Gays need heterosexuals to oppose 'Queer Crow' laws

[davidinalameda]

http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0510/24/A09-358448.htm

Leslie Thompson recalls waking up to wave after wave of painful emotions -- disbelief, anger, fear -- last Nov. 3, the morning after Michigan voters passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage.

In 10 other states, gay Americans awoke in similar agony, realizing that they, too, lived in a place where a majority of voters wanted the state constitution to deny their gay neighbors' basic rights that heterosexuals take for granted.

And gay Americans everywhere awoke to the dawning of a terrifying new era of "Queer Crow" laws, which attempt to reverse gay progress. The laws are horribly reminiscent of segregationist Jim Crow laws -- passed in reaction to advances toward racial equality -- that long locked the South's black Americans into second-class citizenship.

[sarcasmo]

1. Not to make fun, but is that crow of rainbow color?

[Metta]

2. The loss to one is the loss to all.

... then they came for me.

[rkc3]

3. My sentiments too.

All the right has to do is frame the debate in the Bible and they can take anyone's rights away. The debate against gay marriage has no legal status - only that half a line in the Bible says no.

Unfortunately, even though we have a supposed separation of church and state, this bullshit gets passed.

Keep in mind inter-racials marriages were banned in Virginia to the late 1960's - maybe that will be the next group. Then we can move further back and take away a woman's right to marital property - after all the Bible tells us God is first, then the man, and then the woman. Sounds like a good argument for the nutters to use.

[Siyahamba]

6. True, look how they're rolling back existing rights.

It wasn't enough to keep us from getting married, now they're trying to take away our families' health benefits.

[McKenzie]

4. If I were American I'd vote to help you

Gays must live a shitty life as it is without scumbags trying to further demonise them.

Fight on; intelligent people everywhere are disgusted by the pinheads who are trying to create hate figures. Once these bastards marginalise one section of the community they turn to another section that does not fit their identikit (fascist) view of how people should behave.

Standing back and saying nothing is silent acquiesence with the hate peddlers - fight the bastards.

[sui generis]

5. Exactly - but also

We need to assume our rights and stop waiting for permission to live our lives. Ultimately, Americans fought and fight for their rights, against the ignorant and bigoted, and nothing is given to any oppressed group without a fight.

I certainly don't want to throw away the next half dozen decades of my physical life and centuries of mental life fighting for equality - I'd rather enjoy some equality and acceptance than have to be a belligerent tireless bore about it (like I am on DU), but you can't put toothpaste back into the tube either. Ultimately, like anywhere else on the planet, the denser the population the more accepting we are of differences. Those values eventually overwhelm the xenophobic values that many backwater yokels claim as moral superiority by sheer numbers and even as cities expand into the bedroom communities (ex-rurals) and urbanites relocate to become ex-urbs, those values migrate with us. Texas is on the verge of flipping back to blue for the exact same reason - a very important reason that had people like DeLay scrambling to find a way to delay the inevitable through the process of redistricting.

None of this is to say we should be complacent - we may be on the verge of winning the war but ultimately we are going to lose some battles. We are an economic force and we need to use it collectively. We need to support political organizations like HRC and legal organizations like Lambda Legal with our spare dollars, and we need to have a very real public forum with people who are "out" and not just hairdressers, waiters, and unemployed actors/massage artists. We need judges and policemen and politicians and soldiers and firemen and news anchors and CEO's to stand up to this shit with strength, solidarity and pride.

We also need to learn to take care of ourselves better - and that unfortunately means learning to defend ourselves confidently in physical situations as well as learning to use a gun for those who are so inclined. People who hate us in particular hate the idea of weakness, whether they recognize that themselves or not. A dog will only chase you if you run.

As in all things, we have to BE what we are looking for.

It absolutely infuriates me to hear loony tunes people say we're in Iraq to protect our "freedoms". I know several "family" national guardsmen and reservists right here in Dallas (two of them are a long term couple) who are on their second and third rotation into Iraq who these keyboard warriors in freeperland would do better not to bump into, who ironically have fewer "freedoms" than the assholes who show up to protest the anti-war protests. Whose freedoms are they fighting for?

Ultimately we're fighting stupidity, cowardice, and ignorance, and not in Iraq. I can promise you, we're not waiting for anyone's permission.