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Glitterbomber posted:We don't accept CUs because it's separate but equal, and really in the year 2012 that should be enough of a reason. If I must go on, though, the major issue is if we do settle for CUs and wait the five years you suggest, then we give the right ammo to go 'well for five years it's worked just fine like this why would you want to change it?!'  Thinking goes that a lot of people want the state to recognize their partnership for all sorts of reasons, but want a lighter alternative to marriage. The shift might have also resulted in the further decay of marriage as people stopped participating, while anti-gay conservatives can point to it and say: 'see this is exactly what happens when we don't defend the institution of marriage.' Expanding the institution of marriage to include gay people gets around this problem. And that's because supporting gay marriage, far from being a threat to marriage, is actually a socially conservative pro-marriage position. Gay marriage seeks to preserve the institution of marriage by reforming it with the times.
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Apr 1, 2012 23:23
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Glitterbomber posted:In total fairness it's more along the lines of saying 'well I want you to have a cookie too, but let's just bake a whole fresh batch together sometime, look see it's no biggie' and then chucking it. Though not to belabor the point, gay marriage is often framed from an argument to equality: marriage denied to gay people turns gay people into second class citizens. This is true, but I've found that when arguing with conservatives it's not very convincing to them, because they don't think gay people are actually equal. But they do believe in traditional institutions. I like to say: well, I don't know if you thought about it this way, but gay people getting married is kind of a conservative thing to do, isn't it? Here's an entire class of people who have no incentive to adopt a conservative world-view, who are denied state incentive to settle down, etc. The gay rights movement used to say "We're here, we're queer, get used to it." Implicit was that gay people were radical, and not like straight people and you should learn to deal with that. But now the gay movement is saying it wants the government to allow gay people to behave, well, a lot like straight people. 'Gee, I guess you're right, I never thought about it that way.'
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Apr 2, 2012 00:30
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Apparently there's been a coup at NOM: http://www.towleroad.com/2012/04/nom-site-suddenly-down-after-suspected-hacking.html Or a hacking. Ivan Shitskin fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Apr 11, 2012 |
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Apr 11, 2012 14:10
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gtrmp posted:I didn't try to refute your point because it was both correct and meaningless. The only two presidents who weren't overtly antagonistic to LGBT folks were Obama and Clinton, and Clinton was president at a time when even a majority of Democrats were opposed to same-sex marriage. So yes, out of a sample size of two presidents who a) had opinions on gay rights that b) weren't overtly homophobic, Obama was the one of those two who happened to the president at a time when the majority of Americans were in favor of gay rights. Good for him! I bet it took a lot of courage to finally stand up with the majority of Americans, and a supermajority of his own party, in favor of civil rights. Regarding those last two: the Southerners jettisoned the party for good by 2000, and the working class whites abandoned the party in the decade since. Filling their place are college-educated urban professionals, youth and women, who -- unlike the former -- support gay marriage. And the party is shifting to reflect those interests, that's all. I suppose you can be angry Obama didn't endorse gay marriage sooner, but I think you're misunderstanding how this poo poo works. The president doesn't lead public opinion either, he follows and responds, and he reflects the nature of his political coalition. And he won't do anything on his own -- those interests have to apply pressure to *make* him to do what they want. Glitterbomber posted:Using the military on your own people is actually a super big deal. Edit: Though, it actually reveals an interesting point about political power, and it shows just how useless and privileged the peace movement is. Unlike the peace movement, the gay rights movement never demobilized. They continued to build and exercise power to pressure the administration into doing stuff. The gay rights movement more or less (correctly) recognized that democracy is not just about voting -- it's about organizing for progressive change. The peace movement thought that the wars would end once Obama got elected. As a result, they largely gave up whatever leverage they had. Ivan Shitskin fucked around with this message at 15:29 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 09:21
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Yes, I'm pretty familiar with those arguments, and they can probably best be described as radical queer or queer liberationist. There's some truth in it, mainly the claim that marriage (if not necessarily religious) is traditional and conservative. I think it is, and I think the shift to gay marriage as the primary political cause for gay activists following the AIDS crisis of the 1980s reflects a rightward shift within the gay rights movement. (Borne out of the crisis too.) The problem is that radical queer ideology offers no solutions and has no basis for engaging with politics in any way. It's essentially empty, totally zero sum analysis. What it says is that any attempt at freeing a group from oppression only divides the oppressed against each other by privileging certain groups over others. So they say that gay marriage will privilege wealthy white gay men over trans people of color, because it means that gay men will have bought into an oppressive system. So what you get is political paralysis. No one should be freed because freedom privileges the people who are freed over those who are not. The other problem is that it's contradictory. It rails against white gay men "who want to assimilate," (how dare they try to live normal lives!) while suggesting that true liberation is being different from straight people and enforcing that difference. Instead gay men should actively reject the majority, and should not seek acceptance from them. In fact, you shouldn't want to be accepted -- you should want the majority to actively dislike you, fear you and be discomforted by you, because that's what makes you queer. Though, I don't think anyone should seek acceptance either, because acceptance should be owed to you, not sought by you. But they're in a weird paradox where being hated means they have been liberated. It's also no wonder it's becoming more marginal, since there's not as many anti-gay haters around as there used to be. Ivan Shitskin fucked around with this message at 22:23 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 22:14
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Glitterbomber posted:This really makes zero sense though. Like I have no idea who you're talking to but in Texas of all places AIDS activism is still a huge thing, you can't quantify 'activism' and say 'well this is getting more focus so it means...'. Marriage is a major talking point because there are a poo poo ton of states trying to take it away from us. I haven't been involved in any organization for gay rights that didn't have a huge HIV/AIDS awareness/activism wing. Second, I think the idea that gay marriage activism as a response to "states trying to take [marriage] away from us" puts things in the wrong order. Before anti-gay amendments to state constitutions, gay marriage was already illegal or unrecognized. It was the push for marriage beginning in the 90s that provoked a reaction by anti-gay forces to formally ban it in constitutions as a stop-gap.
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May 11, 2012 04:48
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