Dear Lord, please deliver me form your people.
Today at lunch I met a Civil Rights activist. He claimed to be an Human Rights activist, but he did not believe in gay marriages. He claimed not to be a hypocrite, and claimed to be sensitive to the strife of other minority groups, but he could not see past his own well-rehearsed ideals. He argued that African Americans were downtrodden by corporate America and other Americans in general. When I asked him about gay rights he said he was all for them except for the marriage thing. This seemed like bullshit to me. He claimed to be a human rights activist, and for the equal rights of ALL people, but he was part of the problem that denies a large group the most basic of human rights? What the hell is that? I tried to get him to imagine himself as a gay man and what he would feel like if he was prevented from marrying based on that. He said "I understand that, but I don't agree with it." Okay, so I went a little more taboo. I pointed out that for gay Americans there are actual laws keeping them form doing basic but important things along with the social stigma and discrimination that pissed him off so much. I asked him to imagine that next Bush might make a law saying that African Americans would not eb allowed to marry, how would he feel? And that he is part of the problem of discrimination in this country that pisses all over the human rights he thinks he is preserving. I told him that people like him are opening bad doors that will be counterproductive. I asked him that if they can ban gay marriages now, and he thinks that Bush is out to pretty much revive slavery Through corporate America(which he does believe), what is to keep him from banning African American marriages. Now, I know that this would never happen THANK GOD, but I was just trying to make him look at it from a different perspective. It did not work. I tried to gently show him that he is becoming that which he hates because he cannot see discrimination in its other incarnations. I pointed out women, the blind, the deaf, Jewish, Native Americans, anything I could think of to make him understand, and he agreed that all of them are downtrodden in some way, that its not just all about him. He claimed to understand that, but he still thought of homosexuality as "a mental illness that is not right" in his mind, which really chapped my ass. He hinted at having religious reasons for believing this, but did not outright say it. After an hour or so of this, he got a bit quiet for a moment when he I told him that I was bi-sexual. Overall he was nice, fairly intelligent, and treated me in a respectful manner, so I cannot damn him, I just wish he could see that he was part of the problem. I did not see him as a black guy because I do not think of people that way. Color to me is something that you find in a box of crayons. But to him, I am a white girl, and ultimately part of the problem, because he said that even though my family had never owned slaves(our poor Scottish asses), all white people have benefited from slavery in some way. This conversation was like talking to baboon's ass for two hours. I am not mad at this guy, and I suppose sort-of made a new friend, but this is a prime example why I avoid speaking on the subjects of politics and religion. I am not angry. It just never went anywhere so I wasted two hours of my life that I could have been doing something worthwhile like petting kitties, blowing shit up, or doing homework. ::sigh::