Link first: "It's not Obama I'm mad at; it's way too many of you."
There're a lot of people, including some quite close to me, who don't get why this Rick Warren thing is a big deal. Or they argue that it's about bringing together diverse views, or reaching out to the right, and that it's somehow admirable for this. Here're my two cents:
Bull-fucking-shit. Hem. This isn't just one isolated event; it's yet another in a long line of occasions where the Democratic Party has reached out to the right at the expense of the GLBT community, thrown us under the bus in the name of unity. This isn't about diversity; this is validation of hate speech, a signal that it is somehow acceptable to, as Warren has, compare gay marriage to incest. This isn't outreach; we're not communicating anything to the guy or his supporters except that Obama & co. care about them. And if he'd spoken of another minority -- say, Jews, or Asian-Americans, or African-Americans -- as hatefully as he has of gay people, nobody would consider it an acceptable form of outreach or diversifying.
The thing is, quite simply, that GLBT issues are not abstract. I've said it before; I'll keep saying it. GLBT issues are not abstract. People die because of anti-GLBT discrimination. People are brutally attacked because homophobia is still accepted -- nay, encouraged -- in our society. I could go on -- that's just this last week -- but I shouldn't have to. It should be bleeding obvious that GLBT people need protection and active support and that no, we can't wait. We have waited too long. We can't go on taking scraps from the table of justice, watching as hate speech is accepted and affirmed while we are told to sit down and shut up until the mainstream is "ready" for us, following along like good little sheep after leaders who openly oppose full equality and justify it with religious beliefs that aren't even validated by the holy texts they draw from. As the famous quote/paraphrase whose origins appear to be lost in the mists of time says, "justice too long delayed is justice denied" and we cannot allow ourselves to be denied justice. Neither can any supposed ally allow us to, without admitting that they don't really care about us.
We can't let ourselves be thrown under the bus by the Democratic Party or anyone else. We can't let ourselves be put at the bottom of the priority list, to wait until America is ready for us. We need justice today, and if America is not ready then it must be dragged kicking and screaming into a place of justice, as it has been so many times before in the history of our nation, because the majority's opinion is so wildly unimportant in comparison to the needs of the minority that it should never even register.
Enough is enough is enough, already.
2008-12-20
18000 marriages need to end to protect marriage
Yes On 8 wants to annul all the same-sex marriages performed in the state to date. I am completely unsurprised.
I just don't get it, friends. I don't understand how other people living their lives can be so offensive to anyone that they're willing to put their time and money into tearing us down. The nearest I can figure is that there's some severe difference in word definitions between us and them.
My hypothesis is that it comes down to the definition of homosexuality. From the point of view of a GLBA person, homosexuality is the state of being attracted to/falling in love exclusively or almost exclusively with people of the same sex/gender as oneself. It's innate, it's immutable -- who chooses who they love? -- and it's a part of who you are regardless of what you do.
The thing about this understanding of sexual orientation -- supported by science and backed by the APA -- is that it makes "homosexuality is a sin" gibberish. It's a trait. Redheadedness isn't a sin, or autism, or being black, or being left-handed. And therefore we don't push redheads to dye their hair, mandate drugging of autistic people, force black people to bleach their skin and straighten their hair, or prohibit the use of the left hand for writing. In the present, I mean. So it's illogical to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation, just as laws against left-handedness would be illogical.
Therefore, I don't think that our opponents can possibly define homosexuality this way. The party line for a lot of conservatives is that it's a "lifestyle choice," right? So what I eventually realized is that homosexuality to them means gay sex. A gay person is someone who has sex with people of the same sex -- bisexuals I think must be seen as incredibly promiscuous, because otherwise there would be no way of giving meaning to the term -- and therefore, logically, if they stop having sex with people of the same sex, they are no longer gay.
Now, there are a few flaws with this, and the first is that it's completely and demonstrably false. Well, that can be dodged by simply not believing the overwhelming scientific evidence or any individual gay person who has relevant personal experience. The second is that only a total idiot with a persecution complex would ever choose to be a member of an unpopular minority group. The counter to this that I've seen is the suggestion that gay sex is addictive, sort of like tobacco I suppose, and to try it once is to risk getting hooked for life. Alternately, there's the Freudian idea that gay people have some childhood trauma that makes us afraid of relationships with people of the opposite sex, so that same-sex relationships seem better somehow even with every disadvantage that goes with them.
So assuming that the addiction view is accepted, the logic runs the opposite way. You want to make it harder for people to become addicted to harmful things, so you pass laws to discourage use and encourage rehabilitation. Therefore, banning same-sex marriage (and ideally civil unions) is a way of discouraging gay people from committing to relationships, making stable commitment harder and forcing us to see opposite-sex relationships as preferable alternatives. Similarly, with the Freudian model, the idea is that making same-sex relationships less appealing will lead people back to heterosexuality.
