dissecting anti-gay evils
I slammed open the door with enough force to make it hit the wall with a loud bang. At first I didn't know where this anger came from, so quickly out of nowhere. But then I remember the other times when I've felt this way where I've felt angry at everything. It's always on the morning after a bunch of people vote to take away, or ensure another group's human dignity is denied.
Stronger voices might tell us that we can persevere and things will change for the better some day because time is on our side. My rational side understands that, but the toll on the subconscious is deep. For me it's expressed as anger like pus from an infected wound. But at least the feeling is released in my case. I am convinced not everyone is able to respond with an anger outlet like me - some people may simply internalize and resign, and the toll on their psyche is brutal. These are the people who commit suicide, fall into deep chasms of depression, or dive into addiction. I am thankful I only want to hit something, and I have healthy outlets to do that too.
The fact is a bunch of people are working as hard as they can to make sure we're not treated like them. Knowing that hurts a lot. Some of them would prefer we went away forever. And a whole mess of other people are smugly satisfied with what they have and don't give a shit about anyone else. In many ways I believe we are on our own in this fight.
Of course I know that their hatred is evil, but it's only one of many evils perpetrated by them. I'd say there's a special place reserved in Hell for them, but I think I'm going to give up on organized religion and all its fake mythy constructs altogether. Believing in Hell only legitimizes haters and their churches. These constructs allow for hateful people to impose their bigotry on other people. The Catholic church took a very active role in making sure married gay couples in Maine were stripped of their unions. For some of these couples it was the happiest day of their life, and the Catholic church helped to take that happiness away. That is an evil act.
And in California, the Mormons made sure married gay Californians were treated as subhuman. As far as I'm concerned these evils outweigh any good organized religion might do. To me, their view of religion seems to be as a tool for which they can impose their will on others. Some of you long-time atheists will say, "Well it's about time you figured that out!"
I guess I was giving the hater religions one last chance to pull back and do some actual good in this world, like feeding starving children, healing the sick, or making sure people are clothed for the winter. Nope, hatin' on the gays has top priority with these religious institutions. For many of them, it's the most important issue they have on their agenda.
What is really sad is some of these anti-gay leaders are just doing what they do to gain followers or pull in more money for their church or organization. Deep down inside they may actually not even be that hateful, but they know a useful tool for fundraising when they see one, and it doesn't matter if it's at the expense of another group of people. That's nastier than simply hating due to ignorance. These people are pretending to hate for personal gain. Now that is evil. I guess this counts as the evil of Greed.
The other evil is when one group isn't connecting the struggle for their group's equal rights to another group. As far as they are concerned, they have what they need and to hell with the struggles of another group. It doesn't make any sense to me, but these people refuse to perceive any comparisons from one movement to another. In fact many of them are offended that their movement is being compared to ours. Philosophically we're not exactly the same, but there are similarities, parallels and comparisons that can be drawn. But like I said, I think we're on our own and efforts to try for some kind of philosophical bridge may be pointless. It's clear that if someone wants to hate, they will hate no matter how similar the hatred they spew is like that which was spewed on them in the not too distant past. This is the evil of Antipathy, as opposed empathy or sympathy.
Then there's the evil of Waste - a waste of time, effort and money on something so stupid as fighting against happiness. Millions of dollars are spent by both sides on public information campaigns, both for and against. Let's say you added up all the money spent on campaigns, salaries and overhead both for and against gay marriage. Millions of dollars. What else could we have spent that money on? It just boggles my mind to think of all the actual good you could do with that much money, time and energy. That's probably the most tragic loss with all of this - people are dying out there, but some people feel it's more important to legally impose hate rather than save human lives in this world.
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The best outlet for anger is to channel it into something constructive, and I think the most constructive and effective thing we can do is to turn their message back on them and use it against them. Because they know it doesn't help their cause to admit they're hateful, they've said that the argument is over the word "marriage", so I say take them at their word and take the state out of the marriage business. They can have their church ceremonies and use whatever language they want, and the state can just recognize "civil unions" for everyone. Here in Maine, at least, there are sizable church groups that would be in favor of such a change, and using their language against them would completely fuck with the minds of all the ignorant haters who voted yes.
I still find this entire issue to be framed wrong, by us. We keep trying to present rational reasons why we should be treated like human being, mainly by insisting that we ARE human beings. But that doesn't address the issue in the slightest.
In the minds of the anti-gay religious types, we are sick (read disgusting as well as just simply deranged). To them we are in the same class as pedophiles, alcoholics, and any number of other wildly insulting categories. This is because all being gay is to them is this dirty, unnatural thing that happens between two members of the same sex, that their pastor said is pure evil, and it, like anything Unholy and Wrong out there, will destroy the world. How do you counter that thought with "Hey! We're people too!" They know we're people, and they think there's something wrong with us.
