"The gay community's failure to show tolerance is costing it friends." That's the last, portentous sentence of this column by Debra Saunders. She's a gay-friendly center-right columnist who has supported gay marriage in the past. But she did a "slow burn" as gay-rights advocates and courts rejected civil unions and as Prop. 8 supporters faced public condemnation by name.
With all respect to Saunders, I don't think there has been a "post-passage campaign to intimidate Prop. 8 supporters," though there certainly have been nasty and objectionable episodes, recycled again and again in an example of plural anecdotes becoming a trend. To the extent that anyone is harassed for supporting (or opposing) a ballot initiative, the answer is not to lash out at gay marriage but to protect donors' privacy, as we do voters'. That case is well made here.
But never mind. The important thing here is that Saunders is a canary in the mineshaft. Let's be realistic, gay folks: marriage has been heterosexual since...forever. To denounce as bigots or haters those who are reluctant to change marriage's age-old boundaries-even if they support civil unions, marriage in all but name-is a moral overreach and a strategic blunder of the first order. We have enough enemies. Let's tone down the accusatory rhetoric before we alienate our friends.
33 Comments for “Driving Away Our Friends”
posted by bls on
Hear, hear.
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
The entertainment value comes from how the comments to the article are exactly demonstrating Saunders’s point.
The gay community has a choice; it can continue to coddle the hatemongers who use being gay as excuse for childish, immature, and irrational behavior, or it can not.
posted by TS on
People are mad because they (rightly?) percieve this vote isn’t as much an indication that people are hesitant to expand the definition of marriage as it is an indication that the majority still have contempt for us and still think such contempt is a good reason to punish us with mob democracy when we get too uppity.
Mad people don’t think rationally. To them, this is a holy war. They hate the enemy and will take any opportunity to hurt the enemy, and the enemy hates them and will take any opportunity to hurt them. This bludgeoning culture war won’t end until one or both sides are marginalized or destroyed. No light of understanding, no magic lens of empathy, will be bestowed on the combatants.
I have no sympathy for warriors. I have no sympathy for the idiot Mormon families who gave their life savings to this “cause” and are now being targeted by angry mobs of activists. Nor for the gay activists who are out there losing elections, rights, and allies. Just like I don’t have sympathy for soldiers: they signed up for a job in which they might be killed, or more traumatically, kill. Those who live by the sword die by the sword.
I do have sympathy for the “collateral damage” as pentagonspeak has it. I’m sad for the noncombatant gays, mormons, etc., who are suffering anguish due to the battle. I’m sad for the Iraqi civilians who are executed for the crime of pulling out their wallet in the presence of trigger-happy troops.
posted by Lorenzo on
Let’s be realistic, gay folks: marriage has been heterosexual since…forever.
In monotheistic cultures yes. Other cultures, the story is much more varied. There were same-sex marriages among Amerindian cultures, for example.
And even in monotheistic cultures, it is a product of a history of brutal repression, not some Hayekian or Burkian selection process. As, for example, Montaigne reported in his Journals
posted by Richard Parker on
“There were same-sex marriages among Amerindian cultures, for example.”
…But we don’t live in an Amerindian culture, Lorenzo, do we?
posted by Jay on
If civil unions were available for both gay couples and straight (by their choice), I would have no problem relinquishing the word “marriage”. Yes, it is, in effect, a “separate but almost equal” arrangement, but it is 99% of what we want, is realistic in terms of implementation and support, and, honestly, would go a long way toward enabling society to come to terms with homosexual relationships, especially public ones. But having “gay civil unions” is like saying, “Ok, all the white folks on this side of the room, all the blacks on the other.”
posted by Jorge on
I would also say there is not a “campaign” to intimidate Prop-8 supporters.
But with so many people wanting to do just that, any campaign that forms will necessarily attract a lot of haters. A large portion of its recruits will be the hateful. Are the people who are campaigning for marriage willing to purge from their ranks those who wish to intimidate, to blackmail, to malign?
If they don’t, will the rest of the country decide to purge the gay marriage movement from its high graces? I’m sure they will.
This isn’t an easy choice. The more people are motivated to do something, the baser their motives and goals seem to be.
posted by Carl on
“Let’s tone down the accusatory rhetoric before we alienate our friends.”
