Thers has a little piece up that I meant to link to the other day, commenting on some Clown Hall piece on the decline of the sanctity of bedrock institutions like marriage [or something equally convoluted], written by a wingnut called Ken Connor. Here is a snippet of the annoying piece, just to give you a taste of what it is that Thers is making fun of:
[blah blah blah fart] precipitous decline of marriage. What was once venerated as a holy, sacramental institution is now considered an optional, if slightly outmoded social convention, a stultifying but necessary financial convenience. This week’s Washington Post illustrates that proposition. In a recent article, the Post discusses the increasing number of couples opting to have a friend rather then a religious officiant preside over their wedding ceremonies.
Seeking to distance themselves from any prescriptive religious connotations that may cling to marriage, self-proclaimed “hippy types” are redefining the institution along highly personalized, pseudo-spiritual, distinctly non-sacramental lines. From the article:
“Members of the American University crew shared a love of jam bands, including Phish and Moe, as well as a passion for environmentalism and nature. Their wedding ceremonies often reflected those interests.
Some of them talked about vigorously scrubbing the word “God” from their rituals; instead readings came from environmental poet Wendell Berry or novels, such as “Einstein’s Dreams,” which explores human beings’ relationship to time passing.”
It’s that whole “venerated as a holy, sacramental institution” and this part that comes after it, about glue or something, that is annoying Thers:
Traditional marriage (specifically, Christian marriage) has through the centuries served as a critical civilizing force in society. It has been, quite literally, the glue that holds communities and peoples together. As traditionally understood, the bonds of marriage are forged not by man, but by God. They are not merely legal, physical, or emotional, they are spiritual and sacred.
Yeah, so Thers is straight and married and here is what he has to say about that:
That’s precisely why gays want to get married. Steve says to Bill, “before all our loved ones, please let’s together forever participate in what was once venerated as a holy, sacramental institution that is now considered an optional, if slightly outmoded social convention, a stultifying but necessary financial convenience, you sweet bitch you.”
Anyway, I’m straight, and not religious, and I’m pretty sure I got married because of the love thing, and also because I was pretty sure I would like being married and having kids.
[...]
There’s no mystery as to why God-botherers want us all to hold to 14th century social norms: it’s good to be the priest.
But as for me — stop bugging me. I’m a straight married guy. Whatever. Stop trying to call what I have some sort of Spiritual and Sacred hot-shit win for Mankind. It’s not. It’s just what I am.
I’ve often thought that the weird way that Religious Right characters talk about marriage — this up in the clouds, sanctified bedrock blah blah blah crap — was more than a little bit unhinged from the reality of married life for the average American. It’s good to know that their weird rhetoric on the topic creeps out opposite-married people too.
You’ll want to head over to Thers’s blog and read the rest of his post, because there’s a whole riff in there about glue holding people together that you won’t want to miss. I’d quote it here, but y’know. It includes the phrase “sticky nipples.”
I haven’t said much about this, but you all might have heard that a judge has ruled that the tapes of the Prop 8 trial may be unsealed and made available to the public. The judge, James Ware, stayed his ruling so that the anti-gay sideshow known as Protect Marriage may have a chance to appeal the ruling.
I have little to say about this, except that it’s a matter of public record and we already know what fools the anti-gay side made of themselves during the trial. And that was the absolute best they had. I can’t imagine why, considering the fact that it happened a year ago, these Religious Right thugs are still so obsessed with keeping what happened under wraps, unless they really, finally have grasped how awful they look in the eyes of sane people, and are ashamed of themselves. Wait, do anti-gay bigots experience shame, besides the kind that comes from whatever personal demons cause them to devote their entire lives to attacking minority groups?
I dunno. Anyway, victory for transparency, and probably, eventually, for equality!
Jamey Rodemeyer’s parents believe years of bullying drove their son to suicide. The Williamsville North freshman took his life Sunday, he was only 14 years old.
Jamey Rodemeyer posted a message online hoping that others would be inspired by his struggle with bullying. A part of the message reads, “That’s all you have to do. Just love yourself and you’re set. And I promise you, it’ll get better.”
Soon after coming home from a family camping trip, Jamey was found dead Sunday. His parents say he was always under pressure because of struggles with his sexuality.
Jamey’s mother Tracy Rodemeyer said, “So he hung around with the girls a lot, so then the teasing started happening like ‘Oh you’re such a girl or you’re gay or whatever and that bothered him for many years.”
Now, they want to carry in his message in hopes of preventing another tragedy like this one.
Jamey’s father Tim Rodemeyer said, “To the kids who are bullying they have to realize that words are very powerful and what you think is just fun and games isn’t to some people, and you are destroying a lot of lives.”
Here’s Jamey’s “It Gets Better” video.
