Well, I don't think we should be encouraging children to dream of getting married, period. Children should be children, and they should dream of skies that rain gumdrops, of endless summer days with no bedtimes, of circuses, puppies and mile-long waterslides, of fairies and flying carpets and fantastical universes, not of marriages, nor of careers, owning cars or homes, or any of the responsibilities of adult life, at least not before the age of 10! Children should not be read fairy tales in which people "get married and live happily ever after", as though that were the point or the greatest possible accomplishment of a human life.
But what I don't want is for our children, those of them who are attracted to people of the same sex, to have to dream of a future in which they will be allowed to marry someone they love—I want them to find it hard to believe that there was ever a time when people weren't allowed to do so!! Just like most children today would find it hard to believe that not so long ago one was forbidden to marry someone with a different skin color! Already many of today's children can't imagine why gays and lebsian are not allowed to be married like everyone else! 12:45:35 AM | This is Post #184 | Permanent URL: |
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Funny quote of the day...
"People who are opposed to gay sex should be for gay marriages. Everybody knows that once you get married the sex goes way down." (I don't know who said this orginally.) 12:32:43 PM | This is Post #183 | Permanent URL: |
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Amish in the City? (or Reality TV is Truly Terrible Trash Television!)
As spiritual cousins to the Amish, Mennonites feel a particular distaste at the prospect of an Amish-based "reality" TV show proposed to air this summer on UPN.
After plans for Amish in the City emerged in late January, we thought such a preposterous concept would soon vanish on the shifting tides of taste. Unfortunately, we misjudged the network's determination to make Amish in the City its latest prism of comedic distortion, this one directed at an already misunderstood, and often exploited, faith group.
The premise of the show calls for a group of Amish young people to move in with city-dwelling Gen Y'ers, with the resulting disjunction generating millions of dollars in laughs for UPN. The expectation, apparently, is that the Amish youths will "freak out," as network honcho Les Moonves said, when they see the debauchery available in the combustion-driven world.
Whether this will make "interesting television," as Moonves also asserted, we leave to the masses already gorged on The Osbournes and My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance.
But that such a show is an insult to the Amish, or even to Christians in general, stands without a doubt. [I'm not sure how such a show would be an insult to garden-variety Christians more so than to anyone else, but OK...] In fact, a lot of "reality" TV is insulting - to the people involved and even to the viewers who bask like radishes in its headache-inducing glow. It is also an insult to those whose insurrection scuttled CBS's proposed New Beverly Hillbillies series, which was just Amish in the City with a cee-ment pond.
[As someone who pays very little attention to 99% of anything having to do with TV, I hadn't heard about the protest that arose from this proposed show, but the group that ran a newspaper ad against it made some excellent points. A lot of things confuse me in life, but there's one thing I'm pretty sure about: we don't have much chance of evolving beyond our current human condition if our most popular forms of humor stay confinded to those that ridicule and degrade the different and the disempowered. I'm a big fan of political/social satire that highlights foolishness and faulty thinking on the part of the famous and powerful, but capitalizing on ignorance and prejudice to make fun of people like the Amish and the rural poor is a very different thing—and a very tasteless, unenlightened one a that!]
We encourage anyone who opposes such programming to complain not only to UPN, but to its sponsors. If UPN can't see the emptiness of such a show, perhaps a threat to their advertising coffers will prove more enlightening. And if this fails, just boycott the show, or take a lesson from the Amish themselves and throw your TV on the brush pile behind the barn.
After all, an unwatched show is almost like no show at all.
I did not know until I was educated by a Judging Amy episode (besides Gilmore Girls, my favorite currently-airing shows are CBS dramas, although I don't get to see them that often) about the fact that Amish young people who are coming of age are encouraged to spend a year in the "real world" before deciding of their own free will whether or not to join the church themselves and live out their lives in the Amish way. That in and of itself is pretty darn enlightened and speaks profoundly to the wisdom of the Amish culture.