What kind of a “friend” donates money to help ban gay marriage? Does “friend” mean someone who politely smiles and asks you how your day is when you give them business, or when you meet them in a social setting, and then they go and give money, possibly money they made from gay or lesbian people, to discriminate against us? If these people really are “friends”, then doesn’t that mean they would still be there to support us because they know the entire community is not involved in protests, or setting up websites listing donor names? Or are they only our “friends” when it’s easy for them?
Over and over, when gays and lesbians are unhappy about a discriminatory action against them, they somehow end up cast as the bad people. The idea becomes if we were only nicer, and sweeter, and kinder, we’d be fine. I don’t agree with some of the behavior of some in the gay community since Prop 8 passed, but I am sad to see this made into some framework of gays turning against “friends”. It becomes very dispiriting, and it shows just how much contempt straight people still have for us if “friends” donate money and vote against us.
posted by Amicus on
Sauders must be one of the most feckless friends you could have.
Her position on the issue, that she was for marriage rights, but didn’t bother to vote, seems to create a new category of ‘supporters’: the creatively indifferent of, should we say, the casually indifferent.
Now, she’s upset because someone is encroaching on her prerogative to say “no”, even though she wants to say “yes”. In another layer of confusion, the people doing the encroaching and the marriage refuters are both within the law – the one is vexing her, but the other isn’t. Maybe her sympathies for gay marriage weren’t well founded … that’s the most charitable interpretation, right?
Meanwhile, I see no reason why gays-at-large should be univocal one way or the other in their approach to non-gays, on this issue.
There are stable, sober voices who can bring a message that ought to be sufficiently compelling to Saunders to get off her duff to vote.
There are, clearly, those who are willing to trade fire-for-fire. If that turns her off, then she isn’t listening to the range of talky-talk, judiciously, is she?
Anyway, you have to take a stand. Even if you want to catch flies with honey, you do. Either you believe that there is a moral right to participate equally in raltionship recognition with non-gays or you don’t.
In other words, to ‘buy into’ the propagandist notion that there is a serious, legitimate, “debate” going on is to cede the central point, I think. Sure, people can exchange views and offer insights, but why should we accept that this issue is a question of tolerance, rather than justice?
posted by Carl on
“Her position on the issue, that she was for marriage rights, but didn’t bother to vote, seems to create a new category of ‘supporters’: the creatively indifferent of, should we say, the casually indifferent.”
The “casually indifferent” argument was used in 2003 and 2004, after the Lawrence ruling, and the gay marriage case in Massachusetts. The argument was that everyday ordinary people may tolerate us, but look out, because now we’d angered them and we were going to lose. Of course, what we lost was basically what we had already been losing — even when states did not have huge crises over gay marriage, they had passed constitutional amendments to ban it.
What we need to work on is just how to persuade people not to vote for amendments that, to them, make sense and they can feel comfortable supporting, because it won’t have any impact on them. Threatening donors and going to court to have amendments overturned isn’t the best way to go about it, but there’s rarely any talk about what the best way is. Instead it’s always some version of, “Don’t test the silent majority…they’re not gonna take it anymore!!!”
And the other problem with this idea is that it very cozily blankets “Average Joe” or “Average Jane” in with those who are dedicated to opposing and outlawing everything from marriage to adoption to gays being able to have certain jobs, right down to sodomy laws.
As long as the framework we use is, “Why do gays act so mean to their friends [friends who happen to donate money against us, vote against us, or abandon us if we criticize those who donate money to this effort]”, which is the tone of Saunders’s column, then we’re never going to go anywhere. And if someone is truly a friend of gays and lesbians, then a court case over gay marriage or the behavior of some gays post-Prop 8 isn’t going to change their opinion.
posted by Lorenzo on
In response to Richard Parker:
No, you do not live in an Amerindian culture: but to claim or imply that marriage has always been, everywhere, only a heterosexual phenomena is wrong.
To claim that “all human history” is on the side of denying equal rights is no more correct than to claim “nature” is.
posted by Marcus French on
Lorenzo,
You said:
“Let’s be realistic, gay folks: marriage has been heterosexual since…forever.
