A Blog About Making Culture
I Told You We're Winning
February 20, 2004
I think we can definitely say the terrorists did not win if the current momentum continues and gay marriage is legalized. It finally feels like it's going to happen, and it's just a question of when. And for those who are fighting the movement? Well, I guess they can just take solace from being on the same side as the terrorists.Previously: Innovations in Journalism
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ej's orange moon
We are winning.: ... read more »Rick Bruner
Hear, hear. I haven’t blogged about it yet, but I have to say I’m really inspired by SF, a former residence I’ve been a bit cynical about in the past, as this is so defnitely the good fight. I really think this is a seminal moment for civil rights in this country. Truly inspiring.
The Sanity Inspector
Do you really think this? That all objections to gay marriage are at bottom simple prejudice, just a few yards further up the slippery slope from terrorism? Quite apart from the actual issue, that’s just sloppy thinking!
Michael Buffington
Something that has been troubling me since the marraiges began taking place that I’m not sure where to stand on: are city officials breaking the law here? And if they are, that’s where I’m left most troubled. I understand that to a great amount of people it’s a victory, but I’m troubled by the idea that elected officials might be blatantly breaking the law. Should I be concerned?
Pär Boman
It is definitely in the right direction instead of imposing patriot laws to limit freedom we should extend it.
ronn
Bigots that want to deny marriage equality are the closest terrorists most of us will ever encounter. I honestly believe that violence will result, so yes, it is terrorism. Or religious ignorance/hate.
I’m also somewhat troubled by the San Fran officials blatantly breaking the law on two counts: what took them so damn long?! And why the hell wasn’t New York City first?!! The officials are no worst than Martin Luther King and John Lewis and student lunchroom sitters, and Rosa Parks, etc, etc.
Time keeps on ticking.
Bob Myers
I’ve been trying to promote the word and concept “gayriage” as a compromise. It preserves “marriage” for the traditionalists while emphasizing that gay marriage is more than civil unions. This doesn’t seem to have been catching on, though. Wonder why not?
Dinah
I see in pictures that a guy was standing in front of San Francisco city hall yesterday with a sign reading “I hate gays but I love AIDS”. Doesn’t someone saying “I want you to suffer horribly” suggest an intent to provoke terror?
Terrorist isn’t the word I would have chosen, but I think I understand Anil’s reasoning in using it. Instead I’d just say the protesters - almost all young white men, by the way - are just frightened and angry. That doesn’t seem like the state of mind that this Jesus guy they keep quoting would really have wanted them to be in, but perhaps they know more about that than I.
The California constitution explicitly states that “[a] person may not be … denied equal protection of the laws.” There are plenty of court cases in California and elsewhere which concluded that discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation is a violation of this principle. Mayor Newsom is not some rogue official breaking the law; he is upholding the highest law of the state of California.
I urge you to do more than watch the TV and major media news. They’re over-emphasizing the few protestors. Read the first-hand accounts of what’s happening in San Francisco and to see the looks on people’s faces. This is the most joyous civil rights “battle” this country has seen; it is America at her best.
My account of my day volunteering is here along with links being added in the comments to additional stories and pictures: http://www.metagrrrl.com/metagrrrl/2004/02/worldwide_love.html
Mike
But for our current system of taxation, there would be little need for the government to be involved in marriage at all - marriage as a sacred institution or as a personal contract between two people ought to be outside the province of governmental control anyway.
Hot Abercrombie Chick
I agree with Mike — I resent the fact the government be involved with marriage at all. But if it is, I think it it is clearly discriminatory to only allow heterosexual couples to be married. The point of all the legal rights that come with marriage is to recognize the married couple as a family unit that is (probably) living together, and functioning as one household. If the government stays in the marriage business, that is all it should be concerned about—and gay couples who have chosen to spend their lives together are just as much a unit as a straight couple.
Hot Abercrombie Chick
I agree with Mike — I resent the fact the government be involved with marriage at all. But if it is, I think it it is clearly discriminatory to only allow heterosexual couples to be married. The point of all the legal rights that come with marriage is to recognize the married couple as a family unit that is (probably) living together, and functioning as one household. If the government stays in the marriage business, that is all it should be concerned about—and gay couples who have chosen to spend their lives together are just as much a unit as a straight couple.
thomas
This is the most joyous civil rights “battle” this country has seen; it is America at her best.
Could we be a little more pompous? Such overblown grandiose is useless in the big picture, and only has a purpose if it fits your agenda.
Fact is the photographs are wonderful, but going through the proper channels to make gay marriage legal, which I AM for, will have a stronger and for more lasting effect than such nonsense.
Keith A
Gay marriage is another of these red herring political issues designed to be devisive and distract the 95% of us that have similar interests.
I hate to say it, but living in DC (or New York or any urban area), you would think everyone is supportive of gay marriage (and hates Bush and is against the war). But, go back to Harrisburg…most of the country is strongly opposed to legalizing gay marriage. It is not going to happen any time soon.
