Isn't it ironic how the best time to be a gay human in America is also one of the scariest in that it is also the most pivotal. Sodomy laws are banished. Some state and local governments ban discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation. Our visibility in the media (albeit mostly in a stereotyped, farcical form) is at an all time high. A majority of the American population no longer sees us as a threat to moral fabric of American society, most of them even welcome us. Sounds like a gay Camelot, doesn't it?
Even in Camelot, something rotten festered and grew. That's the problem with Camelot. Things get so peaceful and la dee dah, that people become complacent. That's when they're ripe for the picking. Clinton created a second American Camelot in the 1990's that lasted almost a full month into Bush's first term. Then the techno-bubble burst, things began to sour on Wall Street, and 9/11 sounded the death knell of this Camelot redux. The American people were shaken, frightened even, and turned to the only entity they could trust: the government of the people, by the people, for the people. It was a blind trust. Which is the most vulnerable to those opportunists waiting in the wings for that precise moment, when they can swoop in under the guise of rendering aid and comfort to the scarred masses only to seize upon the opportunity to enact their own agenda, no matter how twisted and contrary to popular opinion it may be. That's why they're called opportunists. I think it's what the acronym GOP actually stands for. The Grand Opportunistic Party.
After they won the majority of the public's trust with their pitiful excuse for a war on terror and illegitimate invasion of a sovereign nation, they began to accellerate their hardline agenda for social issues, in an attempt to stomp out any views contradictory to their own "deeply held religious beliefs." You have no idea how sick I am of that phrase, held up as some sort of holy grail excuse that no one ever questions and everyone accepts as a wholly valid argument--but that's for a different post. Starting with the Justice Department removing all reference to Clinton's executive order banning discrimination against sexual orientation in federal civil employment. They caught some flack for it, murmered something about it still being in effect, just covered up like the statue of Justice, and ultimately got away with it. Their first victory, symbolic de facto though it may have been.
So, in 2004, citing the actions of a handful of "activist judges" who apparently were threatening the very safety and innocence of American families (ha!) and children in particular, preznit bush pushed for his infamous FMA. Failing that, he and his cronies managed to pass state CMA's (Constitutional Marriage Amendments) in 11 states, with more following suit this year, my own home state being one of them.
Then a former Hitler Youth, ΓΌber conservative cardinal becomes pope and almost immediately denounces gays as "iniquitous", much to the lauding and ravenous approval of the protestant religious right in America.
Think it stops there? It's gets better.
Last week, after caving to what amounted really to the annoying buzzing of a tsetse fly, Microsoft abandoned its post as one of the original precedent makers in employment, social, and civil equality by supporting, then stepping away from, vital Washington State legislation that would have banned discrimination against GLBT Washingtonians, allowing it to die by one vote. It was a move that has cost them dearly in the eyes of their employees and gay rights advocates nationwide. But the real kicker is they refuse to acknowledge what they did might have been a bit boneheaded, if not downright treacherous. They are a corporate leader and now other companies may begin following suit. We'll have to wait and see what develops as a result of Microsoft's (in)action.
Here's where it become really scary to be gay in a predominately red nation. Yesterday, Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen proposed legislation to remove and ban all literature written by or about or even containing the gay from state funded libraries and schools. We're not just talking elementary, my dear Watson. No, he wants them out of junior highs, senior highs, even colleges and public libraries. Everything from Plato and Shakespeare to Langston Hughes and Alice Walker. Hello Berlin circa 1933. However, in a truly magnanimous gesture (and after heated criticism), he decided at the last minute to exempt the classics (for which he admittedly had no clear definition) and colleges & public libraries from his Christ-o-matic® brand of censorship. He also relented and said, "ok, ok, you don't have to burn and take black markers to the books we already have, just don't order any replacements or new ones." I wouldn't be surprised if mysterious vandalisms and disappearances and a sudden rash of people checking out, then never returning gay-tainted books began occurring all over Alabama. After all, under the new legslation (if passed) they couldn't be replaced. How's that for a loophole.
The X-tian Crusades of the 21st Century are under way. It started a speck on the horizon that slowly grew to a dust cloud. Public defamation, slow and systematic elimination of our "inalienable" rights, sweeping all our societal contributions under history's rug. And, if we just keep standing here like turkeys watching the rain move ever closer, it will be too late to take fortify ourselves. It will arrive in all its righteous fury, envelop us and reveal the pointy swords hidden within, thirsting for our blood. Look at the trend over the past few years. All the signs point to a fascist final solution that Hitler would envy for its insidiousness and roping-in of "moral majority" public opinion.