In monotheistic cultures yes. Other cultures, the story is much more varied. There were same-sex marriages among Amerindian cultures, for example.”
Has the story really been “much more varied” in non-monotheistic cultures? And where there were same-sex marriages, were they really treated in the same way as male/female marriages in that culture?
As I’ve stated elsewhere:
1. The majority of cultures throughout history have defined marriage as the formal union of one man and one woman.
2. A minority of cultures throughout history have defined marriage as the formal union of a man and one or more women.
3. An infinitesimally small number of cultures throughout history have given some kind of recognition to same-sex unions, but even then, these relationships were primarily pederastic relationships, and even in those cases, these relationships were often abandoned when the older party involved got married to a person of the opposite sex. So, even in these rare instances of recognized or formalized same-sex unions, the union of two people of the same sex was not considered to be on an equal plane to marriage.
posted by Jorge on
What kind of a “friend” donates money to help ban gay marriage? Does “friend” mean someone who politely smiles and asks you how your day is when you give them business, or when you meet them in a social setting, and then they go and give money, possibly money they made from gay or lesbian people, to discriminate against us? If these people really are “friends”, then doesn’t that mean they would still be there to support us because they know the entire community is not involved in protests, or setting up websites listing donor names? Or are they only our “friends” when it’s easy for them?
Welcome to Christianity, religion of turn the other cheek and other fun peaceable idiosyncracies. News flash: it’s the majority religion in this country. Just to spell out the point, it’s probably best to fight like them, not like the communists and the facists.
posted by Ben on
I agree with Jay. While civil unions are certainly a step in the right direction, to say one group of people can be “married” and another group can only be “joined in civil union” is in fact saying that some laws only apply to certain groups or types of people. This is wrong. This is the “separate but equal” doctrine all over again.
The way I see it, such distinctions merely institutionalize structures which continue to allow gays to be treated as second-class citizens. A government may grant the same or similar rights to gays as it does to the rest of society, but if it does so with language that separates gays from the rest of society, this seems to indicate that the government (and society at large) feels that gay rights are not inalienable in the same way as the rights of everyone else. Needless to say, this sort of reasoning could be used to argue that gays should be kept separate form the rest of society. This is a dangerous pattern.
posted by Amicus on
Carl,
One way to look at it is that non-gays haven’t actually be called upon to *do* something for their fellow gay citizens since the AIDS crisis, apart from these ballot initiatives.
They have failed on both.
Equality California has a study that the electorate is hardened. 70% who voted for it report that nothing would change their mind.
http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090125/NEWS01/901240379/1026/news12
That number seems stunningly large, to me; but I’m an optimist about persuasion, especially since we know the opposition played seriously foul with their advertising:
“90 percent received their information about the measure from TV ads, but 29 percent said discussions with friends and family were the most influential.”
Separately:
“What we need to work on is just how to persuade people not to vote for amendments that, to them, make sense and they can feel comfortable supporting, because it won’t have any impact on them.”
posted by Rob on
Our friends? Not mine. Oh sure I may have friendly acquaintances and classmates that are slightly anti-gay, but they’ll never reach into my first or even my second orbit of personal friends, unless their views change.
As for Debra Saunders and the gay conservatives, I don’t understand why they’re hesitant about voting against a proposition that was ultimately targeted against gay families. Sure the court stepped over the very slight majority of Californians, but so did the US Supreme Court when they stroke down anti-miscegenation laws. There are very good reasons why popular will doesn’t belong in courthouses.
By the way, need I remind people here that civil unions/partnerships and domestic partnerships are mostly incompatible in various jurisdictions where some level or another of such arrangements exist? Why waste time on such trivialities? At least things are streamlined between countries where same-sex marriage is legal.
posted by Carl on
“One way to look at it is that non-gays haven’t actually be called upon to *do* something for their fellow gay citizens since the AIDS crisis, apart from these ballot initiatives.”
The expectations are so low that we’re supposed to be pleased if straight people don’t actively work against us.
