Goodbye, Right-Wing Friend, Goodbye

An interesting and sad day:  I lost a friend.

This morning, I found out that a longtime meatspace pal, a once thoughtful individual who over the years has become more tightly connected to the vicious anti-LGBT Right, secretly unfriended me on Facebook. Talk about a kick in the solar plexus. I am sad about this, but not angry. First of all, it is his right to do as he sees fit. I respect that. This is not the first time this has happened and it surely will not be the last. Also, let’s be real: Is it moral for me to be friends with a person whose main vocation in life is ensuring anyone’s inequality under law? Is it healthy for my heart, soul, and mind? Can a human who embraces progressive ideals and a far-right person maintain a friendship or relationship as equals without driving each other crazy?

Well, after years of trying to build bridges with right wingers via  journalism and activism — generally to the detriment of my personal well-being — I am close to concluding that the cultural divide between right wingers and people of justice is perhaps just too vast. No, I am not throwing in any towels or turning my back on people I love who tragically choose the side of hate and injustice. I will always love them. But  if those conservative people I love believe my being me is  tragic and sinful, can they really be my friend, someone who loves me for me? Can a real friend be OK with my being discriminated against? Would a true pal approve of my growing old alone or dying within a dangerous and dysfunctional opposite-gender union? I do not think so.

Progressives and right-wingers don’t speak the same language (and the Right insists that everyone speak theirs and live under its rules and worldview). When I resist that, I AM THE BAD ONE. If I get angry at inequality, something obviously is wrong with ME.  Of course, I reject that notion wholesale: Each of the two sides sees the other’s view as completely immoral, not merely as “misguided” or “wrong.” Our value systems and the things we cherish are all too often diametric opposites. Sometimes it seems our actual DNA must be different: Compassion chips go missing so often from those on the side of the Party of NO, the side of those who believe God hates many of those she created and insists they live in misery.

Should progressives ultimately see justice finally established under law — for example, should marriage equality win, as it must — the reactionary right, having lost in all nonviolent arenas, likely will stage a bloody Onward Christian Soldiers kind of insurgency, a new Crusade of sorts that replaces their incendiary hate speech with actual guns. Think about that for a sec: Teabaggers and homophobes, bitter, scared, clinging to their god and guns, led by Fuhrer Palin and her band of Real Amurricans.

Mark my pessimistic words, though I pray my fears are wrong. But if that is what it takes to be equal, bring it on. And if losing friends is the price of equality, to quote Kurt Vonnegut, so it goes.

Not that I am giving up on bridge-building: It seems clear to me that if we start with kindness, we perhaps can make inroads on creating a unity that can cross ideological lines. For that to happen, though, the nation must be kind — everyone must be equal under law. Until that basic unkindness is addressed, expect unending war. And if you have friends on the far right, be prepared to lose at least some of them.

Recriminations Over Sarah Palin Mask Deeper GOP Troubles – washingtonpost.com

Oh, to be a GOPper these days must be painful and difficult. Between a highly critical Vanity Fair piece on Sarah Palin and — finally! — the OK for Minnesota’s Al Franken to take his place in the US Senate is giving the beleaguered and broken Republican Party much grief. How do they deal with the situation? The Washington Post reports.

In the short term, Republican leaders plan a two-pronged strategy. First, they will try to keep the heat on moderate, red-state Democratic senators in an effort to force them to resist voting for President Obamas major initiatives. “The goal is try to affect the end result knowing they have the votes from Day One,” said a top GOP Senate aide who was not authorized to speak publicly about tactics.

Second, Republicans plan to blame Democrats for any failures in policy or inaction. “I can say without hesitation that this government is totally theirs now, and everything that comes out of it and everything that results from it is on their plate,” Republication National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele said on MSNBCs “Morning Joe.”Republican strategists say that they will target more conservative Democratic senators such as  Mary Landrieu La.,  Blanche Lincoln and  Mark Pryor both Ark., and  Ben Nelson Neb.. The approach will be to publicly attack Democratic ideas until they are so unpopular in relatively conservative states that members such as Landrieu cannot back them. This tactic worked when Republicans won a vote in the Senate that stripped funding to implement Obamas plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But some Republican strategists said the Coleman defeat ought to generate a broader reexamination of the partys status rather than simply a review of its legislative tactics.

Marriage Equality: The Camel’s Back Snaps

Court Rules Defense of Marriage Act Unconstitutional, Irrational is an old piece of mine published at LA Progressive.  Today, a comment came from a religiously motivated ‘phobe who is under the mistaken notion that the US is a theocracy, and… well, let’s just say this misguided fellow child of the Creator picked the wrong day to mess with me. 