Even in Camelot, something rotten festered and grew. That's the problem with Camelot. Things get so peaceful and la dee dah, that people become complacent. That's when they're ripe for the picking. Clinton created a second American Camelot in the 1990's that lasted almost a full month into Bush's first term. Then the techno-bubble burst, things began to sour on Wall Street, and 9/11 sounded the death knell of this Camelot redux. The American people were shaken, frightened even, and turned to the only entity they could trust: the government of the people, by the people, for the people. It was a blind trust. Which is the most vulnerable to those opportunists waiting in the wings for that precise moment, when they can swoop in under the guise of rendering aid and comfort to the scarred masses only to seize upon the opportunity to enact their own agenda, no matter how twisted and contrary to popular opinion it may be. That's why they're called opportunists. I think it's what the acronym GOP actually stands for. The Grand Opportunistic Party.
After they won the majority of the public's trust with their pitiful excuse for a war on terror and illegitimate invasion of a sovereign nation, they began to accellerate their hardline agenda for social issues, in an attempt to stomp out any views contradictory to their own "deeply held religious beliefs." You have no idea how sick I am of that phrase, held up as some sort of holy grail excuse that no one ever questions and everyone accepts as a wholly valid argument--but that's for a different post. Starting with the Justice Department removing all reference to Clinton's executive order banning discrimination against sexual orientation in federal civil employment. They caught some flack for it, murmered something about it still being in effect, just covered up like the statue of Justice, and ultimately got away with it. Their first victory, symbolic de facto though it may have been.
So, in 2004, citing the actions of a handful of "activist judges" who apparently were threatening the very safety and innocence of American families (ha!) and children in particular, preznit bush pushed for his infamous FMA. Failing that, he and his cronies managed to pass state CMA's (Constitutional Marriage Amendments) in 11 states, with more following suit this year, my own home state being one of them.
Then a former Hitler Youth, ΓΌber conservative cardinal becomes pope and almost immediately denounces gays as "iniquitous", much to the lauding and ravenous approval of the protestant religious right in America.
Think it stops there? It's gets better.
Last week, after caving to what amounted really to the annoying buzzing of a tsetse fly, Microsoft abandoned its post as one of the original precedent makers in employment, social, and civil equality by supporting, then stepping away from, vital Washington State legislation that would have banned discrimination against GLBT Washingtonians, allowing it to die by one vote. It was a move that has cost them dearly in the eyes of their employees and gay rights advocates nationwide. But the real kicker is they refuse to acknowledge what they did might have been a bit boneheaded, if not downright treacherous. They are a corporate leader and now other companies may begin following suit. We'll have to wait and see what develops as a result of Microsoft's (in)action.
Here's where it become really scary to be gay in a predominately red nation. Yesterday, Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen proposed legislation to remove and ban all literature written by or about or even containing the gay from state funded libraries and schools. We're not just talking elementary, my dear Watson. No, he wants them out of junior highs, senior highs, even colleges and public libraries. Everything from Plato and Shakespeare to Langston Hughes and Alice Walker. Hello Berlin circa 1933. However, in a truly magnanimous gesture (and after heated criticism), he decided at the last minute to exempt the classics (for which he admittedly had no clear definition) and colleges & public libraries from his Christ-o-matic® brand of censorship. He also relented and said, "ok, ok, you don't have to burn and take black markers to the books we already have, just don't order any replacements or new ones." I wouldn't be surprised if mysterious vandalisms and disappearances and a sudden rash of people checking out, then never returning gay-tainted books began occurring all over Alabama. After all, under the new legslation (if passed) they couldn't be replaced. How's that for a loophole.
The X-tian Crusades of the 21st Century are under way. It started a speck on the horizon that slowly grew to a dust cloud. Public defamation, slow and systematic elimination of our "inalienable" rights, sweeping all our societal contributions under history's rug. And, if we just keep standing here like turkeys watching the rain move ever closer, it will be too late to take fortify ourselves. It will arrive in all its righteous fury, envelop us and reveal the pointy swords hidden within, thirsting for our blood. Look at the trend over the past few years. All the signs point to a fascist final solution that Hitler would envy for its insidiousness and roping-in of "moral majority" public opinion.
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