If this is the situation we’re in, then fine, but it’s not friendship.
posted by CPT_Doom on
I feel about this column the same way I feel about the recent suggestions from the DC City Council on how gays and lesbians should protect ourselves from the wave of anti-gay violence that has hit this city. The Council’s suggestions? Never walk alone at night (so as a single person, I’m supposed to stay home whenever it’s dark), never engage someone who insults you (thereby proving I’m a pansy/sissy/wuss) and run like a child to the nearest straight guy to get help if you feel threatened. No discussion of self-defense classes, no suggestions on how the community (gay and breeder) could work to reduce anti-gay hate. At no point did the Council even suggest we had the right to walk on our own city streets without the threat of attack.
In the same way, Ms. Saunders is upset that we weren’t good little faggots who said “thank you,” when millions of our fellow citizens voted to make us second-class subhumans (and I don’t just include pro-Prop 8 voters; I include every suppoter of the adulterer John McCain, who ran on an anti-gay party platform).
But the problem with her argument is simple – the First Amendment applies to all (until the anti-gay hate movement decides to strip us of that right, of course) and it does not represent an unfettered right. There is no right to free speech without consequences, there is simply a right to speak your mind. If others find you offensive, insulting, anti-America, unchristian and immoral for your speech, that is your risk.
We also must remember that no voter is being harassed for their votes. Rather, those who chose to finance a campaign of lies, smears, slanders and urban myths designed to belittle, demean, dehumanize and attack innocent gays and lesbians have been targeted, and rightly so. As a gay man, I have no reason to want to work with those who finance hate against me, so when I find out that, for instance, a director of a theater who supported the anti-gay hate amendment financially found himself in a difficult position, and felt the need to resign, I say “good.” That is what one gets when one attacks one’s coworkers and colleagues.
I work for a company that is 80% female. If I decided to make public statements, even as a private citizen, that I considered women incompetent and argue they should not have equal opportunities, I would face severely negative reactions from my coworkers, and I should not be shocked at those reactions.
posted by Bobby on
“The Council’s suggestions? Never walk alone at night (so as a single person, I’m supposed to stay home whenever it’s dark), never engage someone who insults you (thereby proving I’m a pansy/sissy/wuss) and run like a child to the nearest straight guy to get help if you feel threatened.”
—You see what happens when you ask a progressive for advice? Call a conservative and he will tell you 3 little words: Buy a gun.
I don’t know about concealed carry laws in DC, but if I have to choose between going to court for shooting a gay basher and being dead or seriously injured, I’d rather go to court. So if you have to carry a gun illegally to protect your own life, do so.
Or at the very least you get TASER and pepper spray.
Or move to a state where they like law-abiding citizens more than criminals. DC is too criminal-friendly.
posted by Chairm on
The commenters here seem to have missed the point.
Saunders is legitimately concerned about the process used to achieve the very thing that she and you agree about. The SSM campaign has bee corruptive of everything it has touched.
You agreed with Newsom? You approved of the state high court to reward his flouting the state laws? Reap what you sow.
And then the judiciary decided not to await the results of the amendment vote before implementing its abolishsment of the man-woman criterion of marriage. That was a political act, not a judicial act, for all intents and purposes.
People who rushed to SSM did so knowing the amendment vote was coming. For five months they encouraged to make a rash decision. Domestic partnership status was not up for repeal in the amendment vote. It amounted to a political stunt.
And you walked right into it with your eyes wide open.
Then the AG rewrote the title and description of the proposed amendment, also calculated to favor the No side. Combined with the premature and political act of the judiciary, this gave the No side an additional advantage (maybe +10%) over and above what No sides typically start with propositions in general.
So you excused the abuses of power.
Then the No side squandered its big lead. A lead that at first appeared to be insurmountable. The anti-Mormon ad was reprehensible, but it gave the No side an apparent boost.
And YOU really, really, really want to blame donors and voters who supported the amendment? Villify them. Seek vengance. Do the wrong thing in aid of what you think to be the right thing?
They participated in the process, fairly, just like their counterparts in the No-side. There are not blacklists of teh No-side’s individual donors. In fact, there were not mass protests in the streets on the way to the imposition of SSM in
California. That’s not because people on the Yes side were not offended and not outraged by the imposition.
And even now, two months later, you continue to disparage the amending process, and the fair election, as “mob rule”?