There are many of us who are against all forms of non-traditional marriage (incest, polygamy, etc.) for all sorts of reasons, and it is wrong and offensive to imply that we are on the same side as terrorists. That is the rhetoric of the “With us or with the terrorists” Bush camp. It is a specious argument when they do it too.
Or, was that your point?
I still love you, dude (in a hetero way).
beanz
Let me get this straight - people who believe that marriage is the exclusive union of a man and a woman are terrorists? Does anyone else - even in this den of liberalism - find this incomprehensible? What do you propose we do with such intolerant bigots - detain them at Guantanamo?
Anil
people who believe that marriage is the exclusive union of a man and a woman are terrorists?
Interesting how nobody’s made this assertion, yet everyone wants to defend against it. What makes people so insecure about this?
Zach
San Fransisco is just trying to steal Massachusetts’ thunder. It must bug the hell out of them that San Fran isn’t the most liberal place in the United States on a particular issue.
thomas
It must bug the hell out of them that San Fran isn’t the most liberal place in the United States on a particular issue.
Not sure if you saw the poll yesterday on salon, but the number of those in mass. who oppose gay marriage is above 50 percent and has actually gone up after recent events.
So I doubt san fran is bugged at all.
jiijh
Why don’t all of you ass-blasting h0m0’s go screw each other into oblivion. You should be proud ANAL Dash…this is quite a fag hangout you’ve got here.
Alejandra Ospina
Ooh, ANAL Dash… that’s funny!
Yeah.
punkyBrewster
Hey Anal, why don’t you take your Indian ass back to that shit hole you call home (no not harrisburg). You can convince all the men to marry other men and help out the over poputation problem in that scum hole. I guess curry powder decreases IQ and raises labido, huh.. Isn’t that precious.
Meri
Although I can see the arguments for doing things “the proper way”, realistically this wasn’t going to happen, was it? Great breakthroughs in equality usually occur when someone decides to take drastic action, or to just take a drastic stand. History has plenty of examples for us, the most recent obviously being Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Mandela didn’t free South Africa by waiting for public opinion to change and hoping the legislature would sort their attitudes out … he forced their action and paid with 27 years in prison. But eventually he won. I hope those in SF do too.
Meri
Anil, sorry that you seem to be getting both homophobic AND racist comments all in one go. See, this is what believing all human beings are created equal gets you! ;-)
Terry
and of course the racists and homophobes don’t leave a link. go figure.
Anil
Eh, I’m comfortable leaving those comments up. Perhaps it will make the point clearer to some people about which side they’re on.
Terry
yes
JayT
“Interesting how nobody’s made this assertion, yet everyone wants to defend against it.”
Yet, “And for those who are fighting the movement? Well, I guess they can just take solace from being on the same side as the terrorists.”
“Let me get this straight - people who believe that marriage is the exclusive union of a man and a woman are terrorists? Does anyone else - even in this den of liberalism - find this incomprehensible?”
Yes.
Even more incomprehensible is comparing people who take the law into their own hands (yeah, that IS pretty drastic, and smells of vigilantism) and compare it to ACTUAL civil rights activists of the highest order, like MLK and Nelson Mandela.
There is no comparison, and that does NOT make me on the side of racists and homophobes. Of course, you are free to imagine otherwise.
John
Has there yet been a strong sensible argument against gay marriage? The little rhetoric I’ve heard is that it will fracture the stability of the “institution of marriage”. With divorce rates so high these days, does anyone believe that the sanctity of marriage is something that we need to protect?
To me, marriage is something that we have to rebuild. People need to start realizing that if you get married, you’re making a commitment to another person for life, not for five years, not for ten years… Marriage is not the right thing for everyone. Maybe the law should allow for more hetero (as well as homo) civil unions to receive the economic benefits, and leave “marriage” and whatever that is supposed to be as a spiritual thing.
Meri
“Even more incomprehensible is comparing people who take the law into their own hands (yeah, that IS pretty drastic, and smells of vigilantism) and compare it to ACTUAL civil rights activists of the highest order, like MLK and Nelson Mandela.”
I hate to point this out, but Nelson Mandela’s ANC party did take the law into its own hands. They were part of numerous sabotage operations, primarily of government facilities (unlike some other parties at the time, they thankfully stopped short of murdering people) as well as much organised civil disobedience.
Much as I admire the man and love everything he did for my country, rose-tinted hindsight doesn’t do anything for the situation and it hasn’t been something he has approved of — which is why he supported the Truth & Reconciliation Commission.
Mandela broke the law — his strength lay in the fact that he broke unfair laws. Laws that discriminated against his people, limited their education, their right to marry who they wanted to, their movements, their children’s prospects.
Whether you think that Mayor Newsom is going to turn out to be an “ACTUAL civil rights activist” depends much more on whether or not you believe that the laws he is breaking are unfair or unjust. From what I’ve seen, he at least is sure — and so his conscience should be clear.
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