters notwithstanding, for the pedants out there)
I'd also like to see the real dissolution of national borders (like the EU has done). These are another physical remnant of a smaller, warlike, tribal past that we could well do without.
I'm proud of where I came from, I'm proud of my community – but I could care less about borders. Arbitrary lines on a map, just so that people can say 'mine'.
I suppose I've now drawn the ire of every neo-con and libertarian (strange how people so desirous of individual liberty seem to be so concerned about border security)
The alleged "gay friends" that all these bigots claim to have is quite the conundrum.
First, there's the low probability of anybody being friends with a person who wants to oppress them and everybody like them. I wonder if many anti-abolitionists claimed to have many "negro slave friends" in the 1860s – or if male chauvinists through the ages have professed to possessing many "close acquaintances whom through no fault of their own are mere womenfolk"?
Second, I wonder if the anti-rights crowd have actually spoken to their alleged friends-who-are-gay (if they indeed exist) about this. I know if I had a friend who was attempting to spread malicious lies & amp up irrational fears about a group I was a part of in order to deny us our civil rights, I'd explain in no uncertain terms where he was wrong and where he could insert his opinion.
This whole opposition to gay marriage is an unfunny joke, founded on nothing and destined to fail. With any luck I'll live long enough to see this opposition become an embarrassing footnote in history.
I think we're on to something with this gay friend thing. I hope this becomes a meme. Next time a bigot talks about his or her "gay friends," anyone hearing this claim should start demanding in a loud voice that this person, right there, on the spot, NAME one or more such "gay friends." And if they can't, the speaker should be soundly ridiculed.
Saith Erich:
"Next time a bigot talks about his or her “gay friends,” anyone hearing this claim should start demanding in a loud voice that this person, right there, on the spot, NAME one or more such “gay friends.” And if they can’t, the speaker should be soundly ridiculed."
Even more than they already are?
Awesome!
(dons 'Gauntlets of Ridiculum' in preparation)
Are those (Gauntlets) available mail-order? I think mine are getting worn out!
Hank writes:—"The alleged “gay friends” that all these bigots claim to have is quite the conundrum.
First, there’s the low probability of anybody being friends with a person who wants to oppress them and everybody like them."
No, it's not. It's tricky psychology, but not rare. Back in The Day, when the issue was blacks mingling with whites, it was not at all uncommon to find whites of a certain mindset with black acquaintances. It's possible these acquaintances rose to the level of friend, but I think "buddy" is about the best you can expect.
The use to which these "friends" were put by the whites who boasted of them was two-fold: they assuaged guilt (see, I don't hold his/her black skin against them, I'm open-minded) and to use them as a standard as if to say "Now if all blacks were like my friend, we'd have no problem."
Often they saw no hypocrisy in treating their black acquaintances "fairly" while feeling that the Blacks as a group were to be feared, resisted, or, often, "saved" from themselves. As long as the blacks they didn't know fell into that group, they could be bigots—but their "friends" were different. (I knew one man who claimed of a black acquaintance that he wasn't really black, but a white man trapped in a black body.)
The chameleonic manner in which these sorts of bigots operated often masked their true feelings, not only from themselves (they seemed incapable of making the leap from being prejudiced against a group to being prejudiced against people they knew) but also from their "friends."
So I don't find the claim of gay friends by these folks unlikely—I'm sure they have associations with gays, maybe even cordial and social. But there is a profound degree of hypocrisy going on.
Mark: Thanks for the reminder. The hypocrisy stems from this: I can't imagine any of these "gay friends" standing next to the bigots, nodding their heads, while the bigot spews anti-gay bigotry. When you suggest that you have "gay friends," it is an attempt to paint an image that your gay friends wouldn't be outraged by what you're saying at the podium. What they should say at the podium is this:
p.s. to Hank—these folks don't want to oppress anybody—they want people to change so oppression has no where to go. If you gave them a gun and a truncheon and told them to keep "those people" in line, they'd be apalled. They really don't understand how oppression works.
Mark,
I must disagree. I think some of them know all too well how oppression works.
Tony,
Some do, but this is one of ironies of "freedom"—people who have can't understand why people who are oppressed just don't walk away from their oppressors.
For instance, talk to conservative, anti-feminist women who fail to "get it" when you say that many women have little or no choice in their lives. Odds are, the woman who doesn't understand this either (a) has always had all the choice she can handle or (b) honestly can't understand why anyone would want more than she has. Certainly, when it is explained carefully, some will understand. They may continue to refuse to act on it, but they will understand. Many, though, will look at you like you're speaking Mandarin. Because their lives aren't like that, they can't understand how anyone else's life can be otherwise except by—wait for it—choice. (Well, they must like it, or, well it's her own fault because she didn't do XY or Z.)
It is the most frustrating form of ignorance and those you're talking about, who do understand, rely on it to make their cause.