You have no respect for society and the constitution and yet you demand your “rights” based on both. You might as well call voters for Obama bigots and hate-mongers for he said he favored the both-sexed basis of marriage and post-election he makes noises like he is on the fence, much as Saunders has become more neutral.
Of course, a 52% mob voted him into the presidency so his election can’t be legitimate either, right?
You’re enraged by those who disagree with your novel concept of marriage, your rule-by-men rather than by constitution, and your skewed attitude toward the amending process.
Look, the entire process was abused by the SSM campaign. Domestic partnership was enacted after the 60+% vote in favor of the statutory provision for the man-woman criterion. That was a fair vote, fairly won. You lost.
But then the legislature rapidly expanded domestic partnership to become a localized merger with marriage. That was contrary to the premise of the statutory provision. But there were no enraged protests across the state. People put up with the continuing scope creep of the SSM project. Grudgingly, because they had the mistaken impression that the direct vote had settled the matter cleanly and reasonably.
The SSM campaign wanted yet more. So it pushed the legislature to enact an outright merger — an unconstitutional move. Blatantly so. And, again, no mass protests screaming for vengance on the financial and political contributors to the SSM campaign. Opposition, yes. Heated, yes. But no blacklists with your names on it as individuals.
Then the SSM campaign’s courtcentric approach. It continues now, to dispute a fair election. This is yet another example of a corruptive influence on the process. It is going forward, sure, but it lacks a moral basis.
Yet you would villify those who disagree — claiming that you have some moral high ground?
I don’t agree with Saunders nor with Rauch about SSM, however, I agree with them on this point:
Saunders: “it was clear that, within a matter of years, California voters would legalize same-sex marriage – and the issue would be settled for good.”
Rauch: “To denounce as bigots or haters those who are reluctant to change marriage’s age-old boundaries?even if they support civil unions, marriage in all but name?is a moral overreach […] of the first order.”
And in other jurisdictions the prospect of domestic partnership laws has been diminished greatly. First, because it is clearly and political subterfuge and not really a call for justice. Second, because it gave a fig leaf to the imposition of SSM by the judiciary. Third, it is designed to pave the way for federalization of SSM and thus it undermines the basis for the repeal of DOMA (I agree with DOMA but you don’t) and even the basis for some opponents of SSM to oppose a federal amendment.
The corruptive influence on the process, and the lack of moral seriousness, and the lack even of a sound strategy (based on reasoned public discourse and rule of law), that influence has its source in the core of SSM arugmentation.
That source is identity politics of the gaycentric kind.
Identity politics is one of the most reliable sources of injustice, corruption, and violence. The gay identity politics on display is no exception for the trajectory you are on, with the inflammatory and, as Rauch put it, “the accusatory rhetoric” not only alienates your non-gay friends, as is clearly the case, but also your gay friends.
Exit polls suggest that gay voters contributed about one-half of the margin of victory. There were openly gay people writing in support of the Yes side in newspapers. Rauch has only reminded you of what you were forewarned of earlier.
So, yeh, go ahead. Indulge in the angerfest and the vengance-seeking.
With friends like you who needs political enemies?
posted by Jorge on
Gay “people?” Plural? I thought there was only one socially conservative gay person in America. Wow!
I agree with Charim, by the way. It occurs to me that if in order to be a friend you must agree with what gay people want, then the only friends gay people will have are other gay people. For a coalition as small as ours to make war will only lead to self-destruction.
If we’re gonna do that, at least let us call ourselves martyrs and get better press for it.
posted by Rob on
Chairm you agree with DOMA? Why?
posted by EssEm on
CPT Doom.
If you are so hot on the First Amendment, why not try using the Second to arm yourself and the other folks in DC so that thugs will think more than twice about harassing or attacking you? Self defense class on use of a firearm…
posted by Carl on
“It occurs to me that if in order to be a friend you must agree with what gay people want, then the only friends gay people will have are other gay people.”
There are countless straight people who agree with what gay people want. If there weren’t, then the amendment would have passed by far more than 52%.