Even an editorial on the CBS website speaks out against the UPN show idea! (Not that CBS itself would have any right to decry stupid reality shows, but I guess this guy is allowed to have his own opinion, which is reassuring!)
This guy, who does have a name, which is Lloyd Garver, has another great opinion piece on the political distraction value of the anti-same-sex-marriage hysteria of Bush and his right-wing friends. He starts out on a comic note: "When I first heard the term 'same-sex marriages,' I was against them. I figured just because a couple is married, why should sex always have to be the same? All right, I didn't really think that about same-sex marriages, but I also didn't think they would become such a big deal. I guess my fingers slipped when I was taking the pulse of America, because boy, was I wrong."
He goes on to ask some of the questions I myself have asked: "In the past two weeks, thousands of gay couples were married in San Francisco. Is your respect for marriage smaller than it was two weeks ago? Is your marriage less important to you now? Do you love your spouse any less than you did before the 'Valentine's Day weddings?' If your marriage is affected by the marriages of some strangers, don't blame the bride and groom. Blame your marriage." Indeed. "What about all those celebrity weddings — like Britney Spears' — that seem to make a mockery of marriage? Should we pass a constitutional amendment forbidding flighty famous folks from tying the knot? What about that cousin of yours who married that guy that everybody knew would treat her horribly and eventually leave her? Should there be a constitutional amendment to prohibit that kind of unfortunate marriage?" How about a law requiring pre-marital counseling? Maybe even one requiring pre-divorce counseling! Sounds much more reasonable to me that a right-wing, anti-gay, anti-family, anti-marriage Constitutional amendment!
And here's the most important question: "If you're against gay marriages for legal, ethical, or emotional reasons, you're certainly entitled to these feelings. But do you believe it's such an important issue that things like national security, the economy, and foreign policy should be pushed aside so time and money can be spent on passing a constitutional amendment to prohibit them?"
Garver's article isn't just about SSM but more generally about the way hysteria over "threats to our nation" caused by "sexal immorality" serves to keep us from focusing on important issues. Another recent example is the whole Janet Jackson breast silliness. Garver writes: "Faster than you could say 'Lewinsky,' Congressional committees were formed to investigate 'Nipplegate' and other offensive fare being foisted on us by machines with an 'off' button. But how long did it take for a committee to be formed to investigate why we received such poor intelligence on Iraq before sending over American soldiers to risk their lives?" And perhaps more importantly: what real power does this commission have, and will we actually know the outcome of its investigation any time in the next decade? I keep asking: where's the moral outrage in this country over real threats and atrocities like the Dubya regime's new "pre-emptive" war policy and its incarceration of hundreds of people, including children, in an illegal prison in Cuba?! As George Carlin said, our priorities are seriously screwed up. Really, truly warped.
President George W. Bush is said to be 'troubled' by the rash of gay marriages currently taking place in San Francisco, California. As a result he made a declaration today that the 'City of Love', as it came to be known in the sixties, is now a part of his 'Axis of Evil'. ...
Vice President Dick Cheney also stated "I firmly believe that the streets of San Francisco are paved with many natural resources and we will be able to arrange mutually beneficial trade agreements with them. I also look forward to sampling their fruits, of which I have heard the city has many different varieties. I love fruits of all kinds."
My heartfelt congratulations, gentlemen! Perhaps you'd like an adopted granddaughter? :o)
Thank the Goddess for Canada. Canadians rock. I spent almost two weeks in Canada last summer, so I'm not just saying this based on their politics: they are truly great folks. (And their politics rock!!)
SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) — Tears of sorrow flowed at San Francisco City Hall Thursday as word spread that the state's top court had ended, at least for now, the city's month-old policy of allowing same-sex couples to marry.
Ross Ladouceur, left, weeps after learning he and his partner, Stuart Sanders, arrived too late to be wed Thursday.
