from dan savage
I know this isn't the type of question you usually handle, but I'm asking anyway.
I'm a 31-year-old lesbian about to finish up my first semester of law school. I decided to pursue my law degree because I was fed up with the state of the law regarding gay rights in America.
In the state where I attend school, people can be fired or denied housing based on their sexual orientation. I have friends who've actually experienced the oft-discussed scenario of being denied the right to visit a partner in the hospital. My ex-girlfriend is facing a child custody challenge because she's gay. And, well, we all know the drill.
I was ready to fight the good fight. But given the outcome of the election and the overwhelming passage of 11 more anti-gay state constitutional amendments, I feel hopeless.
It seems to me that any action taken in the courts is just going to create bad precedent that will set us back even more. Where do you think we can possibly go from here?
And one more thing: I've had friends berate me for being intolerant because I've expressed displeasure with the bigotry that leads people to vote for these amendments and for candidates like Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Do you think it's intolerant to reject someone's view when it casts you as somehow "bad" or "wrong" or "immoral" or whatever it is that makes people think they need to protect their marriages from us?
-- Legal Angst Woman
Being intolerant of intolerance, LAW, is not the moral equivalent of being intolerant. Try putting it to your idiotic friends this way: Do they think violence is wrong? Of course they do. Then ask them if there are times when violence is justified. Unless they're pacifists, they'll say yes, violence is justified in self-defense.
Well, being intolerant of the intolerant is employing intolerance in self-defense. It's justified, a necessary measure for self-preservation, and is the only reasonable response to people who argue that we are bad, wrong or immoral. They are wrong, we are right, and we shouldn't be conned into tolerating them or their lies under the guise of "tolerance."
Furthermore, I'm sure your friends would not hesitate to express their intolerance for other forms of intolerance: racism, for example, or sexism. People who can't tolerate blacks or Asians or Jews are not to be tolerated. They are unacceptable, they exist outside the bounds of decent human conduct and discourse, regardless of how they justify their hatred.
The same standard applies to homophobia. It is irrational, it is unacceptable, and we should demand, in no uncertain terms (even if it brings down deeply hypocritical accusations of intolerance), that homophobia be cast out of the bounds of decent human conduct and discourse.
Remember, LAW: Once upon a time -- a recent time -- racism, sexism and xenophobia were commonly accepted POVs. Ironically enough, "deeply held religious views" were often used to justify all three. (There are biblical arguments to be made in favor of all of them.)
All three were defeated, cast out, because people in the West made it clear that they would no longer tolerate them. We didn't stamp them out, of course, but we've come a long, long way, and it's clear where we as a society, however imperfectly, stand on these issues.
The challenge for us, for our movement, is to continue to battle the same forces of intolerance that once argued for the subjugation of women and the inferiority of African Americans until homo-hatred gets added to the list of biblically-justifiable-but-no-longer-acceptable biases.
So stay in law school, LAW. Fight the good fight. Yes, we've suffered something of a backlash. Yes, it sucks. And it hurts. (Wanna cry your eyes out? Go to www.sorryeverybody.com.)
But we are making progress. On Black Tuesday more than 60 percent of Americans -- even in states where anti-gay marriage amendments were approved! -- indicated that they supported either marriage rights or domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. This is a huge shift, LAW, and who do we have to thank for it? The lawyers, LAW, the lawyers. Stay in law school -- we need you to fight the good fight now more than ever.
I'm a 31-year-old lesbian about to finish up my first semester of law school. I decided to pursue my law degree because I was fed up with the state of the law regarding gay rights in America.
In the state where I attend school, people can be fired or denied housing based on their sexual orientation. I have friends who've actually experienced the oft-discussed scenario of being denied the right to visit a partner in the hospital. My ex-girlfriend is facing a child custody challenge because she's gay. And, well, we all know the drill.
I was ready to fight the good fight. But given the outcome of the election and the overwhelming passage of 11 more anti-gay state constitutional amendments, I feel hopeless.
It seems to me that any action taken in the courts is just going to create bad precedent that will set us back even more. Where do you think we can possibly go from here?
And one more thing: I've had friends berate me for being intolerant because I've expressed displeasure with the bigotry that leads people to vote for these amendments and for candidates like Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
Do you think it's intolerant to reject someone's view when it casts you as somehow "bad" or "wrong" or "immoral" or whatever it is that makes people think they need to protect their marriages from us?
-- Legal Angst Woman
Being intolerant of intolerance, LAW, is not the moral equivalent of being intolerant. Try putting it to your idiotic friends this way: Do they think violence is wrong? Of course they do. Then ask them if there are times when violence is justified. Unless they're pacifists, they'll say yes, violence is justified in self-defense.
Well, being intolerant of the intolerant is employing intolerance in self-defense. It's justified, a necessary measure for self-preservation, and is the only reasonable response to people who argue that we are bad, wrong or immoral. They are wrong, we are right, and we shouldn't be conned into tolerating them or their lies under the guise of "tolerance."
Furthermore, I'm sure your friends would not hesitate to express their intolerance for other forms of intolerance: racism, for example, or sexism. People who can't tolerate blacks or Asians or Jews are not to be tolerated. They are unacceptable, they exist outside the bounds of decent human conduct and discourse, regardless of how they justify their hatred.
The same standard applies to homophobia. It is irrational, it is unacceptable, and we should demand, in no uncertain terms (even if it brings down deeply hypocritical accusations of intolerance), that homophobia be cast out of the bounds of decent human conduct and discourse.
Remember, LAW: Once upon a time -- a recent time -- racism, sexism and xenophobia were commonly accepted POVs. Ironically enough, "deeply held religious views" were often used to justify all three. (There are biblical arguments to be made in favor of all of them.)
All three were defeated, cast out, because people in the West made it clear that they would no longer tolerate them. We didn't stamp them out, of course, but we've come a long, long way, and it's clear where we as a society, however imperfectly, stand on these issues.
The challenge for us, for our movement, is to continue to battle the same forces of intolerance that once argued for the subjugation of women and the inferiority of African Americans until homo-hatred gets added to the list of biblically-justifiable-but-no-longer-acceptable biases.
So stay in law school, LAW. Fight the good fight. Yes, we've suffered something of a backlash. Yes, it sucks. And it hurts. (Wanna cry your eyes out? Go to www.sorryeverybody.com.)
But we are making progress. On Black Tuesday more than 60 percent of Americans -- even in states where anti-gay marriage amendments were approved! -- indicated that they supported either marriage rights or domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. This is a huge shift, LAW, and who do we have to thank for it? The lawyers, LAW, the lawyers. Stay in law school -- we need you to fight the good fight now more than ever.