1-2-3-4 I DON’T LIKE YOUR FACE ANYMORE: Maybe it’s just been the right amount of time that there’s no new argument we haven’t already argued, no matter how ridiculously unique said argument could seem. AND OH! Believe us, we have weathered numerous Gathering Storms of ridiculousness! Furthermore, we’ve made & marketed our independent documentaries and shared our Rachel Maddow clips and cut-and-pasted quotes from celebrities and pop musicians and esteemed religious figures and we’ve marched in the street with very very very clever signs and we’ve started blogs and websites and we’ve fought with our grandparents or maybe a co-worker or maybe even each other. We’ve told our parents to watch The Bible Tells Me So, we’ve emailed HuffPo editorials to each other or we’ve shared them on facebook and consequently placed ourselves in the lion’s den of political swamp that is arguing with that kid from high school you didn’t even recognize about the legal and social merits of your ‘agenda.’
We say this because we feel there is a growing unrest in the gay media about how much longer we have to fully & directly entertain the outliers on the other side before we realize that it’s a Sysiphian task, and by engaging in discourse with them we validate hate speech by treating it as something susceptible to reason. Also — because of the internet and cable news, we have unparalleled access to fringe groups and opinions, and they also have access to us. Groups too fringe to even have had a voice ten years ago now have thriving online communities and free access to the entire internet. Of course that goes both ways.
Sometimes I want to just respond to a comment with an animated gif from Mean Girls.
Of course it is still our job to fight to reach moderates, the indifferent, and the undecided, but as for engaging in arguments with pedagogical condescending twatwaffles who’ve already made up their mind against us and who insist on using faith over reason, mythology over science or a famously selective reading of the bible — maybe not so much.
I mean let’s be real: I’m not going to stop engaging in these fights but I also agree with points made by John Shelby Spong (below) that we shouldn’t feel the need to engage in these conversations anymore. I also believe these discourses serve as practice & reminders & wake-up calls as well as, when they takes place on the internet, a historical record of sorts. But I’m sick of starting at square one. Feeling entitled to anything is something I struggle with in my personal life all the time, as many women do (men too, but many more women) but I ought to feel entitled to equal rights. I ought to own that.
The thing that makes this hard to do? Sometimes our President acts like he’s on their side. That’s why the HRC speech was so important to us, it suggested an end to speaking out against us and reinforcing the beliefs of fringe asshats.
The most compelling voice in all this comes from John Shelby Spong, a former bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark and current self-described inclusive faith “champion,” who has decided he’s over this conversation:
Queerty – John Shelby Spong Is Sooo Over Debating Gays In the Church. Bless Him: “I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility …
I make these statements because it is time to move on. The battle is over. The victory has been won. There is no reasonable doubt as to what the final outcome of this struggle will be. Homosexual people will be accepted as equal, full human beings, who have a legitimate claim on every right that both church and society have to offer any of us.”
From Pam’s House Blend, wondering why this children stuff even gets to go on and how long we sit before we call them out for exploiting actual children:
Pam’s House Blend – Who is Recruiting Washington’s Children? “Radical-right anti-equality folk are fond of claiming that gays are out to recruit children. Protect Marriage Washington goes so far as to use the slogan “protect children” and infer that the mere mention of gay people in a non-critical way to children will poison their little minds and pervert them on the spot. I have always marveled at the radical-right’s ability to get away with this. Where is the evidence that gays “convert” little children? … That the radical-right can get away with wagging the “you recruit!” finger is even more amazing when you consider that the very focus of evangelicals is recruitment – recruitment of new people into their mindset.”
At Salon, a straight writer asks if we should think a little bit about how much marriage itself is a Epic Fail, but how we’ve been distracted from fixing that in our fight to ensure everyone has access to it:
Salon – Gay Marriage=Social Equality? “Let’s use this moment to re-imagine marriage and marriage-free options for building families, rearing children, crafting communities, and distributing public goods.” In other words: Let’s campaign for true civil rights — for everyone. Not just for couples who want to marry and adhere to the traditional rules of marriage, but families and individuals of all stripes. If marriage were to resemble anything even close to a fair and just social institution, it would support the well-being of people, not a particular ideology or institution.
Even satire is flirting with the ridiculous to make its point, like the Republican “App For That” spoof and John Stewart’s increasingly dead-on parody, bewilderment and incredibly subtextual graphics, followed by Colbert playing the part of loony pundit. It’s perfect, really.
ARE YOU LISTENING??!
LEGALIZE IT: Federal government plans to issue new medical marijuana policy: Resulting in legal guidelines that are to be set forth by the Obama administration, Justice Department officials have come to the conclusion that it’s “not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law.” (@ny daily news)
HATE CRIME: Lesbians and slugs and three-legged cats, oh my! “A gay man tried to poison his lesbian neighbors by putting slug pellets into their curry after he was accused of kidnapping their three-legged cat.” (@queerty)
PANIC ON THE STREETS OF LONDON: London Bridge is falling down- And by ‘Bridge’ I mean ‘discriminatory policies against gay and lesbian members of Parliament.’ English Prime Minister Gordon Brown asks officials to allow civil partnership to take place in the Palace of Westminster. (@the sun)