It just breaks my heart. Fucking conservatives. It makes me want to hate the world. I probably just need sleep. I just want to give this man the biggest hug in the world! We have to keep up hope though. At least no one is being killed or beaten up. Images of the Civil Rights Movement come to mind. The bigotry and fear of change on the part of the conservative forces is the same, even if the struggle is less physically violent. We shall overcome. I hope. It just breaks my heart. They are so handsome in their tuxedos with their beautiful purple wedding garlands. It's hard to remind myself that most of the anti-gay forces are well-meaning at heart and believe that what they're doing is right. Logically I know that they are motivated by fear, ignorance, misconception, and irrational belief, not by a desire to be cruel and ugly, but when I think of them I see un-human beasts filled with hate and bigotry spitting in the faces of loving couples.
And yet they know they're on the losing end of this battle in the long run (well, in the earthly, pre-apocolyptic long run anyway). (Gods, I wish for the Rapture more than they do: please someone take them all away! Let them all go to their happy heaven! Let them believe what they want! Why do they have to be here? Why do the rest of us have to suffer their idiocy? Sigh.) They know that time is not in their favor; they can feel it; it's what's motivating them to push so hard right now. I must have faith that the time will come when their pious belief in their future "Godly paradise" will be all they will have to cling to, because human rationality and fairness will win out over backwards religiosity and illogical moralism, and the freedom to marry will be a reality instead of a tenuous dream. Let all people of compassion and reason keep up the struggle to hasten the coming of that happy day! So mote it be. (And "So Vote It Be!")
1:00:05 AM | This is Post #167 | Permanent URL: |
Thursday, March 11, 2004
On Marriage, Culture Wars, and the Human Race
As human beings, we are more than the means to reproduce our species: both basic common sense and deeper philosophical inquiry affirm that marriage is, has been, can be, and should be about so very much more than procreation! The traditional Christian God (the one worshipped by the RR) is a violent, chauvinistic, moralistic, vengeful, selfish, angry lout, and the ideas of marriage they promote are patriarchal, narrow-minded, anti-feminist, uncreative, and ultimately STUPID and BORING!
Instead marriage should be about relationship, committment, love, and family, in the deepest and most inclusive sense of those terms—about building a life together—about creating, declaring, and upholding a bond that is at once personal, intimate, communal, civil, legal, and social—a consentual and intentional covenant between equal human individuals that establishes them as a nurturing, nourishing family unit. It is a union of persons, not genders, and thus, obviously, the gender configuration of the persons involved is entirely irrelevant to the legitimacy and/or sanctity of the union.
To value marriage is to affirm its validity and insist upon its accessibility for all who desire it. To champion marriage is to fight against the imposition of irrational limitations upon it by ill-informed, misguided, anxiety-driven "traditionalists". To uphold the dignity of marriage is to reject attempts to essentialize it, to caricaturize it as no more than—as I once said—a union for the facilitation of penile/vaginal intercourse (which sounds to me more like a marriage between a man and his bottle of Viagra!). To defend marriage is to protect it from the absurd illogic that would deny it to those who seek it, all the while pressuring it upon others who do not. To proclaim marriage as a basic human and civil right of all who mindfully choose it is to raise it to the most enlightened standard of human potential.
Indeed it is not the loving same-sex couples who are a threat to the "meaning" of marriage, but in fact it is the fearful, backward, small-minded forces of the RR that pose a threat to the growth and development of the human race.
11:22:33 PM | This is Post #166 | Permanent URL: |
(The Case for Same-Sex Marriage begins with an historical overview of same-sex unions, which shows that only in the modern West have gays and lesbians been denied full acceptance. Eskridge believes that until same-sex marriages receive the civil and legal benefits of heterosexual marriages America is erecting unnecessary barriers to social cohesion. Without full access to the institutions of civic life, gays and lesbians cannot be full participants in the American experience. As Eskridge points out the legitimacy of same-sex marriage would have profound implications for gay behavior, by reinforcing stability and commitment. In the end, Eskridge believes that the acceptance of same-sex marriage would help to civilize both gays and straights.)
