State of my Blood Pressure
Jan. 21st, 2004 01:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaksOr, why I didn't actually watch the State of the Union speech, but rather waited until today and read it in the newspapers. I'm sure I could have done some very cathartic screaming if I had seen the actual speech, but I prefer being able to actually get schoolwork done to spending the entire evening in a state of incandescent rage.
My one consolation is that I do not think that either Bush or any other upcoming president would seriously be able to get a constitutional amendment passed against same-sex marriage. Amendments require a groundswell of popular support that is simply not there anymore on this issue. The country has been extremely reluctant to pass amendments ever since the political problems associated with Prohibition; neither the ERA nor the anti flag-burning amendment have managed to scrape through despite, in the former case, over twenty years of concentrated activism and a depth of support that was really pretty spectacular back in the seventies. In addition, I'm pretty sure Bush does not know that he is almost certainly of the last generation in which homophobia will be as serious a political motivator as it has been up till now. Yes, homophobia is still a massive political block-- but this block is getting older. In my generation, a far greater percentage know somebody gay, are more comfortable with the questions of sexual identity, and are able to understand that gays and lesbians are human beings. The MTV generation, the generation that has turned slash from an underground movement into an Internet inescapability, the audience of Queer as Folk and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; this generation, when members of it start reaching positions of political power, are not going to have that old knee-jerk defensive homophobic reaction. Younger kids are going to be even more open. So many of them now know people with two mommies or two daddies, or are growing up with media that understands the diversity of the human spectrum. Sei recently told me about one of her students who came to her, wide-eyed, in the course of reevaluating an entire worldview after having watched one hundred and something episodes of Yuu Yuu Hakusho and then finding out about Kurama and Hiei and discovering that yes, these characters who are extremely interesting, entertaining and lovable are together and function better that way. So I can't see an amendment passing, and I can't see even as much homophobia as there is in politics now being in place in thirty or forty years. I simply can't.
This does not mean, however, that I feel any better about the present day, nor that there isn't a heck of a lot of very important and difficult work that needs to be done to assist in the process of procuring and maintaining necessary civil rights and ending the horrors of hate and discrimination that have caused so much pain to myself and so many other people I have met or heard about. No one should have to go through some of the things that the queer people I knew in high school accepted as the price of being different. And Bush is standing in the way of stopping the hate and fear and pain because he is insisting on treating gays and lesbians as though they are not deserving of the rights of all other Americans.
Dear Mr. President: I am not out to destroy your marriage in any way, shape or form. Why are you trying to fuck with mine?
My one consolation is that I do not think that either Bush or any other upcoming president would seriously be able to get a constitutional amendment passed against same-sex marriage. Amendments require a groundswell of popular support that is simply not there anymore on this issue. The country has been extremely reluctant to pass amendments ever since the political problems associated with Prohibition; neither the ERA nor the anti flag-burning amendment have managed to scrape through despite, in the former case, over twenty years of concentrated activism and a depth of support that was really pretty spectacular back in the seventies. In addition, I'm pretty sure Bush does not know that he is almost certainly of the last generation in which homophobia will be as serious a political motivator as it has been up till now. Yes, homophobia is still a massive political block-- but this block is getting older. In my generation, a far greater percentage know somebody gay, are more comfortable with the questions of sexual identity, and are able to understand that gays and lesbians are human beings. The MTV generation, the generation that has turned slash from an underground movement into an Internet inescapability, the audience of Queer as Folk and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy; this generation, when members of it start reaching positions of political power, are not going to have that old knee-jerk defensive homophobic reaction. Younger kids are going to be even more open. So many of them now know people with two mommies or two daddies, or are growing up with media that understands the diversity of the human spectrum. Sei recently told me about one of her students who came to her, wide-eyed, in the course of reevaluating an entire worldview after having watched one hundred and something episodes of Yuu Yuu Hakusho and then finding out about Kurama and Hiei and discovering that yes, these characters who are extremely interesting, entertaining and lovable are together and function better that way. So I can't see an amendment passing, and I can't see even as much homophobia as there is in politics now being in place in thirty or forty years. I simply can't.
This does not mean, however, that I feel any better about the present day, nor that there isn't a heck of a lot of very important and difficult work that needs to be done to assist in the process of procuring and maintaining necessary civil rights and ending the horrors of hate and discrimination that have caused so much pain to myself and so many other people I have met or heard about. No one should have to go through some of the things that the queer people I knew in high school accepted as the price of being different. And Bush is standing in the way of stopping the hate and fear and pain because he is insisting on treating gays and lesbians as though they are not deserving of the rights of all other Americans.
Dear Mr. President: I am not out to destroy your marriage in any way, shape or form. Why are you trying to fuck with mine?
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-21 12:49 pm (UTC)Of course, none of that helps right now. And it's not in any way okay that people are suffering because Bush wants to give the Right some red meat. That is true of lots of people right now, however, and this is one case where I really do see light at the end of the (very long) tunnel.
no subject
Date: 2004-01-21 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-21 01:19 pm (UTC)Amen
Date: 2004-01-21 07:04 pm (UTC)Re: Amen
Date: 2004-01-22 09:06 am (UTC)SANCTITY?!
Date: 2004-01-22 01:12 pm (UTC)Re: SANCTITY?!
Date: 2004-01-22 02:36 pm (UTC)It seems to me like the same arguement that can be used for tolerance of religion can be used here. If you can't hear about another religion, if you can't even dare to have someone who practices some other religion around becuase you or yours _might_ be tempted to stray from your religion or your religious faith _might_ be destroyed by that, what does it say about the strength of your faith? If just having that other religion around is such a threat to your faith (which is, of course, the true one), what does it say about your faith and the strength of your convictions?
If letting others who happen to love members of the same sex live their lives and have the same rights is so threatening, or the idea that _they_ might be allowed to be public about their sexual orientation is so threatening to you and your self-image or sexuality or whatever, what does that say about you? I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but still.
-Ghost