Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Yeah, I'll blog Podles later
Here is the site for "No on Prop 8," which is dedicated to defeating California's Proposition 8, a ballot measure that will take away gay and lesbian couples' right to marry, already established in California. The Mormon church has pumped millions of dollars into the state to try and pass this legislative act of hatred by means of poorly reasoned fear-mongering bullshit. I guess because they are so goddamn famous for their history of traditional views on marriage.
For a sampling of the Lincolnesque rhetoric, see the clip above! Note the subtle writing, the considered morality, the attention to rhyme for god's sake. This clip wins Maury's coveted "Worse than the Holocaust" trophy. [ETA: I think this video has disappeared. Description can only be inadequate, but it was basically these two excruciatingly cute Asian kids singing a song their none-too-clever parents, one assumes, wrote for them about how confusing it would be if their mother was a man, while neglecting to sing about the vicissitudes of deities from other planets, polygamy, and religious underwear. Life's confusing, kids. Suck it up.]
There's a view among certain radical queers (for whom I got nothin' but love) that marriage is outmoded/hegemonic/dumb and it's not what we should be shooting for. That's for talking about later, when we have the option. As long as you are denied a basic human right everyone else has, whether you have much use for it or not (and god knows my dating life does not augur matrimony lo these many months), you are a second-class citizen, and your other rights are up for grabs.
This is really, really, really important. Massachusetts looks like they've opted for equality in the long run, but California is, y'know, BIG, and has rather a lot of symbolic weight in this fight. You can give at the site; I did, and I am fucking cheap.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Absolutely appalling! Why can't they see civil marriage for what it is: a contract, which should be available to everyone. They can keep the symbolism with the religious variant, but the legal variant should be avalaible to everyone. Period.
What benjamin said. Religious marriage (Christian, that is) wasn't even enunciated as a rite until the beginning of the Thirteenth Century, and wasn't defined as a sacrament until the 24th session of the Council of Trent, so it's not as though they've even had a lock on "holy matrimony" all that long. They can have it, as long as we can have civil marriage. I donated for only the second time in my impoverished life, and if I can I'll do it again. (And no, I don't have any prospects.)
Sorry for the intrusion, but I've chosen to display your blog I really like in one of those chains Internet spreads like clouds of dust.
http://lespecheursdeperles.blogspot.com/2008/10/to-tag-or-to-be-tagged.html
There's a view among certain radical queers... that marriage is outmoded/hegemonic/dumb and it's not what we should be shooting for. That's for talking about later, when we have the option.
Absolutely! It is dumbfounding, and frustrating, that these two issues, which have so absolutely nothing to do with each other, keep getting meddled in the discourse. The critique of marriage, applicable to heterosexual marriage as well, has nothing to do with the latter issue of rights.
Now, I'm not sure what to do about that song stuck in my head, but trepanation is starting to look like a reasonable way out.
Apparently fascists must be made early or not at all...
I couldn't help sharing this comment I read on youtube as a reaction to another "YES on Prop 8" clip:
Could it be any clearer that this is not a tolerance issue? I too have a friend who has a same sex partner and they enjoy the benefits of domestic partnership, however, I feel strongly that marriage is a divine institution and the basic building block of our society. I also believe in my parental right to choose what my children are taught in school.
This is an example of exctaly the sort of thinking I, and calpete, were referring to. People seem to mix up 'divine', i.e. religiously inspired, marriage with civil constructions. Marriage law was highly evolved before the advent of Christianity, and there are some (albeit rare and almost always in imperial circles) examples of male-male marriages in Roman history. They clearly thought of marriage as a contract, even though male-female unions were the rule.
Sometimes I am REALLY glad to be living in the Netherlands, where religiously inspired politics are at least a minority phenomenon.
I gave and I hope many others do too. I think you're exactly right, Maury, secure the right and then decide if you want to avail yourself of it. If the term marriage is good enough for non-procreating, thrice-married straight people, it's good enough for us, too. I'm not sure I want to get married, but I want the opportunity.
Tom
Great shaare
Post a Comment