This goes back to what has been talked about before. If gay people beg for scraps, feel guilty for even wanting a hint of basic rights, will those who virulently oppose us suddenly ease up? Or will they declare “victory” and use this as an opportunity to repeal anti-discrimination laws, to try to get gays barred from teaching, from adopting or foster kids, to bring sodomy laws back?
posted by Jorge on
He’s not saying he agrees with DOMA. He is saying that domestic partnership laws and the movement/trend they are part of undermines the use of differing opinions of DOMA as the basis of repealing DOMA.
posted by Jorge on
There are countless straight people who agree with what gay people want. If there weren’t, then the amendment would have passed by far more than 52%.
Sorry, but I do not agree. California is the most or second most liberal state in the Union, and we still lost there. I am all for asking big and not giving up the fight. Frankly I am disappointed the gay rights movement is limiting itself to demanding only legal and not social and religious recognition of marriage. But to make it person and use the take no prisoners approach is both suicidal. To declare that you are either with us or against us will not change the victor of the vast majority of battles in our present time. What it will change are the spoils and the collateral damage. It’s the different between having enemies who will give us no quarter and enemies who will hold back, and allies (gay AND straight) who will stay by our side through thick and thin and allies who will desert us.
I also think the take no prisoners approach is extremely unethical and directly against what this country is about, but you can try to convince me to get off my ass if you like.
posted by BobN on
It’s apparent that few posters here are from California and that none are from the Bay Area. Debra Saunders is a hack. Her purpose is to push buttons, ala Limbaugh. For a brief, very brief, period before the election, she seemed to have put away her shtick and become rational.
With this column, she’s back to her old tricks.
posted by Carl on
“California is the most or second most liberal state in the Union, and we still lost there.”
I’ve never seen California as an overly liberal state. They were reliably Republican for generation after generation and only moved to the Democratic column for good when the GOP exploited the immigration issue in 1994 and when the national party and the state party both lurched so far to the right. A sizable part of the California Democratic coalition is made up of socially conservative Democrats.
“It’s the different between having enemies who will give us no quarter and enemies who will hold back, and allies (gay AND straight) who will stay by our side through thick and thin and allies who will desert us.”
I guess I just don’t see that a large majority of the gay activist community has done anything to alienate people who should be our allies. The vandalism against churches was condemned by most gay people that I can think of. Listing the donors was something done by a select number of individuals, not any major gay organizations.
The gay community is often deemed unworthy of support by the actions of a few. There is no way possible for any community to be able to get every member of that community to fall into line. There’s always going to be something that will be used to feign shock and horror and outrage.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
I’m trying to get an education from the comments here.
I can only try and respond on simple terms. I don’t have the energy right now to do otherwise.
I suppose one would have to have observed for a LONG time, the sense of urgency and anxiety that permeates members of the gay community.
A crisis has and almost always defined the limitations of DP’s and CU’s when the couple could least afford to worry about the legal security or lack of it of their relationships to each other and their children.
Urgency, meaning…waiting for the public to catch up isn’t an option for thousands of people.
Marriage HAS been redefined, many times…and often because of the belief in what marriage IS, not who is fit for or deserving of it.
The opposition kept claiming redefinition in terms of damage and devaluation.
And how can they make that claim when the most horrible and reprobate of heterosexuals can, but the most enduring and capable gay couple can’t?
How can marriage suddenly be defined by children for gay people, when it isn’t for anyone else?
We were confronted in debate mostly with definitions that don’t exist, and the current definition isn’t changed, even profoundly.
The political process has been too arduous, incremental and impossible to wait on.
Anxiety, the kind where couples await whether they can adopt a child they’ve cared for since he was two days old and now he’s eight years old.
The kind of pressure to acquire live saving cancer treatment through insurance, otherwise unavailable to unmarried couples.
The kind of urgency that demands whether or not the foreign born partner of a citizen can stay legally.
The luxury of waiting is for those who don’t have to.
Anxiety, exhaustion…were all going to explode eventually.
Why?
Because the society has already lost their capital on knowing just how much patience has already been spent.
How much pained smiles and silence and invisibility.
I am one of the straight friends who has been knee deep in pro gay politics SINCE Prop. 6 and Harvey Milk’s time.
People, I was a teenager and couldn’t wait to cast the first vote of my life when they changed the voting age minimum.
Wait?
For who, for WHAT?!
Until hell freezes and not even THEN?!
