It's not about gays or religious or moral values...
In 1976, when Anita Bryant was riding high in horrified indignation after "finding out what it is homosexuals do..."
(Anita Bryant told us all that she had said to her husband, confused, "but how could men have sex? Men can't have sex." And he told her. And she was shocked. "But ... but that's eating the apple in Eden. That's creating the Fall all over again.")
Hearing that, I made a prediction on my late-night radio show (KPFT in Houston) that this was the opening shots of the full-scale war of the Fags vs the Fundies.
Actually I said it after hearing her comment but dated the opening shots to a week before, when the Reverend Billy Joe Hargis [?] was busted putting it up the fundament(alism) of a 16 year old boy in a public restroom. Hearing that, I knew that his followers had no choice but to rise up as one and rain death on the gay people and DENY! DENY! DENY! (Must be THEIR fault, nicht wahr? That evil boy and his friends must have conspired with satanists and witches to give the Rev a boner he wouldn't have otherwise had, right?)
My reasoning then was as it is today:
"Whenever it's a choice between someone saying 'This is what I want to do with MY life,' and someone else saying 'This is what you MUST do with YOUR life,' I will choose the person who is choosing to live his or her own life over the person who is choosing to tell someone else how to live."
Always.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
I get to do my will. You get to do yours.
You do NOT get to tell me how to do mine unless I ask.
At the time, I prefaced it by saying I really didn't have a dog in that fight, being neither inclined nor a participant in either side of the battle, but there was a principle, and it had something to do with the principles on which our country was founded.
Of course, the United States of America was founded by uppity Northeasterner Yankees (like that Virginia Yankee, Tom Jefferson), and perhaps that's why the South doesn't seem to care for the freedoms represented, except for the ones which serve their prejudices.
That does not include every person in the South. I lived there. But it does describe the socio-political structure that still exists. Just go to any major city down thar and ask a white person how to get to "Niggertown." And when they tell you (without commenting on your nasty choice of words), go, drive into the area, pull over and stop and park on a main thoroughfare. Watch the interaction between black drivers or pedestrians and the police who stop them with no reason you can detect.
It still goes on. And while they've gotten a bit quiet about nasty terms for people of color (many of whom are quite large and athletic) it's still acceptable to be nasty about and discriminate against gay people.
Once again: I will give no respect (nor do I believe they deserve any) to anyone who is telling anyone else how that person must live his or her life based on some bizarre interpretation of the 'whispering down the lane' distortions of statements made in another language 2000 years ago. Or 5000 years ago.
In areas of this country where the constitution is still the law, we each have the right to choose our own paths and destinies, and anyone who would dare to try to interfere with those choices should not be offended when they are denounced as 'fascists,' 'Nazi's,' or 'Little Hitlers.'
That's what they are, in essence if not (yet) in degree.
(Anita Bryant told us all that she had said to her husband, confused, "but how could men have sex? Men can't have sex." And he told her. And she was shocked. "But ... but that's eating the apple in Eden. That's creating the Fall all over again.")
Hearing that, I made a prediction on my late-night radio show (KPFT in Houston) that this was the opening shots of the full-scale war of the Fags vs the Fundies.
Actually I said it after hearing her comment but dated the opening shots to a week before, when the Reverend Billy Joe Hargis [?] was busted putting it up the fundament(alism) of a 16 year old boy in a public restroom. Hearing that, I knew that his followers had no choice but to rise up as one and rain death on the gay people and DENY! DENY! DENY! (Must be THEIR fault, nicht wahr? That evil boy and his friends must have conspired with satanists and witches to give the Rev a boner he wouldn't have otherwise had, right?)
My reasoning then was as it is today:
"Whenever it's a choice between someone saying 'This is what I want to do with MY life,' and someone else saying 'This is what you MUST do with YOUR life,' I will choose the person who is choosing to live his or her own life over the person who is choosing to tell someone else how to live."
Always.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
I get to do my will. You get to do yours.
You do NOT get to tell me how to do mine unless I ask.
At the time, I prefaced it by saying I really didn't have a dog in that fight, being neither inclined nor a participant in either side of the battle, but there was a principle, and it had something to do with the principles on which our country was founded.
Of course, the United States of America was founded by uppity Northeasterner Yankees (like that Virginia Yankee, Tom Jefferson), and perhaps that's why the South doesn't seem to care for the freedoms represented, except for the ones which serve their prejudices.
That does not include every person in the South. I lived there. But it does describe the socio-political structure that still exists. Just go to any major city down thar and ask a white person how to get to "Niggertown." And when they tell you (without commenting on your nasty choice of words), go, drive into the area, pull over and stop and park on a main thoroughfare. Watch the interaction between black drivers or pedestrians and the police who stop them with no reason you can detect.
It still goes on. And while they've gotten a bit quiet about nasty terms for people of color (many of whom are quite large and athletic) it's still acceptable to be nasty about and discriminate against gay people.
Once again: I will give no respect (nor do I believe they deserve any) to anyone who is telling anyone else how that person must live his or her life based on some bizarre interpretation of the 'whispering down the lane' distortions of statements made in another language 2000 years ago. Or 5000 years ago.
In areas of this country where the constitution is still the law, we each have the right to choose our own paths and destinies, and anyone who would dare to try to interfere with those choices should not be offended when they are denounced as 'fascists,' 'Nazi's,' or 'Little Hitlers.'
That's what they are, in essence if not (yet) in degree.
posted by Saintperle at
11:54 AM