Sadly, it seems that the hate that was spewed at him for so many years finally did get the best of him. I want to point out something in the video: did everyone notice that one of the things people were hurling at him was that he was going to go to hell? The Religious Right soullessly and callously claims that there is a difference between their bullying and the bullying kids inflict upon each other, but we know differently, and Jamey knew differently. The very message that gay kids are going to hell comes from fundamentalist religious people who love their ignorant, hateful ideology more than they love human beings like Jamey Rodemeyer. It’s then passed on to their children, who pass it on to other kids, such as this one.
An interesting study is out which shows that, among committed couples, both straight and gay, monogamy is going up:
Data on gay and heterosexual couples from 1975 and from 2000 — the most recent year such data with identical survey questions was available to researchers — show the percentage of partnered gay men who reported sexual activity beyond the relationship dropped from 83% to 59%, while lesbians reported a decrease from 28% to 8%. Married heterosexual men and women showed a similar trend away from extra-relational sexual behavior.
“Our findings reveal a marked movement toward monogamy over time,” study authors wrote in the September issue of the journal Family Process.
And that data is now eleven years old. I find a few things of interest here:
1. While nonmonogamy seems to still be obviously higher among gay men, it’s interesting to see that trend line move down as homosexuality becomes more accepted and integrated in society. It would seem, possibly, that the move away from homosexuality being an “underground” thing — and with that, more societal support for our relationships, which happens to allow young gay people to dream the same dreams for life as everyone else — might contribute to these numbers.
2. It gives lie to the idea, promulgated by the Religious Right, that gay relationships are inherently nonmonogamous or inherently unstable. [We gays already knew this, but whatever.]
3. Moreover, it gives lie to the Religious Right idea that somehow we are in or are headed toward some sort of morally hedonistic place as a society, whether we’re talking about homos or heteros.
I’m not getting into the whole subject of whether monogamy is right for every couple. What works for your relationship might not work for mine and vice versa. That’s a different subject, and one about which we could fight all day. And I’d like to see more data about this, but I would suspect that it would show similar results. The world for gay people in 1975 was very different from what it was in 2000 and what it is today, and anecdotally I find that many of my friends’ and acquaintances’ expectations for their relationships are a far cry from what the ooga-boogas of the Religious Right would tell you about gay relationships.
Alvin McEwen has a great, very important petition at Change.org that you should all check out. In it, he is petitioning the United States Congress to subject Religious Right testimony on LGBT issues to a high level of scrutiny, based on their pattern of cravenly distorting actual research in order to further their anti-gay agenda:
In June of this year during a Congressional hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, Sen. Al Franken exposed Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery’s attempt to inaccurately cite a study to defame same-sex households.
Earlier this year during another Congressional hearing on DOMA, National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher committed the same distortion – i.e. inaccurately citing a study to defame same-sex households. Gallagher’s group (NOM) has also been called out twice by the Pulitzer Prize winning site Politifact for inaccurate negative statements it has made about the gay community.
The Family Research Council was declared as an official anti-gay hate group last year by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its tendency to spread propaganda about the gay community such as gays molest children at a high level and same-sex households harm children.
However, the head of the Family Research Council – Tony Perkins – is frequently called as a Congressional witness on many occasions from discussing issues of gay equality to the selection of Supreme Court justices.
That’s just three examples. Alvin points out at his blog that, though Tom Minnery was called out, Maggie Gallagher and Tony Perkins got away with it, and that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Religious Right distorting the work of real, honest researchers. That petition, again, is at Change.org, so check it out and sign it.
The other petition comes from Kathy Baldock, and focuses on the pride celebration in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you’re not familiar with Kathy, she is a straight, evangelical woman who spends her days fighting for dignity and respect for LGBT people within the church. At Charlotte Pride, as usual, the vehemently anti-gay activist Michael Brown has planned a counter demonstration called “God Has A Better Way.” Brown has a distinct pattern of pretending that he is reaching out in love to LGBT people, and somehow managing to send some of the most grotesque, hateful messages possible to the gay community. Kathy explains a bit more about the message of the God Has A Better Way people:
The stated beliefs of the backers of GHABW * with respect to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are:
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are a deviation from God’s best, God’s intentions and His design.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can change orientation and be heterosexual with no negative effects.
If they do not succeed in orientation change, they should remain celibate in order to identify as Christians.( “Gay Christian” is always placed in quotation marks to dismiss the existence of gay Christians.)
The majority of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are inherently unhappy, unhealthy, sexually immoral or rebellious to the will of God.
Transgender people would best follow God’s plan by using hormonal therapy, prayer and counseling to overcome the issue of gender identity. Sexual reassignment surgery should never be used as an option.
Acting on same sex attraction is sinful and indicative of non-submission to God.