First, check out the Jim Crow proponent’s comment (name withheld because I respect his humanity more than he respects mine).

JCP:   I support marriage as a religious union and I also support civil unions. I am far from anti gay, I had a gay organist play the music at my wedding. I have had dinners at a gay club. I have a child who has a same sex partner and while they are of the same sex, they are not of the same ethnicity, which causes an additional problem in our current social order. Both of them feel as I do, that marriage is a “religious term”. This couple and their parents agree that strong civil unions, a secular joining outside the church is needed to provide equal rights. Civil unions should have the same legal privileges as marriages but not the same name. I also contacted a gay cousin for an opinion and got the same answers.

My family supports marriage as a religious term that declares that one man and one woman have joined as one before God and their church membership. If the term marriage is used outside of it’s original religious intent, then government is diluting a religious act.

All of my family members feel that some gays want the term “marriage” so much that they do not pursue the much more attainable solution of social unions performed under state law and outside of the church. Such a union could quickly be available in all states where as “gay marriage” is going to take a lot longer in places like the south.

I have another minority group in my family, Quakers. I have an observation about the minority members of my family, one group invites an invasion and the other group would require some converts in order to repopulate itself. How do gays become parents? If one or both would agree to carry a fetus to term I would have more warm feelings towards gays. What would happen to a country composed of only gays or Quakers? One group can not replace the population of the country and the other group can not defend it, yet my family has done both. My family members agree that a country could not survive if it were composed of only either of these two minorities.

Viel Gluck to all

My turn.

NR Davis:  Sounds like “Some of my best friends are gay, so I can’t be a homophobe.” [And apparently self-hating gays, to boot.] 

Screw that.

Let’s just agree that you are un-American and opposed to legal equality for all citizens and save the rest.

Brown v. Board of Education. Separate but equal is NOT equal. Separate but equal is UNconstitutional. And immoral.

Period.

Your religious views are yours. Period. They don’t belong in civil law. Period.

And if you expect people to accept inequality peacefully or quietly and to continue to endure the secular government punishing us because of your religious views, think again, pal.

Why should I pay taxes if I am unequal under law???

Why should I accept it — for *your* sake?

Think again.

Until the philosophy that holds one group superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, it’s war. Period. [Thanks, Bob Marley. I’m standing up for my rights.] 

You’re in my prayers. No one wants to withhold equality from you, but not only do YOU wish to do that to ME, you [expect] me to accept it. Which means that in addition to being un-American, your position is INSANE.

If what you say is so — it patently is not — then hets who marry in courthouses should be limited to civil union. And church weddings should hold NO legal status. [And no tax exemption.]

If you get civil marriage, so should I. That’s the American way. Otherwise, America is a vile, mendacious construct.

And let’s be honest: You don’t want equality; you want SUPREMACY. And that is just evil on every level. Shame on you.

Do I sound rude? I am not taking anything from you, buster. And I refuse to kowtow to your ilk anymore. I’ve had it. 

 

I know my right-wing friends and loved ones don’t like the word “ilk,” but the shoe fits. I don’t like second-class status and am forced to suffer that indignity day in, day out, year after year. Who has it worse?

Watch — I’ll be called the bad one. Be nice to your oppressor — including the new president — no matter what, right?

Screw that. I’m not trying to take his rights away. If anyone owes an apology JCP does — to me and to the millions human beings he feels should be less than him under civil law because his god says so.

Cheers to New Hampshire! Six states down, 44 to go. And we’re comin’ for ya, bigoted 44. It’s war. Nonviolent war, but war.  A loving war, but war. The second-class citizens — those who don’t hate themselves — have had it up to here. We’re done.

Advice to those, who like me, live under the majority’s boot: Be good and kind and fair to everyone, but do not accept inferior status. Do not capitulate to their terms. Those who align with the Religious Wrong and its theocratic tyranny over the secular arena don’t deserve superiority and supremacy. Period. They deserve equality and fairness — and so do we, whether their god likes it or not.

No justice, no peace.  And, if you can take the risk, no taxation without equality.

Prop 8: Reviving an Anthem for the New Fight for Equality

“Glad to Be Gay” – Tom Robinson Band http://twt.fm/132043

Spread the song and message far and wide. Sing with pride at the top of your lungs. Remember our community’s history and how far we have come — then take that feeling of pride and use it as fuel to fight for our future: Take to the streets to answer the bigotry and cowardice of the California Supreme Court. Boycott bigoted establishments Work for equality until America finally is what it pretends to be — a land of equality and justice for all.

Let’s get busy and turn our anger into equality!

http://www.dayofdecision.com/

Prop 8: The Web Series – Ep. 5

Stripped of Rights! Prop 8 Upheld!