My friend, Don Charles, who blogs at Christ, The Gay Martyr. posted the following comment on gay.americablog.com that is well worth reading. As you know, I've always been against putting any minority group's civil rights up to a vote by the electorate, having any group's civil rights be beholden to the will and whim of the dominant group in society, and his comment beautifully hammers that point home.
What is both stunning and depressing is how many millions and millions of dollars are wasted on these hate campaigns. If you add up all the 31 pro-gay campaigns we have lost, both sides have flushed hundreds of millions of dollars." What's really stunning and depressing is the cluelessness of the so-called Gay community and its spokesmen, including otherwise intelligent folk like Joe Sudbay and John Aravosis. When and how did we become convinced that voting on citizenship rights was a sane thing to do? Who decided that knocking on doors and trying to promote compassion in the same way you'd promote a political candidate would work? You can't root out deeply entrenched prejudice that way, especially not when there's a preacher in a pulpit every Sunday morning undermining your efforts with hateful doctrine! We've once more allowed ourselves to be punked by the religious Right Wing. We've willingly let them trick us into playing a game they know we can't win. Like it or not, people, marriage equality is a fight for the courts, not for the ballot box! We do immeasurable damage to the US Constitution when we participate in and validate anti-Gay ballot measure battles! We help set dangerous precedents! This issue is bigger than marriage equality. It's about our very democracy, and how we unwittingly help our enemies to destabilize it. Our energy and resources should be going toward legal challenges, not futile campaigns like Proposition 8 and Question 1! When will we learn?"
4 comments:
Couple that with the public's general lack of knowledge about what's at stake. What you have is a recipe for disaster. I was just inspired to write about something along these lines. I'll have to make an outline and start writing.
It would be great if you also wrote about this issue, genevieve.
Furthermore, as I've written before, to put anyone's civil rights up to the vote of the majority should be unconstitutional on the face of it. If that were done in the 1960's, we'd still have Segregation and Jim Crow laws.
This country has coupled stupidity with hate, thanks in large part to defects in "higher" education and the inundation of reactionary radio talk shows. Best wishes, Jerry.
Genevieve,
When you do write on this topic, let me know via my comments section at Christ, The Gay Martyr. I want to read your essay.
I agree. I will not devote another penny of my money or minute of my time to these ballot measures. They're demeaning, dehumanizing and ultimately get us nowhere.
Post a Comment