The Fight over a Word. or Why both sides of the Gay Marriage debate need to shut up

[faeboy81dc]

I'm gonna get a whole lot of flack over this but ohh well. I'm one of those crazy libertarians whose goes around thinking but ohh well. I'm gonna divide this into three parts me thinks. I'm not the best writer so please excuse me. It's gonna be rambling and some points jumpy and not always coherent. So thank you if you take the time to actually

Comments

[fr_defenestrato]

But having said all that, I don't understand why you and Fox News and so many pundits have seized on the huge national queer zeitgeist-which I find utterly imaginery-that BLAMES African Americans for passing Prop 8. Every serious commentary I have seen merely points out that the percentages of California blacks voting for 8 are way higher than other demographic groups, and wonders what can be done about that. At the march down the mall yesterday, I saw ZERO signs that included racial content of any kind. The only reference to race I heard all day was the chant, 'Gay/straight, black/white, marriage is a human right!'

On a personal level, I do have to admit that I spend an enormous amount of money on my own entertainment, on 'fabulous gay things' as it were, such as traveling to Chicago every May and New Orleans every August and Florida once every year or two. Maybe my personal moral compass does need adjusting; certainly there are better causes to be financed than my taking photos of public naughtiness.

And we're losing this Culture War cause we're fixated on the word marriage. Marriage Rights this and Marriage rights that. GODS! What we really want is to be able to visit our partner in the hospital without question. To have automatic right of attorney when our partner is incapcitated and not let their old religious family take over things. We want to be able to raise children and not have our parenthood questioned. We want tax breaks and the right for our foreign national partner to be able to stay in this country with us cause we love them. This is where I agree. but why get stuck on that word?

See above. See also this post from Andrew Sullivan about just how secure our 'legal rights' to hospital visits, power of atty, etc. are without actual, full, legally equal marriage.

I guess the bottom line is, my ideal is exactly the same as yours: government out of religion entirely, every have the same legal rights regarding their permanent binary coupling, etc., etc. But I'm not sure why you want to spend as much time and energy and words as you have here complaining about hypocrisy all around when, as you fully admit, our ideal is unlikely in the extreme to ever be realized in this scary, god-fearing country.

[faeboy81dc]

Okay First thing is I don't blame African Americans for passing Prop 8. Neither is Prop 8 or the supposed black vote mentioned at all in my writing. You notice I say shut it to Right Wingers no matter what their skin tone. I mention blacks in the gay area because the fact that most rich white gays want to blame them for Prop 8 but don't try to look at their side of things. The only true group of people I blame for the passing of Prop 8 is the leaders of the Church of Mormon. Besides that I can't go to every individual that voted for it and wag my finger at them it's ridiculous.

Now yes it does sound like I'm lumping large groups of people together. When I said homeless i didn't mention their skin tone and when i said Rich White gays didn't say they're the only ones who wanted to marry. More was mentioning the fact that the ones with the money do the most bitching without seeming to care about other people but themselves. I will admit I do have my prejudices like most people do. It's like that song from Avenue Q "Everyone is a little bit racist" seem I do think myself as a racist as much as a classist. I have unfortunate stereotypes in my head about poor whites as well as poor blacks. I have different unfortunate stereotypes about Upper Class people as well no matter their skin tone. I'm one of those I love the upper lower class to lower upper class kind of guys unfortunately. Not saying I'm right or my views are correct just that these are my prejudices. At least I know them and admit to them.

And this was supposed to be a rant that came out of frustration plus the opening of the eyes of the amount of straight people who use the word partner to describe their spouse nowadays. And sometimes it's good to just to get things off your chest

[fr_defenestrato]

Yeah, so, uh... I go 'blah blah blah' a lot. At some point you can just go 'So anyway' and move on. But I do like a good debate. :)

I wasn't trying to say you were claiming that black Californians were the reason Prop 8 passed; but what you said was this: 'We want to proclaim that Blacks should accept our struggle the same as theirs...' and that argument seemed to me to be a direct response to the debates that have been going on all over the 'net re the place of the black community in queer rights. I've seen so many people making fevered cries of racism, acting like there's some kind of extreme 'Aha! You uppity niggers got your rights and now we can't have ours, huh?' attitude going on. But I haven't seen any sentiments along those racist lines to warrant this backlash.

I'm sorry if this isn't where your hypocrisy argument was coming from. But that was your primary (or at least your first) point backing up your claim that gays are 'just as hypocritical' as rightwingers.

Anyway, for reasons that I've argued above I do not think it is fair to label even the tiny subsection of 'rich gay white men' as hypocritical, or to assume the attitudes or behaviors of the majority of them. You may be right, but you have no evidence except anecdotal. On top of that, even while the stereotype of 'rich gay white men' pervades the popular culture, the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of queer people in this country are not rich, white, gay men. They are men and women of all colors and all economic strata, including homeless black men. And left-handed midget lesbian Eskimo albinos. And as we all know, it's the left-handed midget lesbian Eskimo albinos who get all the real work done. :)