I want someone, someone famous, ANY-FUCKING-BODY, on a national stage, to make it very very very clear: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING GAY. There is nothing wrong with sticking my dick in another guy who is begging for it and loving it. There is nothing wrong with then shacking up with that guy and buying a dog. There is nothing, nothing in the slightest, wrong with marrying that man. There is nothing wrong with any of that because being gay does not hurt anyone, no one at all. It does not in any way mess with the social fabric that holds human society together. It does not undermine hetero marriage. It DOES NOTHING, except make me and that other guy very happy. Anyone who tries to say differently is ignorant, stupid, or most likely both.
I'm angry too. I'm fucking pissed in fact. I'm tired of all of this, and I'm most tired of being treated like there's something wrong with me. We all need to stand up and say it very loud and very clear:
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING GAY.
Comparisons with the struggle that African-Americans went through are always flawed but can be instructive. Specifically: it occurs to me that one thing we did not see in the 1960s was referanda on whether blacks should have equal rights. The battle was fought in the legislatures and courts.
And, on the streets, and that's a big difference: one component of that struggle was large scale civil disobedience. In the aftermath of Maine, I have to wonder: why do we participate in this? When we are told, all your neighbors will go to the polls and decide whether you the same as everybody else with respect to the most fundamental relationships in your lives, why do we participate?
I wonder if a more appropriate response would be to say, "No, you do not get to vote on whether we are citizens, too." And go to court and demand that these humiliating charades of "democracy" be stopped. And if that doesn't work, say, "OK, we're not citizens. We're not paying taxes. We're not following your laws. Maybe 5000 of us will show up at the marriage license desk and block it off. You told us we're not part of your society, so we'll do what we want." Maybe we should start telling out straight friends we won't attend their weddings, because it's insulting for them to participate in something we're locked out of.
And, of course, be willing to get arrested and have the state and federal governments come after us for taxes (and go to court and explain that we will pay our share when we are full citizens) and so on...
We haven't been willing to do that. It's not an easy thing to do. We are not willing to disrupt a society that regularly has been telling us, "You aren't quite fully part of this club."
But I am starting to think that this would be preferable to the humiliation of organizing big campaigns to ask our neighbors not to oppress us. There's always an really sad, somewhat pathetic element to the ads and fliers that we make. We're begging. We're asking to be let in. Maybe we should just make it clearer what it means to NOT let millions of people be treated as equals.
Jim,
I was hoping you'd post about this. I spent a miserable day yesterday after a late night watching the Maine returns come in. Your anger is probably healthier than my depression but I got over it. This outcome hurt more for me because ME is right next door and New England had been doing so well. I think homosexuality is something that people are still so squeamish about that some don't even dare vote their pro-gay convictions, let alone voice them. (I think liberal-minded people have generally been on the defensive since Reagan in 1980. It is maddening.) Also, I agree with you on the atheism. I have never believed in that god stuff and I am always eager to congratulate a convert. The world would be a much better place without religion or god. There are good things about what happened in shit-kicker Maine. The vote was close. More importantly, I never heard a single gay opponent dare use words like "immoral" or "sin" during this debacle. Mel above mentions this too: "it doesn't help their cause to admit they're hateful". This is heartening and may eventually become useful.
I enjoy your posts very much -- good combination of male adoration and serious commentary. I hope you are settled in well to your new place.
Perhaps it's time to start outing active gay hypocritical members of the Catholic and Mormon churches who take part in the decision-making that funds the anti-gay marriage vote campaigns. Maybe it's too much work with the Catholic church...but perhaps it's time to start keeping an eye out for guys with magic underpants and/or robes and those funny hats that you come across in gay bars and online chat rooms, like Mike Rogers has at Blogactive:
http://www.blogactive.com/
He mainly gets his leads from informants, double checks them and does the outing. We all know that behind many anti-gay efforts is a closeted self-loathing gay person, and I'm sure there are people out there who have crossed more than a few upper-level clergy who want to keep it on the down-low. With some detective work and double-checking I'm sure we can come up with something here and there.
Jimbo,
Thank you for your sane analysis of this insanity. I also appreciate the other comments. Somehow I think this mutual support helps me keep my own sanity. We do have to change this somehow and soon before we all loose it.
-John
First, thank you for raising the issue in your blog and showing me that my anger is not the only anger. It's shared, and sadly, that's comforting.
I AM SO TIRED of paying first-class taxes and getting second-class rights. Every week brings a new insult. We learned this week that I am eligible for domestic partner health benefits if and only if I earn less money than my partner. How is that measured? Why aren't "married partners" held to the this standard?
And I disagree with those people who compare us gay Americans with other groups.
Only we gay Americans are asked to pay our taxes and shut up about our rights.
Yes, we have considered moving -- taking our talent, our drive, and our ability elsewhere.
Execellent post Jimbo!
The parallel is not between the civil rights movement of the 1960s and today, but rather with the women's right's movement that blossomed after it. There is far more commonality and far greater touchstones in the comparison there. Women and GLBT have been oppressed since time immemorial: there is no country, no sphere, no place exclusively dedicated to either, nor is it anything other than "accident of birth" that designates membership. Perhaps it is the frustration of the women's rights movement and its comparative limits on success or the misogyny of many gay men, that leads to a failure to see this as fact, but that does not make it any less true.