It's not much more than a conversation in a car, but if you think about it, it says a whole lot.
Dennis Prager and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach are driving in Botswana over Thanksgiving, and while the video recorder is on, the subject of same-sex marriage comes up. They have a spirited discussion.
For those who are younger, some perspective: Fifty years ago, such a conversation would have been unthinkable. Not just hard to have, but inconceivable - and not only among heterosexual men, but even among most people who were homosexual themselves. The most visionary of our early supporters could see marriage as a possibility, but in a world where homosexuality was a crime, a sickness and a sin, there were far more important things that needed to be accomplished before marriage moved up the list.
It's hard to emphasize that enough. Fifty years ago, our sheer existence was not even acknowledgeable. Particularly because of the criminal laws, we ran enormous risks even discussing our lives with friendly heterosexuals, much less trying to change the laws that enforced our silence. And good luck, in those days, trying to find friendly heterosexuals.
Now listen to Rabbi Boteach. While we could all probably think of supplemental arguments to back him up (Prager, of course, is not supportive), he is an articulate and feisty advocate, within the strictures of his religious belief.
More important, there does not seem to be anyone in the car who is gay to bring the subject up. While it is our rights that are at stake, and while we are an infinitesimally small minority, our arguments are sound enough, and clear enough that they have penetrated into the nation's conscience. We are not the only ones who understand how fundamentally unfair current law is - or feel we have an interest in changing it.
It is conversations like this that take place out of the public eye, and out of our hearing that are the most important now. As I said earlier, we cannot ever comprise a majority; our equality entirely depends on heterosexuals now. It took us a half century to pave the way for them to have these conversations, but now they are happening everywhere. Not all of them will be well-articulated or even sympathetic. But in light of the silence of generations past, every one of them will be helpful.
(H/T to Good As You)
7 Comments for “A Conversation in a Car”
posted by Jack on
This sounds like a joke:
“Dennis Prager and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach are driving in Botswana over Thanksgiving”
If you add a Catholic priest to the mix, you could gin up some real zinging punchlines.
posted by Jerry on
I think it’s sad that these people like Prager seem to be paranoid schizophrenics.
posted by David Link on
Hey, Jerry — there’s a glass half full in there somewhere!
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posted by Arthur on
The humanness of our need to bond is our greatest tool now that society and the religious can no longer say we are not human as they did 50 years ago. The glass is half full.
posted by Jorge on
Glass half-full, eh?
Years ago, the punchline to stories like this would have been–so everybody has to come out NOW so there are more stories like this and we can live happily ever after–the end.
Now Mr. Link is saying that no matter what, we’ll never be a majority so we gotta rely on other people selling our rights for us.
Doesn’t Dennis Prager know any gay people? He’s semi-famous, I’m sure he’s talked to enough. Know who else knows gay people? George W. Bush and Rick Santorum.
posted by David Link on
Jorge, you might have misunderstood my comment. We (meaning homosexuals) will never be a majority because of the tyranny of arithmetic. While there are certainly plenty of fearful heterosexuals who somehow think we can turn everyone gay, the reality is that will never happen.
So we have to depend on the majority to understand us — as the Rabbi does seem to do. Given our extremely small numbers, it’s a tribute to us, and to the wisdom of the first amendment, that we’ve been as successful as we have: right on the verge of a majority on marriage, and well past it on other issues. That’s how half-full the glass is. Where once no heterosexual could dare even think, much less talk about our existence, now we have convinced millions. While I am a firm believer that the equal protection clause was supposed to protect minorities from having to fight for their equal rights in the political sphere, we’ve learned from dire experience, particularly here in California, that there are still adequate numbers of voters who will exempt us from even equality, itself (which is what the Olsen/Boies lawsuit is trying to correct). Unless and until that is firmly established (and we know that even if it is, there will be a potent desire to take even that away), we have to rely on the political process for whatever we can secure. It’s not what I’d have wished for, it’s what we’ve got to work with, and should be pretty proud of how much we’ve accomplished.