The problem, of course, is that they're so completely wrong about every aspect of this that it's absurd. And here we get to the part I don't understand, and will never be able to understand: why don't they figure this out? Why is it so hard to realize that the sex-addiction model of homosexuality completely fails to account for monogamous same-sex couples, gay virgins/happily single gay people like yours truly, heterosexually monogamous bisexual-identified people, and indeed most of the gay/bi community because most people aren't awfully promiscuous actually? Or that the Freudian model, besides being rejected by the psychiatric community, fails to explain any variety of bisexual? It doesn't compute, for me.
I just don't get it, friends. I don't understand how other people living their lives can be so offensive to anyone that they're willing to put their time and money into tearing us down. The nearest I can figure is that there's some severe difference in word definitions between us and them.
My hypothesis is that it comes down to the definition of homosexuality. From the point of view of a GLBA person, homosexuality is the state of being attracted to/falling in love exclusively or almost exclusively with people of the same sex/gender as oneself. It's innate, it's immutable -- who chooses who they love? -- and it's a part of who you are regardless of what you do.
The thing about this understanding of sexual orientation -- supported by science and backed by the APA -- is that it makes "homosexuality is a sin" gibberish. It's a trait. Redheadedness isn't a sin, or autism, or being black, or being left-handed. And therefore we don't push redheads to dye their hair, mandate drugging of autistic people, force black people to bleach their skin and straighten their hair, or prohibit the use of the left hand for writing. In the present, I mean. So it's illogical to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation, just as laws against left-handedness would be illogical.
Therefore, I don't think that our opponents can possibly define homosexuality this way. The party line for a lot of conservatives is that it's a "lifestyle choice," right? So what I eventually realized is that homosexuality to them means gay sex. A gay person is someone who has sex with people of the same sex -- bisexuals I think must be seen as incredibly promiscuous, because otherwise there would be no way of giving meaning to the term -- and therefore, logically, if they stop having sex with people of the same sex, they are no longer gay.
Now, there are a few flaws with this, and the first is that it's completely and demonstrably false. Well, that can be dodged by simply not believing the overwhelming scientific evidence or any individual gay person who has relevant personal experience. The second is that only a total idiot with a persecution complex would ever choose to be a member of an unpopular minority group. The counter to this that I've seen is the suggestion that gay sex is addictive, sort of like tobacco I suppose, and to try it once is to risk getting hooked for life. Alternately, there's the Freudian idea that gay people have some childhood trauma that makes us afraid of relationships with people of the opposite sex, so that same-sex relationships seem better somehow even with every disadvantage that goes with them.
So assuming that the addiction view is accepted, the logic runs the opposite way. You want to make it harder for people to become addicted to harmful things, so you pass laws to discourage use and encourage rehabilitation. Therefore, banning same-sex marriage (and ideally civil unions) is a way of discouraging gay people from committing to relationships, making stable commitment harder and forcing us to see opposite-sex relationships as preferable alternatives. Similarly, with the Freudian model, the idea is that making same-sex relationships less appealing will lead people back to heterosexuality.
The problem, of course, is that they're so completely wrong about every aspect of this that it's absurd. And here we get to the part I don't understand, and will never be able to understand: why don't they figure this out? Why is it so hard to realize that the sex-addiction model of homosexuality completely fails to account for monogamous same-sex couples, gay virgins/happily single gay people like yours truly, heterosexually monogamous bisexual-identified people, and indeed most of the gay/bi community because most people aren't awfully promiscuous actually? Or that the Freudian model, besides being rejected by the psychiatric community, fails to explain any variety of bisexual? It doesn't compute, for me.
2008-12-07
so sick of this all
We've got a long haul until March. Let's have analysis to fill it up!
Someone was talking about the importance of communication and understanding and how the other side had their reasons today, and that got me thinking. It's hard for me, because on the one hand, I hate having to do this. We shouldn't have to fight this one. We have a society that, by and large, recognizes the importance of equality. Legally, at any rate, we recognize that racial inequality is wrong, that people with disabilities need accommodations, that men and women deserve equal respect. (Socially, we often don't recognize areas where these ideals are not applied, but they are embedded in our laws now.) And it took so long, and so much heartbreak and struggle, that it is unthinkable to me that we could now ignore that legacy. How can a society full of people who have lived through the civil rights movement and the women's movement, or been taught about them in their history classes, fail to recognize the same story with a simple search-and-replace? How can I possibly have to fight this battle as though it were new? It's completely unfair.
