Part of an email I received from a friend right after Obama won:
I’m still not safe in my country … my state … my city … my county … my polling place. America has indeed spoken. On a night when so much of my history was celebrated, perhaps vindicated, so much of me was mutilated and discarded. That’s what it feels like. I would be remiss, however, not to remember much of that history was spent enduring extreme suffering and hate. I accept that this is sometimes a part of the process and I recognize that many have endured a lot more than I have. I fully appreciate the role I must always have in being and demonstrating love and acceptance. I jokingly call myself the “Gay Obama: disarming white people and heterosexuals since 1980.”
Last night I cried for my friend in California who contributed half her salary last month to help defeat Proposition 8. Who has worked tirelessly and effortlessly to reduce the need for gays and lesbians to pay (expensive) lawyers like her exorbitant amounts of money to contract what meager rights they can. Last night I cried for all the people who stood on street corners with signs that asked that discrimination not be mandated. For the men and women who want to be legally recognized parents, but can’t.
I did some more digging and found this opinion over at the Atlantic (the comments get kind of heated, but the point is understood):
It’s disgusting. And we need to let this shit go. There may be great, sound reasons beyond–the blacks are pathological!!–to explain this. But there are no great, sound reasons that excuse it. Cut this shit out. We know better. Even if other people didn’t.
I’m going to throw my centrist hat in here and whole-heartedly agree.
credit: laverrue
The Homophobia Has to Stop
First of all, historically, the institution of marriage was about the distribution of property. Two parties signed a legal contract and established ownership. If the contract was breached or if one party wanted out, the property was dispensed properly.
Second, this argument that because the Bible defines marriage between a man and woman is flawed on two fronts. Yes, our country is founded on the inalienable rights outlined in the principles of the Bible, but what happened to the separation of church and state? Why is this not applicable to the legal definition of marriage? The Bible also states the principles of ‘eye for an eye’, yet it is highly discredited in the principles of capital punishment, especially in the disproportionate enforcement to Black inmates. Is it possible that the outdated mandates of the Old Testament have expired?
Finally, and this is what really gets me, is how anyone can sit atop their soap box, in a glass house, and support a law that regulates a way of life for ANYONE. While its debatable that the equality struggle of our homosexual brethren relate to the historical struggle of our racial past, the principle is simple.
Love is love.
The fear exhibited within parts of our culture and parts of our church is a giant mistake I know our kids and grandkids will be looking back on us and hang their head in shame. The fear that irradiates from many spiritual leaders, masked behind literal interpretations of scripture, is sad. The Bible, for me, has always been a book of philosophical awakening and challenging principle. While it is a tool towards the path of grace, I think the lessons and words defined in it are convexed enough that any man believing that ‘they understood what God meant when these words were cast’ is arrogance in its highest form.
Of what is even more disturbing is this projection that heterosexual Black men have of gay Black men fostered from how they treat and view Black women. The idea that gay Black men would treat them remotely the same is really the true story.
It’s equivalent to how some white people feared the election of Obama and the prominence of the minority community. If in one breathe you could convince yourself that there was no racism and that ‘Black people needed to get over it’, why then are you so afraid of a Black man being in power? If everything was so great, why would you fear retaliation or reciprocal treatment?
This argument that gay marriage is against the Bible and your principles isn’t really about you. It’s about the rights of others who are different.
In the end, for all of us, who has the final judgement call anyway? Last I checked, it wasn’t the preacher.
We need to challenge ourselves, long and hard, to break this tide of misinformation and fear. While I know not everyone has to agree on the ‘right and wrong’ of homosexuality, one must look past themselves and dig deeper. Do we really believe disallowing anyone basic human rights is the right thing to do? Since when is it ok to enforce your beliefs through law in this melting pot of America?
What say you, community?