That’s WHAT the courts are for. Not popular opinion against an unpopular MINORITY.
Wait?
WTF for? Had any black folks or women waited…we would have never HEARD of or had any hope for the people who are a part of the leadership landscape.
We’d have only heard of those who entertain and live in servitude to the whims of the dominant culture, anonymously and without knowing them as heroic, patient and courageous.
Like gay folks are now.
There is a Constitutional amendment that is supposed to shelter and protect minorities JUST like gay folks.
Changing up the state Constitution to, for the FIRST time, redefine it as DISCRIMINATORY, didn’t worry the Prop.8 supporters.
And BTW, I went to the YES on Prop. website that was linked to Skyline Church in San Diego, THEY disclosed the list of ALL the donors anyway.
And the opponents of No on 8 weren’t discreet either about who THEY contacted or tried to out as gay.
When it’s all said and done, the work of being protected from mob and majority tyranny is still something the courts and Constitution are supposed to do.
When that fails, and the majority decides the Constitution can be bent to their will too, then the demand that those on the receiving of discrimination MUST wait to please the majority, or not offend them…must feel too sadly defeated already.
posted by CPT_Doom on
Chairm has the timeline just a bit wrong on the issue of equal marriage rights in CA. In fact while the case was being decided in the courts, the legislature of CA twice voted for equal marriage rights, equality and justice. The wimp of a Governator was the one who refused to follow the people’s representatives and sign the bill. He wanted to wait for the courts.
As for any issues with the rule of law, I find it interesting that one of the main reasons no court would grant an immediate injunction against Gavin Newsome’s exercise of civil disobedience was precisely because NO ONE could point to any damage being done by letting the marriages continue. In other words, there is no definable negative impact on society from equal marriage laws. More importantly, the foundation of our Constitutional government is the idea that all people have rights, and those rights cannot be abridged by a simple majority vote. Do you really think the pseudo-Christian cult of Mormonism would have flourished in this country if the people could vote on whether to extend civil rights to minority religions? I am pretty sure that even today one could generate an enormous amount of support for a federal Amendment to limit the First Amendment, say, to religions that were present at the time of the founding. It would only take the implementation of propaganda similar to that used against gays and lesbians to paint Mormons, Christian Scientists, Seventh-Day Adventists, not to mention the Scientologists, as satanic heretics who are destroying the country.
That is why, at a fundamental level, people like Saunders have it all wrong on the equal marriage question. Civil rights like marriage (and yes, the Supreme Court has ruled in two cases – Loving v VA and another case allowing imprisoned murderers to marry – making marriage a more fundamental civil right than votign) cannot be put up to majority votes. We are not talking about tax policy here, we are talking about the basic way that we interact in society. I have every right, for instance, to consider John McCain an adulterer, and Sarah Heath [Palin] as both a heretic and a fornicator because they both fail to meet the standards of Roman Catholic morality in their personal lifestyle choices (and yes, under strict Catholic rules, neither of their “marriages” are valid before God). What I cannot demand is that their relationships with their sex partners be considered less worthy than a real marriage (between observant Catholics) based solely on the religious beliefs that I was taught as a child.
So the real people to blame here are the religious and political “leaders” who have used the LGBT community as a political scapegoat to advance their own political power. There is not one shred of evidence that equal marriage rights would have anything but a positive impact on society, and those “leaders” know it. Those “leaders,” including people like Rick Warren and Elizabeth Hasselbeck, lied about us – they LIED ABOUT US. The entire pro-Prop 8 campaign was a web of lies, slanders, stereotypes and innuendos because there is no legitimate argument that can be made against equal marriage rights. Those who supported that campaign, particularly those who knowingly lied, are more than appropriate targets for scorn and ridicule.
Oh, and for all the libertarians who think the answer to anti-gay crime is to get a gun, no thank you. In 20 years in DC, I have, in fact, been a victim of crime twice. Once I was held up at gunpoint (so my own gun would not have been any help) and the other time I was smashed in the face with a brick during an anti-gay attack. Again having a weapon on me would have been no help, and I likely would have ended up killed by my own weapon.
