...

[kyburg]

Maine, thanks for making this a federal case. Or just confirming my fears that the only hope of equality once someone declares a sexual orientation other than complete hetero, no bisexuality or interest in the same gender - is at the hands of the National Guard, after the federal goverment decides that's what right.

I remember the sixties. It wasn't all hippies and pot. (That actually was more towards the seventies, folks. Disco was at the tail end of that decade.)

I was hoping we wouldn't go there again. People died that way.

Guess that's the only thing some folks want in this world.

And I might remind folks that my understanding of homosexuality did NOT begin with the horizontal bop - it began with the civil issues, and it began early. I wasn't twelve years old and I certainly never needed to know 'what those people did' to know what was being done to them was WRONG.

I'll be over here grumbling the rest of the day. This is so stupid, there aren't words big enough.

Comments

[neintales.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Brain does not want to compute how much hate and idiocy is in the world. I have an angry rant in me, and I dunno how to get it out or where it might be put, where I want to verbally shake down some people and ask them why they wish so much hurt and suffering- because the lack of equality CAUSES much more than bruised ego thank YOU, what with hospital and last will and testament fuckery alone- on anyone. Because I wouldn't wish such shit on the people who've hurt me most in life, and here's apparently BOATLOADS of people effectively wishing it on folks they've never even met.

Between this, the Florida boy being set on fire, and the California gang rape, I am a seething mass of angry "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?"

[gallo-de-pelea.livejournal.com]

I tried to make a snarky remark but just wound up fighting off the urge to vomit.

[trillsie.livejournal.com]

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?"


That pretty much sums it all up.

[tomlemos.livejournal.com]

I really wish people would realize that this is about CIVIL marriage, not religious. I guess when it comes to separation of church and state, that all flies out the window when it comes to marriage?

-tired of being a second class citizen.

This is What it Takes

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

This is what it's going to take.

People will have to die.

Not murdered, not beaten up? Nobody cared about Matthew Shepard. Nobody cared about Harvey Milk. That was "Doing God's Work" in the eyes of many.

Not even Kent State was enough.

No. It's going to take human beings sacrificing themselves before the public eye, where it cannot be "sanitized for your protection". It's going to take the complete and utter destruction of innocence for an entire generation.

I look forward to it.

I welcome it.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

I think this is one of those days where we really know just how screwed up this place can be.
Kinda like how many people just "forget" (until they see an article stating how women have "narrowed" the gender discrepancy) that women are equal only in name, not in pay, health care or most other things that matter. *sigh*

Edited for typo.

[sal_amanda]

Yes, this.

Re: This is What it Takes

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Holy crap.

Re: This is What it Takes

[foogod.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. No. I'm sorry, but no. If you look at the issue rationally, almost everything you said there is false, actually.

Am I the only person here who pays any attention to the actual numbers? The same-sex marriage bill was defeated by a 6% margin. Six percent. That's damn near the expected margin of error in even the best elections.

What would the margin have been 20 years ago? Or even 10? Not fucking six percent, that's for sure, even in Maine. Hell, most of the places people are voting on this stuff nowadays it wouldn't even have been a question 10 years ago, because the whole concept would have been too absurd to mention. When it comes to gay rights, the world has changed a hell of a lot in just a few years. And that change wasn't because of people setting themselves on fire. It wasn't even mostly because of what happened to Shepard or Milk, though both of those events definitely did have an impact on a lot of people. It was because of a lot of people (like Milk, and many many others) making themselves known and making themselves heard and pushing the issue politically. And that isn't stopping now, it's only getting stronger, so why are we expecting the change to stop either?

The same-sex marriage folks are on the defensive (and just barely squeaking by) in a battle that only a few years ago they wouldn't have even thought they had to show up for. That's what I get from this article (and all the others), regardless of the actual passage or failure of a particular bill.

Is the process instantaneous? No. Is it easy? Is it perfect? No. If you ever thought it would be any of these things, well, frankly, you're a moron with no concept of politics. That's not the point. The point is that we're almost literally within inches of the watershed, and that's all in spite of the best efforts of the hatemongers for the past several decades which couldn't stop the progress, and aren't slowing it down much now either.

Stop panicking over the details and look at the big picture. This is progress. This is how real progress happens in the real world. This war will be won. It'll be won, indisputably and nationally, and it'll only be a few years from now. There's pretty much no stopping it at this point. A lost battle here and there is not the end of the world.

Re: This is What it Takes

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

And how many more will die while those odds come closer, and the ones who are losing supremacy get even more angry and embittered and prone to violence?

It's damn hard to "look rationally" when you live in fear of your life. Make allowance for that. On both sides.

Re: This is What it Takes

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

It'd be nice if we could stick to Martin Luther King, rather than the Black Panthers. After all, we're trying to be better than the lynch mobs.

Then again, I damn near started a milita after the Shepard case broke, so I get you.

Problem is, death doesn't make them change their minds - hell, some of 'em *want* us to just go and die already. And taking the violence to them just "proves" to them that we're monsters.

And suicide? They won't care. Some of 'em will applaud.

Living - in their faces, and better than them - is the best trick we've got. It's also a hell of a lot harder than dying.

Re: This is What it Takes

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

This is also what I got out of it. The folks pushing theMaine overturn had the same kind of deep pockets behind them, and the same team of masterful liars and PR hype folks, that did the job on Prop Hate.
That's a tone of $$ getting thrown down a hole to achieve a margin that narrow, one the same size as the margin of error. I'm also wondering if there was fraud on machines and ballots too, as in previous infamous elections, but I don't know if Maine uses tamperable machines, and I haven't heard anything about that so far.
It's so close to even-steven there that just a few more people could have tipped it the other way, it's not that large a population.
I hate the whole defeat, of course, but the numbers say a lot more people were listening to the equality folks than they would have expected just 10 years ago.