Nicklaus wrote:—"Are you equating gay marriage with pedophilia? Not the same. The first usually involves rape, and the second is between consenting adults."
Nicklaus, I think you got that backwards. You did mean pedophilia is rape and not gay marriage, right?
You know, in a way this reminds me of the mid-70s when there was a movement in the Catholic Church to permit priests to marry.
On one of those retrospective programs about the Seventies, I recall John Ritter saying: "In the Seventies, no one wanted to get married—except priests, and the Pope wouldn't let them!"
Karl's response earlier gives me a very clear picture of what he believes. He believes that people are only gay because older gay people "recruited" them by victimizing them when they were young. He DOES equate being gay with pedophilia; he's stirred that pot time and time again. No matter how many times he has been corrected, he goes back to that.
I would like to say to Karl only that sexual victimization is (a) much more emotionally damaging than physically, and (b) happens heterosexually far more often than homosexually.
This particular argument of yours is getting really old. Gay marriage, as someone pointed out, is the result of gay people wanting to publicly commit to monogamous relationships. How you can keep hammering that it somehow equates to rape is beyond me. Move on.
Mark you are perfectly correct with your comment that many people can’t understand why people who are oppressed just don’t walk away from their oppressors.
To expand upon your comment – I honestly think a lot of the 'happy to be oppressed' is a matter of programming.
People have always been programmed. Religions are in the business of programming – their dogma relies upon the impression of certain 'truths' as being unalterable from the earliest age. If you've ever encountered the 'Young Trotskyists' (a fixture of every British University student union) you'll have seen such 'programming' first hand.
Perceived oppression is a cultural thing. I have many Indian colleagues, almost all of whom have arranged marriages. One knew nothing about his bride, other than her name, until the actual wedding. When I've spoken to my colleagues and their wives I've often been incredulous — asking the women, "don't you find it demeaning?" Most think it perfectly ordinary and normal. They told me various reasons why this is a better approach to marriage. All of them struck me as post hoc justifications, but none of the women suggested that the system should change. "Husbands are not for love – husbands are for family" was the general consensus, and most of them thought they had done reasonably well from the practice. I've had similar responses from my male colleagues, in general.
Cultural memes are not always as deeply and broadly ingrained (or as obvious) as arranged marriages, but all traditions have staying power. They all have the same general effect. Of course this is the proper way to do, act, live, speak, work. It is how it has always been. Why should we change?
Innovation is harder for some people than for others (we all exist on yet another bell curve with regards to adaptability and comfort with innovation and change).
Some of us are perfectly happy (indeed thrive) with constant flux. We can change homes, change jobs, change countries and we are still intact, and still very much the same person (although new experiences do help us grow)
Others are frozen into immobility and panic by even the thought of such change.
So I'm not surprised at all that some people (even 'many' people) wish to remain 'oppressed' and that they don't even see the oppression. We are all experts at post-hoc justification for our actions and our choices. (see New Scientist – Choice blindness: You don't know what you want)
I do want (and try) to work towards a society where such oppression is seen as abnormal, rather than an everyday fact of life.
Many excellent points here. Thanks, Tony and Mark.
Tony, I hadn't before heard of "choice blindness." Such a clever set of experiments! Wow . . . I do like this excerpt from the article you cited:
"Normal" people are thus confabulators far beyond what I had ever suspected.
Erich – and how much easier to confabulate, when your choices are already constrained by tradition.
Roy Zimmerman is at it again:
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Karl wrote, "…when young people are used as “property” of older people who feel somehow prividged to show others how to “grow up,” it difiles the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated…"
Mindy responded that: "Karl…believes that people are only gay because older gay people “recruited” them by victimizing them when they were young."
The amusing thing about Mindy's observation, and about Karl's earlier comment, is that while sexual preference is rarely the result of older people "recruiting" young people, most *religious* preference clearly IS the result of older people "recruiting" young people. And just as Karl says, "when young people are used as “property” of older people who feel somehow prividged [sic] to show others how to “grow up,” it difiles [sic] the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated…." Indeed, Karl, when young people are used as 'property' of older (religious) people who feel somehow privileged to show others how to 'grow up,' it defiles the rights and personal will of the one that ends up being forced/lured/seduced/educated. Sadly, most of the world's organized religions (especially Christianity) have a long history of forcing/luring/seducing/educating young children. Perhaps Karl's misplaced accusations about homosexuals are merely a projection of his own rights and personal will being defiled in childhood by some older religious zealot. Perhaps Karl experienced first-hand the horrors of being forcibly indoctrinated into a particular belief.
Grumpy: I agree entirely that there is an authority-driven top-down component to much religious education. Even further, that "education" often takes the form of raw indoctrination, with children being made to endlessly repeat stories and ideas they don't understand and being made to feel morally inferior if they dare speak up that these ideas don't make sense (e.g., Jesus walking on water or Mary being a virgin and a mother).