Same-sex attraction is a behavior, not an orientation.
In your face hateful, as usual. These people, of course, claim that they are bringing this message in “love,” but Michael Brown has shown repeatedly that his concept of “love” is warped at best.
Sign Kathy’s petition to ask the group to cancel their nasty little counter rally here.
Those who follow the gay rights movement, especially as it pertains to Religious Right opposition, know all too well that anti-gay wingnuts will go completely Sarah Bernhardt at any perceived slight to the cultural supremacy they still believe they hold. Therefore, when a nondiscrimination law passes and suddenly a wedding photographer who happens to be a wingnut decides she doesn’t want to follow the law, the wingnut is held up as some sort of champion for tradishnul values/a trampled victim. Aside from the fact that it’s a completely disingenuous strategy, it’s sort of gross, as gay teens still attempt and complete suicide at far-too-alarming rates and even now, with a majority of Americans supporting marriage equality, anti-gay hate crimes are still on the rise. Meanwhile the incidences of Christian Fundamentalists being bullied, beaten, maimed or killed for being Christian Fundamentalists in this country are still pretty much zero. So the Religious Right touts these stories, bitching and moaning to the very moon about how we on the side of fairness and equality are the real haters and they’re the real victims.
A New York town clerk has decided to quit her job, rather than sign marriage licenses for gay and lesbian couples:
Laura Fotusky submitted a letter of resignation to the town board in Barker, a small town north of Binghamton, on Monday, saying her religious beliefs prevented her from marrying gay couples.
Okay, fine. If she doesn’t like it, get a new job. Here’s part of her letter:
There was no protection provided in the legislation for Town Clerks who are unable to sign these marriage licenses due to personal religious convictions, even though our US Constitution supports freedom of religion.”
“I believe that there is a higher law than the law of the land. It is the law of God in the Bible. In Acts 5:29, it states, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’”
“The Bible clearly teaches that God created marriage between male and female as a divine gift that preserves families and cultures. Since I love and follow Him, I cannot put my signature on something that is against God. Deuteronomy 10:12 says, ‘…What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.’”
“I would be compromising my moral conscience if I participated in the licensing procedure.
Unfortunately, Laura’s interpretation of the Bible isn’t a legal document in the state of New York. Also, freedom of religion doesn’t include the right to do inferior work in one’s state career due to one’s religious beliefs. I always say this, but it bears repeating again: discriminating against minorities in secular careers actually isn’t part of the free practice of anyone’s religion! Despite what the Religious Right says, we actually don’t care whether or not their churches are willing to perform same-sex marriage. Why? Because those churches are where they actually DO practice their religion. That is actually part of their Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, and as such, should be protected. But this is civil marriage we’re talking about. Duh…
Oh, but watch. The usual suspects will add this one to their litany of sob stories about how it’s just so gosh darn hard to be a Fundamentalist Christian in the United States.
The Religious Right likes to pretend that they’re trying to protect societal institutions, to preserve the natural order, to look out for the best needs of children, and so on. They continually assert that they don’t want to hurt gay people, per se, and they like to pretend that they respect our freedoms to live our lives as we choose. They just want to protect the institution of marriage, for instance. They’re lying, of course, because they’re liars, but it’s nice to see one of America’s queen bigots, Linda Harvey of Mission America, lay her hateful agenda out for all to see, without euphemisms. Linda is basically a snake, so it’s no surprise that she’s willing to hiss out words like this. On the radio today, she said this:
Our President has launched a broad scale attack on traditional values. If homosexuals and transgenders are allowed to live and love as they see fit, we would have a whole societal mess on our hands, which is already starting to happen in some areas. We’re already seeing the denial of liberty, intimidation tactics, and flat out dirty tricks in the effort to silence concerned citizens, especially Christians. And I’m sure many of you are as dismayed as I am over our hyper-sexualized culture, well homosexual activism only puts that trend on steroids.
…
It’s not a rights issue, its cultural revolution, where homosexuality is declared acceptable, the harm and detriments disguised, and no other views are allowed. And that’s not human rights, friends, it’s anti-family tyranny. We need someone else as President, don’t you think? Someone who loves and honors God, His design, and truth itself.
If we are allowed — ALLOWED — to live and love as WE SEE FIT.
Linda Harvey is not a cultured woman. She’s not an intelligent woman. But she thinks that, due to her pigheaded, stunted obeisance to a disproven worldview that is purportedly attached to a book she couldn’t truly understand if her life depended on it, she has the right to decide how a portion of the society — a portion, I might add, that has no desire to meet her in whatever suburban Wal-Mart infested trans fat zone where she dwells — lives our lives.
