Breaking the Spell: Rethinking queer community

[Dominique]

Originally Posted by Corkey;408902[SIZE=4

These are petty jealous and ignorant people, and I don't buy into their hate and fear.[/SIZE]
If I lived my life according to their rules, they win, I don't, and they wont.

Well Corkey, June had the right message, VOTE. Because they are not petty jealous people. They are powerful......add what ever words you want onto that. My goodness, did you forget about Rick Santorum?...how did we get rid of him?....we voted him out. We are not in any position to go backwards.

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Yellow band

Well Corkey, June had the right message, VOTE. Because they are not petty jealous people. They are powerful......add what ever words you want onto that. My goodness, did you forget about Rick Santorum?...how did we get rid of him?....we voted him out. We are not in any position to go backwards.

Why are you assuming I don't vote? They only power they have is the power we give them. I have in-laws who are like this, they don't have power over me, they never did and they never will. Well, Santorum is out and Corbett is in so is Mike Kelley and Pat Toomey, and I didn't vote for any of those asshats. Here's a thought stop assuming I don't vote and I am not active in Human Rights Campaign or any of the other myriad of other political and social causes shall we?

[Dominique]

[QUOTE=Corkey;408916]Why are you assuming I don't vote?

There was more to her suggestion than Vote, I just didn't repeat it, as the message is the same. We have to use the power of the vote to make changes. I wasn't assuming you didn't vote.

Three big *R*'s have already signed a declaration to remove what little rights we gay folks have, we have to unite and fight the fight to be sure they do not get into office. Thats all.

SNAP.....all gone. back to the days of hiding who and what we are.

[Corkey]

I don't believe in going backwards, never have, never will, the only closet I use is the one for my cloths.

[Toughy]

Tolerance implies and reinforces 'love the sinner, hate the sin'......makes me want to bitch slap the person saying that.........

Acceptance is turning on the tv, flipping channels and NEVER EVER seeing Bennie Hinn praying over letters and mailing out prayer clothes he prayed over on tv to those who send $19.95 so they can be saved. Acceptance is not having a murder count on the local news every night. Acceptance means Liberty University, Oral Roberts University, Bob Jones University are closed due to no enrollment. Acceptance means equality and value for each and every human being.

Acceptance is the government getting out of the business of regulating how adults order our families. Marriage has always been a contract to pass property, money and establish paternity for the transfer to the next generation of males. How about civil marriage does not exist? How about signing legal documents to cover inheritance and benefits? Spiritual marriage is not the business of any government .

What am I willing to do for what I believe in? I have risked my life more times than I can count for what I believe in. Stepping into rush hour traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, playing cat and mouse with the cops so I can make it on the Bay Bridge to stop traffic, walking out of the gay bar, down the dark alley to the street looking for the cowboys with baseball bats cuz you know they are there...somewhere....waiting....and the police are way more scarey than the cowboys.

Apathy is our enemy. Settling is our enemy. Morality linked to dogma is our enemy. We once walked in light and that was lost. Until we find light again as Dylan Thomas wrote:

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Toughy

Tolerance implies and reinforces 'love the sinner, hate the sin'......makes me want to bitch slap the person saying that.........

Acceptance is turning on the tv, flipping channels and NEVER EVER seeing Bennie Hinn praying over letters and mailing out prayer clothes he prayed over on tv to those who send $19.95 so they can be saved. Acceptance is not having a murder count on the local news every night. Acceptance means Liberty University, Oral Roberts University, Bob Jones University are closed due to no enrollment. Acceptance means equality and value for each and every human being.

This I found really discouraging, Toughy. So, assuming that you mean what you appear to mean above, you are saying that in order for queer people to be accepted there must be NO place for a Benny Hinn. You are saying that queer people will truly be considered legal and social equals ONLY when there are no murders. You are saying that queers will only be accepted ni society when there are no Christian universities. I find that discouraging, Toughy, because it seems like what you have said above is that queer people will be considered legal and social equals--acceptance from the larger society--sometime after the twelfth of never. And how would we get to this world? I'm not sure I'm willing to pay those costs, as I calculate them to be, Toughy. NOT because I have any love for Benny Hinn or I think that the Christian universities you mention turn out good scholarship. Benny Hinn is just a carnival barker in a better suit and Bob Jones, Regent's, Liberty and Oral Roberts *combined* couldn't turn out a real top-shelf scholar if they tried. It is because I don't want to win our battle on eliminating the opposition, I want to win by convincing the middle.

The world you are describing, Toughy, isn't achievable by OUR species in a manner that is not oppressive in a broad way. In order to get a world where one will never see another Benny Hinn or where Christian fundamentalist universities have no enrollment, one would have to *outlaw* religion. Are you prepared to do that, Toughy? Are you willing to pay that cost because I'm not sure that I am. That might surprise you. I am no friend of religion but I also recognize that our brains bend *toward* religion and, as such, I view religious belief as an built-in part of human nature. Whether that is a feature or a bug, I don't know. I do know that unless I can come up with something to *replace* one's religious belief I have no business robbing someone of that which brings them meaning.

Then there's the stuff that really says "this will happen when the Winter Olympics are held on the Sun". When there's no murder count? Acceptance means equality and value for every person? What 'value' are you talking about and what kind of equality? Equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. A relatively free and open society can just about manage the first one but it takes a totalitarian dictatorship to pull off the second one. I'm not sure I'm ready to have the kind of state necessary in order to enforce equality of outcome JUST so my 'tribe', if you will, is accepted as you have defined that term. In order to have NO murder count, you would have to fundamentally change human nature or you would have to make a society where surveillance and control was so complete and total that no one would ever have the opportunity to commit a crime because they are *always* observed and *always* monitored. That is a world of cameras on every lamppost and in every corner. I don't want that world, Toughy. I love Jaime like she were the very breath of life itself, and as much as I want to be able to legally marry her, I would rather not be able to than to have to live in the kind of society that would make your vision above possible.

That kind of society would rebound to our sorrow, Toughy. This is the thing I don't understand--we all talk 'as if' we admired Dr. King but, quite honestly, I think that mostly that is very superficial. We, as queer people, face a similar numerical and social challenge as my parent's faced in their time. Their generation could have demanded that the Klan be made illegal--and it would have failed. They could have tried to make America a nation where racist thoughts or speech were made illegal. They could have demanded these things at the point of a gun. You know what would have happened? We wouldn't be having this conversation and no one under the age of about 45 would have any memory of meeting a black person because we would have been wiped out.

This is similar. Sure, Toughy, we could try to create a society where Christianity is made illegal and, quite honestly, it would be far easier for Christians to simply wipe us out to the last than have their religion made illegal. Or we could keep spinning our wheels, generation after generation, telling ourselves 'one day' while making NO discernible headway because instead of rather simple and pedestrian goals--marriage equality, equal employment opportunity, military service, etc.--we set impossible goals for ourselves (e.g. the utter destruction of Christianity, the complete elimination of poverty, everyone being equal and valued).

What you call acceptance, your vision of what it means for queer people to be in a decent enough social and legal position that the queer rights organizations can turn out the lights and go home is nothing I recognize as acceptance. Quite honestly, I don't see what half your list even has to do with queer people becoming full and equal citizens.

Unless we're not meant to take your words to mean what they appear to mean or we are not meant to take your words and try to apply them to the real world, I don't see that you have set achievable or, for that matter, desirable goals.

Cheers
Aj