16 comments

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  Jay

  8 months ago

  I don't know if using people like Melissa Etheridge is a good example. Remember that there were very wealthy and popular black American entertainers and entrepreneurs before the Civil Rights movement. Their wealth and status offered them extra security that the poorer and more provincial people did not have.
  
  The same can be said for gay men and women. Not everyone is able to move to San Francisco or Malibu or Manhattan. Not everyone even really wants to. Some people actually want to stay in small-town Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming -- You know, the places where they were born, where they have family, where they have built their lives. Not everyone comes into the money that allows them to get away, and even if they do it seems rather wrong to tell them to move, doesn't it?
  
  We didn't tell the black Americans in the South to just move up North during the 1960s. We knew that they deserved to live free wherever they chose to be. The same goes for gay men and women. I'm not talking about marriage or civil unions. It's just that when it comes to persecution and attitudes, well... A middle class gay schoolteacher in small-town Wyoming deserves to be just as loved, respected, and protected as a wealthy lesbian rock star in California. I'm not sure we're at that point yet.
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  B.T.Carolus

  8 months ago

  The gay rights activists who keep claiming that their civil rights are being abused are not complaining about the fact that school teachers in Wyoming aren't being loved and respected, they're saying that the entire population of gays in America is being denied basic civil rights.
  
  While it is true that there were some African American performers that were successful before the civil rights movement, they never had anything even approaching somebody like Ellen. The discrimination against black performers before the '60s has been incredible, including black performers who had to perform in blackface, in order to pretend to be white pretending to be black, and black performers who performed in whiteface in order to get jobs. And, although there were a very few individuals who managed to become successful, the vast majority of African-Americans pre-civil rights were severely economically and socially disadvantaged (not just in the south, either, check out the Pulitzer prize winning photograph of 1976, which was taken in Boston).
  
  The Gay community in America, on the other hand, tends to be just as well off, or better, than the rest of their fellow Americans. Although none on us will, I'm sure, dispute that gay individuals have been discriminated against, there have never been laws in place denying education, voting rights, equal pay, use of public spaces/amenities, or allowing people to systematically forbid access to restaurants, laundromats, etc. And although wealthy gay celebrities are the easiest to point out because they're celebrities, and therefore well known, there also are many, many well off, well paid non-celebrity members of the gay community. Like the people who attend the White Party, Circuit Queens in general, and the guy who wrote "The Cost of Being Gay" a couple of months ago in the Advocate (apparently $55 Gap jeans are beneath him as a gay man). And the obligatory gay man or couple who is always featured in Elle Decor, along with their recently redecorated mansion or swanky New York apartment. These are of course extreme examples. But in 1960, I'm pretty sure you could not have found any black journalist declaring that equivalent-to-the-time-period clothing was beneath him as a black man because it just cost too little. You also wouldn't find the Black equivalent to the portion of the middle class that also happens to be gay, and that shops at the Gap and Eddie Bauer (I'm actually referring to a specific person there) quite happily and with no strain on their pocket books.
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  Jay

  8 months ago

  That's why I said this wasn't about rights, but about attitudes. Do you think that if sexuality was something one could see as easily as skin color or gender, that gays might also be denied education, voting rights, equal pay, etc. in some parts of the country? I think they could, which is why a lot of people in backwoods areas tend to stay in the closet for a long time. And some people never get the means to get out of those areas, so they stay in the closet forever. It's not freedom if someone feels they have to hide in order to get by.
  
  No one denies Christians in Middle Eastern countries the rights to education, voting rights, equal pay, etc. However, that's because no one admits to being a Christian. I'm not saying that the struggles are the same (Christians in the Middle East have it way worse, by far). But the concept is similar. You can say that gays have it easy because in large parts it is still taboo. People aren't out because they fear the consequences... And trust me, people do get fired, their property does get vandalized, they do get beaten and mocked. Except for the firing issue, these don't exactly fall under civil rights, but they do represent attitudes that need to change... Not in places like California or New York, but in all</> parts of the country.
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  B.T.Carolus

  8 months ago

  In some Middle Eastern countries it's illegal to be a Christian or to convert to Christianity. Nobody admits to it because they would be executed if they did (and people have been thrown in jail and killed because of it). That is a clear legally based violation of human rights, as well as a clear incentive to stay inside the religious closet. On the other hand, there is no law that makes it illegal to be gay in this country. There is now no law preventing homosexual behavior, and those that did exist have been struck down by the supreme court, something I support.
  
  The fact that private individuals choose to discriminate against gays is also, as you admit, not a violation of human rights. It is something that should be able to be remedied by legal action, and that is increasingly the case. And you're right, the attitudes of those private citizens should change. But it's still not a civil or human rights issue.
  
  And therein lies the problem. We now have people standing on street corners in places like Hollywood, Westwood, and Long Beach (three of the most desirable neighborhoods/areas in LA) holding up signs that say things like "In California chickens have more rights than me." This is patently untrue and completely ridiculous (At least I've never seen a gay man trapped in a cage, awaiting slaughter to be served up as coq au vin). It's also ironic, because the guys holding up those signs probably voted for prop 2 (which was apparently the chicken rights amendment). Then you have people like Melissa Etheridge (and a lot of average people on the ten o'clock news) complaining about how this is exactly the same as taxation without representation. Again patently false and ridiculous. She got to go down to her polling place and vote on prop 8, just like everybody else. Just because you didn't get the outcome you wanted, doesn't mean you didn't get to vote in the election, which is what that phrase means. And it also doesn't mean that you get to decide not to file income taxes, which is still considered tax evasion and is punishable by both fines and jail time.
  
