Yes We Can (groove to Tony Moran)
I think I'm going to Town tonight to groove to Tony Moran along with my friend OMG DJ TM™ and his not-to-be-recognized-as-partner, "long-time friend" Timmy. Good Christian heterosexuals would have us refer to them that way to reduce their discomfort with the idea of gay people being in an emotional relationship state similar (but not equal!) to theirs.
I feel very sad for my gay friends who are married, or who are ready to be married, to have that taken away from them. Personally I would be content for a civil union and for that to be recognized and counted by the state, but I know the whole marriage ceremony is important to some people, often one of the happiest days of their lives. And the fact that these so-called people of god are spending so much time, energy and funds to attack gay people just makes me sad.
But there is a bright side to all of this. I've always thought we were starting to grow complacent, either by getting so giddy about receiving lip service from our leaders, or that you can just hit the 'send' button on an online form and feel better. "OMG I just joined this Facebook group against ______ !!! Click here and you can join too! "
Facebook campaigns and throwing money at organizations may not always the solution. Seeing people in California protesting out on the streets was a promising sign that this generation isn't as apathetic and post-gay as I thought. I think we are starting to realize that we are not as well-off as we thought we were, and that we are going to have to get active, physically involved and vocal. I blame the Internet for some of this, as it gives us a false feeling that we've done something when we click on a link. And then we forget about it.
Michael Crichton passed away this week. I will miss his wild stories, however formulaic. I enjoyed the television show E.R., and many other titles he wrote. Eaters of the Dead was one of his earlier books that inspired the film The 13th Warrior, starring Antonio Banderas. Congo scared the crap out of me - the thought of giant white gorillas smashing people's heads creeped me out. And of course Jurassic Park was good fun, and I've recently enjoyed the books State of Fear and Next. Many of the ideas in his books were well researched and often controversial. I still have eco-friendly acquaintances who refuse to read State of Fear because it has a lot of ideas that are radically against currently acceptable environmental canon. It's a good read that questions a lot of beliefs that have been held by environmentalists for many decades. Sometimes it's important to look at different ideas, and liberals can be just as pig-headed as conservatives.
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One should be wary of ideologues of any stripe.
And I said this on my own blog, but the only thing that makes a marriage sacred is the hearts of the people in it. Try as they might, the haters will never be able to legislate that away.
I greatly blame gay activists and cetain bloggers for Prop 8 passing. It was already known, and covered in several mainstream news articles, that the huge African American voter turnout for Obama would also be just what was needed to clinch 8. Why didn't gay activists inform everybody of this? At least a third of gay men in California (as well as our allies: white heterosexuals under age 30, and Asian-Americans) didn't even vote. If all the info. had been made clear beforehand, our "no" votes could have outnumbered the opposition. Take it as a lesson for next time : political correctness is no substitute for hard reality.
Here is a nice summary on the distortions in Crichton's book:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/06/checking_crichtons_footnotes/
If his work had any merits then, instead of selectively quoting scientists in a book, he could have just published his own findings in a scientific journal. Instead of giving speeches to political think tanks he could have joined the scientific discussion in conferences etc. and convinced people with his arguments.
Scientists conspiring to mislead the public and hide the truth? And as evidence quotes from *publicly available* papers of the same scientists? This makes no sense. It's the same argument template that the creationists use in their anti-science crusade when they "debunk" evolution.
Wow, I'm out of touch... Michael Crichton died?? They don't like sci-fi here in Montana, just hunting and sheep specials on The Nature Channel. I liked Crichton's older stuff, like Andromeda Strain and Sphere (the book much more than the movie). Fun stuff that gets you thinking.
Speaking of thinking, or the opposite of it, this Prop. 8 stuff has me bothered. It's depressing. This depressingness is made worse by the fact that I'm stuck in Montana, certainly, but it's plenty depressing all on its own. I do have hope for the future though, as the people who voted The Prop into being are old and bigoted and will at some point die, at which time the younger generation who understand that there is nothing wrong with being gay will vote more intelligently. I hope to someday be able to point out to some rabidly anti-gay type person that their energies today will count for nothing in the future, much like rabidly racist type people no longer count for much. Nothing like throwing some unwanted and yet beautiful perspective at bad people to brighten my day. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the opportunity.
Hope all is well this weekend Jimbo my lad.
/Woof
-S