In the early Middle Ages the Church developed institutions, memorialized in liturgies included in its formal collections, that combined the Church's spiritual commitment to companionate relationships with its members' desire to bond with people of the same sex. The existence of Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox rituals of "brother-making" or "enfraternization" has been known in the academic literature for decades and was brought to my attention by the Reverend Alexei Michalenko.' Ceremonies creating these brotherhoods were performed for same-sex couples (often male missionary pairs) from the fifth century onward. According to Church archives, these early liturgies were typically structured as follows:
The couple stand in front of the lectern, on which are placed the Gospel and a cross. The older of the brothers stands to the right.
The ceremony starts off with prayers and litanies celebrating earlier examples of same-sex couples or friends in the early Church. Sergius and Bacchus were the most frequency invoked precedent.
The couple is girded with a single belt, signifying their union as one, and they place their hands on the Gospel and receive lit candles.
The priest reads from one of Paul's episodes (1 Cor 12:27 £) and the Gospel (John 17:1016), which are followed by more prayers.
The assembled are led in the Lord's Prayer, followed by Holy Communion, the Eucharist, for the couple. The priest leads the couple, who are holding hands, around the lectern while the assembled sing a hymn.
The couple exchange a kiss, and the service concludes with the singing of Psalm 132:1 ("Behold how good and sweet it is for brothers to live as one").
Significantly, this early brotherhood liturgy was acted out in formal terms very similar to the liturgy later developed by the Church for the purpose of performing different-sex marriages.
Or, More Proof that Dubya and Right-Wingers are Full of Shit
Statement on Marriage and the Family from the American Anthropological Association
Arlington, Virginia The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, the world's largest organization of anthropologists, the people who study culture, releases the following statement in response to President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage as a threat to civilization.
The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.
The Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association strongly opposes a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples."
In 1773, the Rev. Isaac Backus, the most prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when "church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued."
Today's Religious Right is completely out of touch with the thinking of our esteemed "Founding Fathers" and with the nature of our Constitution, which "was written and ratified by a coalition of Enlightenment rationalists and evangelical Christians equally fearful of entanglements between religion and government... the men of faith who helped frame the Constitution were confident enough of the strength of their religion that they did not feel obliged to enlist the aid of government to promote their personal beliefs." [Apparently today's evangelical Christians are less confident in the strength of their religion to hold its own without the benefit of unconstitutional government support!]
My comments: The RR always likes to believe that the Founding Fathers were a group of pious traditional Christians, which is so much bull-dookey: they included Deists, Unitarians, and other "unorthodox" types. Most importantly they were not interested in creating a theocracy: far from it! They were products of the Enlightenment, and they were champions of the separation of Church and State.
"President Bush's endorsement of this mean-spirited amendment shows that he is neither compassionate nor concerned with the rights of all Americans," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Gays and lesbians are our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends. They serve as firefighters, police, doctors and professional athletes. They laugh at the same jokes and worry about car payments and credit card debt. Amending the constitution to deny them the same rights we all take for granted just isn't very American."
Some good news from the ACLU: "In response to a public outcry, the Justice Department has decided to quash a series of grand jury subpoenas issued to anti-war protestors in Des Moines, Iowa. However, the ACLU still has serious concerns about why the subpoenas were issued in the first place and the broad scope of the Justice Department's inquiry."
It's definitely time to renew my ACLU membership, because Bush and his facist buddies sure have been keeping it busy trying to safeguard our civil rights!!
[Pasadena Star] U.S. Constitution shouldn't be used to forbid the future
Sunday, February 29, 2004, By Tom Teepen
Public opinion, which, when you think about it, has made a striking accommodation with homosexuality in a relatively few years, already is drifting toward accepting same-sex marriage, or something like it in every way but name.
The point of the amendment Bush calls for is not only to block gay marriage now but also to freeze the matter in place and prevent any shift later, to forbid the future to second-guess the present. The social conservatives who are pushing this amendment are doing so precisely because they see the issue going the other way in the long run.
