Some people don’t seem to get why I’m so touchy about this Proposition 8 thing.
Allow me to explain.
I had an argument with someone the other day who seems to believe that people had the right to vote according to their religious convictions, and therefore to live in a state where the law reflects those beliefs. If there are more of them than there are of you, he reasoned, that’s okay.
He also seemed to believe that his people (mentioning no names) had a monopoly on human misery. I would like to point out that I have no problem with any particular group of people, race, colour or creed- excepting that I cannot abide hypocrisy, greed or intolerance.
This is the problem.
I am a lesbian. Most of you already know this. I am just wired to fall in love with women; indeed, right now, I am deeply in love with a woman and I hope that this never, ever ends. What you might not realize is that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people (let’s just say GLBT) have been historically abused in the most systematic and brutal way possible. Jews had it hard during World War II? So did we. They had their star of David, we had our pink triangle. But take a step back a few years and you’ll find Jews, Christians, Muslims- and even the modern democratic State- killing GLBT people. They’ve had it in for us since time immemorial. Heck, you don’t even have to go back as far as the War to find governments and other misled people killing and mutilating GLBT people- the British establishment managed to kill Alan Turing as late as the late 1950s, and most US States didn’t remove punishment laws for sexual orientation until even more recently.
Whose hands were we suffering at? The religionists, of course. ”Family values”, et al., have been the rallying cry for these people since the end of the War. They’ve been killing us for thousands of years, and we have never managed to stop them because there are more of them than there are of us. It’s as if the Second World War ended, and instead of locking up the Nazis, the Powers that Be let them continue to exist, just as long as they didn’t kill any more Jews.
Do you see now why I’m so hurt and angry when we make a step forward, towards being recognized as the equally valid and real human beings that we are, and then they push us back in this way?
Your touchiness makes plenty of sense.
I’m maddest at the Californians that agree with you but didn’t vote. My city had 50% voter turnout.
Hey ElectronPusher. Love your blog.
Something I’ve read recently that your post reminds me of: A book called ‘Don’t think of an Elephant’ by George Lakoff where he spotlights things like Proposition 8 as a thin edge of the wedge. How dare a government tell us who we can and can’t marry? As Lakoff points out, this is scary and unacceptable. If we accept this it’s just a simple progression to governments telling us who we can and can’t associate with (think Nazi Germany), or telling us which religion we may or may not be, etc.
Whatever happened to linuxgrrls.org? I liked them.