  At the end of the day we have a group of people trying to expropriate the language and moral authority of civil rights, for an issue that is not a matter of civil rights. If the protesters in Long Beach want to go to Wyoming to change attitudes about the treatment of gays, more power to them. But right now that's not what they're doing.
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  Jay

  7 months ago

  I suppose this is why I am more-or-less politically apathetic (I mean, unless a pro-life Libertarian comes into power I'll never have a President or Senator who will represent even a majority of my views). I care little about legalities. I think people should be free to set up whatever sort of situation they wish in terms of benefits, etc. (Chaplian Chas and Randy are making interesting points about this in the comment thread below this one).
  
  I guess any battle really needs to be fought on the front of changing attitudes before anything else. That's primarily where my heart always is. I could care less about the law unless it is bringing people to the Kingdom (and the only laws I get passionate for are pro-life ones, because that protects unborn children who could eventually be a part of that Kingdom).
  
  Christians need to change their attitudes in how they relate to gays (this is a Biblical mandate for them), and many gays need to change their attitudes in how they relate to Christians (this is simply a good idea for them, since compromise is more feasible than total acceptance). I don't know how we can go about changing these attitudes, but on both sides, it's where the battle needs to be first. My biggest fear is that both sides will see a legal victory as the end of their endeavors.
  
  Oh, and I am glad you supported the Supreme Court's decision to make homosexual behavior legal. I didn't think you would have supported that. Guess that shows what they say about assumptions is true... :)
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  B.T.Carolus

  7 months ago

  Anti-sodomy laws just seemed so much like Big Brother to me (and I don't mean Randy's iPhone). They're impossible to fairly enforce, short of putting surveillance equipment in people's bedrooms. It's illegal to have sex period in public already, and I don't t really see the need to penalize certain types of sexual behavior more than others. Not to mention there's been major disagreement, ever since anti-buggery laws in England, over whether they should apply to straights and gays, or just gays (and what about Lesbians, anyway?), and what types of sex sodomy actually means (ie, it's been interpreted to cover blow jobs and male on male hand jobs at times). At the end of the day they're just a legal way of being overly mean to gay men, and I'm not a big fan of that.
  
  Anyway, I actually pretty much agree with you on the concept of 'Let people make their own arrangements.' I think if the two of us were talking face to face, we'd be surprised on how similar our views on most things are.
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  Pianomankugie

  7 months ago

  Thank you! I needed a good laugh. That line about the cage and being served up as coq au vin was just too funny. Thanks!
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  Randy

  8 months ago

  B.T. ... I think you are my hero today :).
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  B.T.Carolus

  8 months ago

  Why am I your hero?
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  Randy

  7 months ago

  because you said everything I was going to say and more ... very well I might add.
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  ChaplianChas.

  8 months ago

  I believe my best friend, a man I am not married to, should be able to visit me in intensive care, as well. This is a common-to-man issue.
  
  Interesting thoughts, Randy, on the tax-thing and all. I'll need to process that a bit...
  
  C.
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  Randy

  8 months ago

  Feel free to add your thoughts post processing. I would be interested to know what they are.
  
  If I don't marry, I would like my social security benefits, that I have paid for my entire life, to go toward my nieces, or their children's, college funds.
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  jandesmom

  8 months ago

  Homeschoolers have been making similar points for years. We're paying for our curriculum, pencils, paper, etc. We're equipping our children to be assets, not detriments to society, yet we're paying for public schools through our taxes. Rural folks who often live off dirt roads (like many of my relatives in North Dakota and south Texas) pay taxes for the maintenance of highways in big cities. The list goes on and on. Every tax we as citizens pay does not benefit us directly.
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  Randy

  8 months ago

  That is a *very* good point Jandesmom. Thank you for commenting.
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  Brady

  7 months ago

  I would like to point out, for the record, that some very high profile African Americans, many of who were instrumental in the civil rights movement, disagree with LaShawn Barber's take.
  
  And on that note, I think her call for violence, even with the caveat, deserves condemnation rather than exaltation. I don't see this as the same as the civil rights movement, but to call violence, even hypothetically, on those that do gets us nowhere.
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  JohnBisceglia

  7 months ago

  More and more of us are WAKING UP, America. No taxation without equality; simple math.
  
  Now the feds will need to repeal DOMA and DADT, grant us FULL equal rights (including marriage), and begin to start viewing our families - OUR FAMILIES - as the tax-paying contributing members of society we are.....well.....we USED to be!
  
  Because if our HOMES, our FAMILIES, our very BELOVED are not acknowledged and valued as other families are legally, whatever we do outside of that home will never be acknowledged and valued legally, such as adopting children, working without discrimination, or serving openly in the military.
  
  FAMILY FIRST. What is more important than FAMILY?
  
  We owe the IRS absolutely NOTHING until equal. NOTHING. Get it?
  
  This is NOT a test.
  This is NOT a debate.
  This is NOT a vote.
  This is definitely NOT a popularity contest.
  
  This IS justice - GAY TAX PROTEST.
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