The answer to crime is not to arm the country to the teeth – not with stories like the murder/suicide of the entire family in CA. I do like Chris Rock’s idea of taxing the hell out of bullets, though. There would be a hell of a lot less violence if bullets were $100 a pop.
posted by Regan DuCasse on
North Dallas Thirty, exchange the word ‘heterosexual’ for ‘gay’ in the last paragraph of your post, and then address it to THEM.
C’mon. What excuse have heterosexuals for being so reactionary with Prop. 8?
And Cpt. Doom is right, the CA legislature, the people’s representatives DID vote in favor twice, and the governor DID refuse to sign and waited for the courts.
Do you want to talk about a minority of people WITHIN a minority acting out in anger or in ways you don’t appreciate?
Or the majority of the minority that has accessed the courts, due process of law and legally and rightfully engaged the schools, churches and their families?
Boycotts are legal, so are rallies and public displays on signs.
They sure were here in Los Angeles. Done under the watch of local law enforcement, and considering their size, quite peaceful and without incident.
Yelling in protest at a public venue is legal too.
So if you want to scold somebody, scold the straight folks that didn’t have to worry about any rallies, protests or boycotts BEFORE Prop. 8.
All they had to worry about was joyful weddings, and the flood of revenue into our state and the coffers of local businesses to host wedding celebrations.
Even El Coyote might have made a mint hosting such things.
So the anger, the righteous indignation is OURS, and we owned LONG before Prop. 8
There was urgency on OUR side, simply for the fact that nobody was getting hurt by gay folks getting married.
Nobody.
So anyone complaining about getting hurt by gay folks getting angry, are childish or liars, to say they wouldn’t have responded the same way if the shoe were on the other foot.
They are anyway, regardless. So what is THEIR excuse?
posted by North Dallas Thirty on
And Cpt. Doom is right, the CA legislature, the people’s representatives DID vote in favor twice, and the governor DID refuse to sign and waited for the courts.
Unfortunately for that argument, Regan, the people themselves voted twice too — Proposition 22 first, and then Proposition 8.
It is beyond hilarious that you cite the representatives of the people as an authority based on the fact that people voted for them, but then completely disregard and refuse to acknowlege the people’s decision on an issue on which they voted directly as authoritative.
Do you really think the pseudo-Christian cult of Mormonism would have flourished in this country if the people could vote on whether to extend civil rights to minority religions?
Actually, the Mormons were, to use the parlance of the gay community, denied the “right” to marry whomever they chose under whatever circumstances they chose, among several others, and were demonized in quite the way you claim the gay community was.
So what did they do? They mainstreamed and grew up. They dropped their outrageous demands, and they learned to get along with other people.
There’s a lesson there somewhere.
I suppose one would have to have observed for a LONG time, the sense of urgency and anxiety that permeates members of the gay community.
Yes, Regan, we’re all just poor, traumatized victims waiting for you, the noble warrior, to swoop in and save us from those evil religious folks and whitey.
Example:
So anyone complaining about getting hurt by gay folks getting angry, are childish or liars,
So you agree that it’s perfectly OK to vandalize churches and that anyone who complains about it is “childish or liars”.
So you agree that it’s perfectly OK to knock down little old ladies and that anyone who complains about it is “childish or liars”.
So you agree that it’s perfectly OK to demand that someone be fired from their job and that anyone who complains about it is “childish or liars”.
Boy, that’s a bit of a tune change from just a few weeks ago.
Meanwhile, to refer to the last post in that thread, truer words were never spoken.
If these so called leaders truly cared about the gay community they would call a boycott of all the drug laden White Party’s, Blue Ball’s. etc. I would much rather see my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters alive and well than worrying about boycotting some restaurant. But alas, drug addiction and abuse is not an issue with gay leaders. They would rather see out community kill it’s self.
And “Gary” is right. Gays are to the liberal left what the Palestinians are to al-Qaeda; a thin excuse and rationalization for them to carry out their own deep-seated hatreds.
posted by Judtin67 on
That’s perfectly right. Each one on earth need marriage to prove their love and it is a proof that their great love can be accepted by all people in the world. “That is love, It shows our heart is full of love. We wanna love and be loved and spoiled” ones of my bisexual friends knew at Bimingle dotcom said on her blog. That’s why all LGBT love finding the right match online altought some people regard them as special one.