Sorry, Linda. You’re not a greater citizen than we are. The laws are finally being changed to reflect that. You’re free to live out your life screaming at the homosexuals in your head, but otherwise, you’d best learn to deal with reality.
Appreciate the honesty, though. That’s rare when dealing with fundamentalists!
One line from Amanda Marcotte’s piece this morning on the New York marriage win, and its concomitant right wing hysteria, grabbed me:
There are 44 more states to go, and the usual suspects in the South will be the biggest struggle, but the size and influence of New York will help usher this process along. Once straight people start to realize nothing is really going to be that different from them, they’ll stop caring. Many people are quietly adjusting towards a less bigoted point of view about gay people.
A recent poll out of Iowa showed that fully 61.3% of Iowans support marriage equality. That’s a couple of percentage points above public support in New York, which was around 58% right before the law passed. Wait, that doesn’t make sense, does it? I think it does.
One of the most important things for us to grasp, as marriage laws are expanded to include gays and lesbians around the country, is that absolutely nothing that the Religious Right promises — none of their scare tactics, none of their sky is falling Chicken Little Chickensh*t hysteria — ever comes to pass. Ever.
Now, in the small minds of the wingnuts who fervently hate gay people, who spend an inordinate amount of their lives obsessing over what their religious masters tell them about gay people, that sky is falling and will always fall. Before Iowa, all of the equal marriage laws were in New England, a “cultural elitist” place that, for the common wingnut, is sort of an exotic destination that may or may not actually exist, much like Europe. So they can sort of compartmentalize what they’ve heard is happening — gays are forcing children to dress up as drag queens in preschool while taking fisting classes from GLSEN! or whatever — and imprint it upon themselves because they have, truly, very little experience with these places. An obvious parallel came out during the fight over healthcare, where wingnuts went absolutely insane at the suggestion that nations in Western Europe had better health outcomes, for less money, than we do. It’s, of course, completely true, but those facts had little bearing on wingnuts, most of whom couldn’t pick out the nations of Western Europe on a map. To them, “France” is not a real place, but a target for their childish resentments.
But now Iowa has had marriage equality for a little while, and over 60% of the people in that heartland state couldn’t care less. I would suggest that, as Amanda said, sane, reasonable people who were once on the fence or even opposed to marriage equality have now had an opportunity to see that absolutely nothing — nothing! — has happened. All the screaming and caterwauling from the Religious Right is just that — the hysterical moaning of liars who are losing their cultural influence. Meanwhile, nice and normal gay and lesbian couples are getting married and raising families and regular Iowans are going, “Well hell, I guess the world didn’t end after all.”
I predict that this will happen in every state. Oh sure, there will be a backlash when the Supreme Court finally and ultimately, in the tradition of Loving v. Virginia, declares that anti-gay marriage laws and amendments are unconstitutional and states like Georgia and South Carolina are forced to grow up real fast. I mean, for a lot of Georgia wingnuts, Atlanta is exotic. And that’s where a large percentage of that state’s gays and lesbians live. But even in those places, public acceptance of LGBT equality will grow exponentially when we actually have equality in those places.
Because people hear the hysterical warnings from the Religious Right, and it works for a bit, for as long as the bigots can keep the harsh light of reality away from their followers. But once that light starts to shine in, once those warnings are exposed as the insane lies that they are…
And that’s how you get a larger percentage of the population supporting marriage equality in Iowa than in New York. To be sure, New York will zoom by Iowa once marriage equality has been the law of the land for a little bit. In a way, we should thank our opponents for being such craven, hysterical, and most importantly, dishonest bigots. They’re helping us more than they will ever understand.
Jeremy just had a novel idea for Maggie Gallagher, who is on the whine-trail this week about marriage supposedly being destroyed, redefined, being taken over by the government, blah blah blah, etc. For instance, she said this:
“Gay marriage is not an increase in liberty; it is a government takeover of an institution that government did not create and should not redefine.
When the government endorses a lie about human nature, there will be consequences.”
Yeah, whatever, Maggie. We still haven’t seen YOUR traditionally wed husband and you still don’t wear a wedding ring. Which leads to Jeremy’s idea:
If Maggie thinks marriage had been subjected to government takeover, then she and every single married person who agrees with her needs to return the marriage license that he or she obtained from the state.
DAMN RIGHT SHE SHOULD! Maggie, Brian Brown, whatever other Religious Right goons live in marriage equality states: if your marriage has been devalued, redefined, destroyed, taken over by the government, or whatever else, due to the inclusion of gay people in the institution, then return your now worthless marriage license and fend for yourself without the benefits granted to you by the state.
We are waiting with bated breath. Unless you really don’t believe your own BS and this is just about heterosexual supremacy, patriarchy and extreme butthurtness over the fact that the American people lose more respect for you every single day…