The Constitution deserves better than to be used as hired muscle for the status quo.
My comments: There's another opinion piece in this Pasadena paper that I think also merits reading, and I think it forces one to consider that it's not necessarily in our best interests (as supporters of the freedom to marry) to "go for broke" at all costs. If civil unions are the best we can do at this time, I think there worth going for, because they're a hell of a lot better than nothing! I think we have to be practical. I think some people are afraid that if we settle for civil unions, same-sex couples will never get true marriages, but I think it's more likely to be that once people get more used to the idea, once hundreds of thousands of couples have civil unions, once a new generation of live-and-let-live minded people comes into more political power, I think it will be easy to say: why shouldn't they have marriage like everyone else?!, and make that change then. If we can get marriages, then all the better, but I don't think we should reject civil unions out of hand.
This second opinion piece is written by a moderate sort of person calling for all of the rhetoric to simmer down and people to calm down and think about this issue for a bit, and I can see her point. While it seems only common sense to us "enlightened" types that same-sex couples should have the same rights as opposite-sex ones, it's a lot for many "old-fashioned" types to swallow! And of course the religious right wants to push the issue because they're losing ground every decade and are pretty much right in thinking that it's now or never to enshrine their anti-gay ideology in federal and/or state law. Anyway, it's a funny piece, that uses humor to cushion the issue a bit, and I think it's pretty clever, albeit ultimately too moderate for my taste! The writer is Kathleen Parker, an Orlando Sentinel columnist:
Excuse me, but is calming down an option here? Could we all just take a deep breath and freeze-frame until, say, 2005? After the presidential election? Inarguably, we have more pressing concerns and, contrary to the spirit of the moment, we're not on a deadline to act drastically. A Pawley's Island hammock and a round of umbrella drinks for tout le monde!
As we sip, we might ponder how we got here so suddenly. [Of course there's really nothing sudden about it: people have been fighting for same-sex marriage rights of years, but it may understandably seem that way to many "average" Americans who have never bothered to give the issue any thought...] One minute we were enjoying "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," watching a gaggle of giggly fashion boys transform frumpy straight men into metrosexuals. Next thing we knew, San Francisco's City Hall looked like a Moonie wedding chapel. With a twist.
I'm half-expecting the Fab Five to swish into the House and Senate chambers for a new reality segment: "Queer Eye for the Straight Marriage."
You may have noticed that arguments favoring homosexual marriage are offered in the spirit of "we can do it better." Gays will show the silly heteros how it's done. [Of course this isn't really anyone's main serious argument...] It's heterosexual marriage, after all not loving, committed homosexual relationships that has ruined the institution.
Divorce is rampant. Domestic violence is a plague. And then there's Britney.
The spin-off might go something like this:
"OK, listen up. Lose the pleats. Lose the male-female thing. Lose the 2,000-year tradition."
In our new "gay good, straight bad" world, heteros are made to feel kooky for not immediately embracing gay marriage, which most people in fly-over America just heard about for the first time about six months ago.
The irony is that gays want so badly what they seem to find so flawed. The institution of marriage is a mess, but gays won't be happy until they're part of it. Marriage is suddenly the new fixer-upper.
My comments: Of course it's all sort of caricature of the situation that fails to recognize the practical seriousness of the situation for couples who simply want to enter into the same civil relationship their peers are allowed, in order to have such necessities as health care coverage and hospital visitation, child custody, and inheritance rights. But I still think she makes some points worth taking into consideration. I think especially it highlights the need for education, for making sure that Joe and Jane American have easy access to explanations as to why this is important, why it's much more than a Hollywood spectacle like Britney's absurd "marriage", how it affects the lives of their neighbors, fellow parents, co-workers, etc., how, contrary to r.r. rhetoric, it isn't any kind of "threat" to their marriages and isn't going to make "everyone turn gay"!
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