On the other hand, as my dad always used to tell me when I complained about some unjust family rule, life isn't fair. Whether we like it or not, we have to fight this, and we have to give it our all, and we have to be better than the best people if we want to stand a chance of winning. So I suppose I recognize that feeling how unfair it is doesn't really help, at all.
I do find myself increasingly frustrated by the call for dialog, though. I think we've got a cultural fallacy, brought about by "fair" press coverage of everything, that says that if there are two different views on a subject, they must be afforded equal respect. This is bullshit. The two sides of the "debate" on global warming are not equally valid -- one is supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, and the other by a small fringe group. The two sides of the "debate" on whether same-sex couples make good parents are not equal -- scientific evidence firmly supports the affirmative position. Ditto, well, most gay stuff. It is biologically caused, neither a mental illness nor a cause of mental illness, and immutable. These are what we call facts and they are supported by scientific evidence, so they're not at all equal to the beliefs supported by people's personal beliefs and discredited studies conducted by wingnuts like this guy. And these and other facts clearly show that being gay is, yes, a status equally worthy of the law's protection as race, gender, national origin, disability, etc.
The Yes side deceived the people, used low-down tricks, and is now hiding behind faith and so-called democracy all to justify subverting the American system to attack a vulnerable minority. They do not deserve equal respect to the people they hurt, and their opinions do not deserve to be heard in "civilized discourse" as though they were legitimate, because while they may be valid opinions for individuals to hold, they aren't legitimate parts of any political or even philosophical debate. There is a wrong and a right here, and they're in the wrong.
I'll probably still end up debating them and trying to listen to them, because as I said before, we have to do things that we shouldn't even have to consider doing if we're going to win this. Which is why, today, I hate the world.
P. S. Oh, here, have a link: antigay campaigns cause depression in LGBT people. Gosh, really? I only came the closest I've ever been to suicidal in November, so I am of course totally shocked by this.
Someone was talking about the importance of communication and understanding and how the other side had their reasons today, and that got me thinking. It's hard for me, because on the one hand, I hate having to do this. We shouldn't have to fight this one. We have a society that, by and large, recognizes the importance of equality. Legally, at any rate, we recognize that racial inequality is wrong, that people with disabilities need accommodations, that men and women deserve equal respect. (Socially, we often don't recognize areas where these ideals are not applied, but they are embedded in our laws now.) And it took so long, and so much heartbreak and struggle, that it is unthinkable to me that we could now ignore that legacy. How can a society full of people who have lived through the civil rights movement and the women's movement, or been taught about them in their history classes, fail to recognize the same story with a simple search-and-replace? How can I possibly have to fight this battle as though it were new? It's completely unfair.
On the other hand, as my dad always used to tell me when I complained about some unjust family rule, life isn't fair. Whether we like it or not, we have to fight this, and we have to give it our all, and we have to be better than the best people if we want to stand a chance of winning. So I suppose I recognize that feeling how unfair it is doesn't really help, at all.
I do find myself increasingly frustrated by the call for dialog, though. I think we've got a cultural fallacy, brought about by "fair" press coverage of everything, that says that if there are two different views on a subject, they must be afforded equal respect. This is bullshit. The two sides of the "debate" on global warming are not equally valid -- one is supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, and the other by a small fringe group. The two sides of the "debate" on whether same-sex couples make good parents are not equal -- scientific evidence firmly supports the affirmative position. Ditto, well, most gay stuff. It is biologically caused, neither a mental illness nor a cause of mental illness, and immutable. These are what we call facts and they are supported by scientific evidence, so they're not at all equal to the beliefs supported by people's personal beliefs and discredited studies conducted by wingnuts like this guy. And these and other facts clearly show that being gay is, yes, a status equally worthy of the law's protection as race, gender, national origin, disability, etc.
The Yes side deceived the people, used low-down tricks, and is now hiding behind faith and so-called democracy all to justify subverting the American system to attack a vulnerable minority. They do not deserve equal respect to the people they hurt, and their opinions do not deserve to be heard in "civilized discourse" as though they were legitimate, because while they may be valid opinions for individuals to hold, they aren't legitimate parts of any political or even philosophical debate. There is a wrong and a right here, and they're in the wrong.
I'll probably still end up debating them and trying to listen to them, because as I said before, we have to do things that we shouldn't even have to consider doing if we're going to win this. Which is why, today, I hate the world.
P. S. Oh, here, have a link: antigay campaigns cause depression in LGBT people. Gosh, really? I only came the closest I've ever been to suicidal in November, so I am of course totally shocked by this.
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