There's a great line in the movie The American President that I absolutely love. It comes as Annette Bening's character is searching frantically for a sweater that is her sister's that she thought she's left at the White House. After searching and not finding it she utters:
"Oh, fuck the sweater! She'll have to learn to live with disappointment!"
I'm feeling a bit disappointed these days. New York is on the verge of voting on a bill that would give gay couples the right to marry. Marriage Equality is a big fight. I am on the side that says, we should all have the right to be married. I don't have a partner, I don't even have a boyfriend...I don't know that I would want to get married right now if I did, but I HATE being told I don't have the right to based purely on my sexual orientation. I pay taxes just like every other citizen of New York. I don't pay any less based on the rights I don't have. I pay the same amount as any other male NY'er that makes my salary and happens to be straight. I am denied over 1100 rights, that he gets just by signing a marriage license. A license that is state issued - not issued by the church. I am not asking for ANY church or religion to sanctify gay marriage. But churches and religions are not the ones issuing marriage licenses, the state does that. I AM asking the state to recognize me and treat me as an equal.
I have always lived my life so that I am not a disappointment to my parents...I tried very hard not to be. I don't believe, deep down that I am, but I do know that I disappointed them. I know that as the first born there was an expectation for grandchildren...that they got later thanks to my brother and now sister. I know that having a gay son is not what was on their list of expectations - but it's the hand they got dealt. I know that I am loved and that they are not fundamentally disappointed in me. I know that my father would rather change the liberal democrat in me than the gay...these are things that I should be really happy about. I'm disappointed though because I can't get my father to see me as an equal citizen. I can't get my father to understand that by not having marriage rights, I am, in fact sitting at the back of the bus. I don't know what else to do to help him understand that, and I'm at a loss to proceed. I am disappointed about that. I wonder, since I can't even get my father to understand this, how do I get politicians? I am disappointed that if this were my sister and she were fighting for the right to marry her husband and the law said they couldn't because they were not the same race, my father would be out there leading the charge on her behalf...I am disappointed that he doesn't see the parallel.
I am disappointed that a state as large as NY does not already have Marriage Equality. I am disappointed that the Republican Senate is holding the vote hostage. I am disappointed that when I called and asked why a vote had not be scheduled, I was told that if I were going to be argumentative the conversation would be ended, simply for asking why a vote on marriage equality had not been scheduled this session. No more, no less. A thoughtful and appropriate question, asked in a polite and dignified manner, yet considered argumentative by the office manager of NY Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Disappointed that said Office Manager let his bias and prejudice dictate his response to my legitimate question rather than treat me like a human being and not a second class citizen who's opinion didn't matter.
Fuck it...I guess I'll just have to learn to live with disappointment.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Modern Hypocrisy Problem
That is not to say that Hypocrisy is a new problem, or even a modern one. I dare say its as old as time itself. It just has new ramifications in modern society, ones that it didn't have even 10 or 15 years ago.
It used to be you made a public statement, it got reported and we moved on to a different news story. Years later, when you were running for public office, someone in your opponents camp would have to remember your former statement - know it could be used against you and then be able to commit to doing the leg work to find said statement in back copies of the newspaper - and be able to find it. That took work, and a good memory for details.
Now, you make a statement and its in the public record, in sound bytes and 30 second clips on news websites and on the blogosphere. There is no forgetting it, and there is no trouble tracking it down. A quick Google search and you can yield amazing results. I think that people tend to forget that. Because they're not used to the modern age, don't use modern technology, or just think that they can spin anything at a later date.
Let's take the Marriage Equality issue as an example. Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage frequently say that marriage is only between a man and a woman, because, in essence, marriage is for procreation purposes only. So, Maggie, only married couples can reproduce? I am not a straight man, but I do remember my biology, and nowhere in biology class when we discussed procreation was there a caveat that you can only reproduce if you're in a marriage. In fact, if that were the case, wouldn't the abortion rate in this country be lower than it is? That would no longer be a wedge issue.
More importantly Maggie Gallagher, if you truly believe the words you speak, how come your own son was born out of wedlock? How come you have sinned and been divorced twice? More importantly, your current marriage wouldn't have been legal without Civil Rights decisions from eons past as you're currently married to a man that is not the same race as you.
Where were you to protest the wedding of Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris?. CLEARLY this was not a union that would produce children, which as you've cited time and tired time again is the only reason for marriage and why marriage can only be between a man and a woman. You didn't offer one word of condemnation at this un-holy union and how it would clearly violate the sanctity of marriage and threaten your own marriage. Things you claim that Marriage Equality will do.
The real problem with modern hypocrisy is that it comes back to bite you in the ass. You can't have it both ways Maggie, and since marriage is only for the procreation of children you should have been out in public loudly shouting and protesting Hef's wedding at the top of your lungs for the same reasons you're protesting Gay Marriage. The problem is that you don't care if Hef gets married to someone 40 years younger, as long as he's marrying a woman. You don't care that it goes against the same tenets you claim to hold dear. Why? Because you don't believe any of them truly. You just hate the LGBT community and will do anything to keep them second class citizens.
Here's where your hypocrisy bites you in your sizable ass Maggie. Until you start shouting at the top of your lungs against marriages that take place in retirement homes (clearly low chance of procreation there) or marriages that have produced no offspring (the sole reason for marriage, as you claim, remember) you can't possibly hope to be taken seriously. If you're going to spout facts, bring it. Realize that you are going to be accountable, and now, more than ever before in history it is really easy to find out which side you fall on. The rights you so take for granted, to be able to marry the man you love, for example, are the rights you are shouting at the top of your lungs to deny others. Hypocrite much? Let's not even get into the finance issues that surround NOM and where you get your funding.
Get the F*$K out of my state, go home to your husband and enjoy the fact that it's legal for you to marry him and love him openly and publicly. That you have over 1100 rights just by signing your marriage license with him. 1100+ rights you are trying to deny other loving couples, purely because they are different from you! I wonder where you would stand on this issue if we were in the 1960's and you were fighting for the right to marry the man you love. HMMMM, don't have a good answer for that one, do you hypocrite?
It used to be you made a public statement, it got reported and we moved on to a different news story. Years later, when you were running for public office, someone in your opponents camp would have to remember your former statement - know it could be used against you and then be able to commit to doing the leg work to find said statement in back copies of the newspaper - and be able to find it. That took work, and a good memory for details.
Now, you make a statement and its in the public record, in sound bytes and 30 second clips on news websites and on the blogosphere. There is no forgetting it, and there is no trouble tracking it down. A quick Google search and you can yield amazing results. I think that people tend to forget that. Because they're not used to the modern age, don't use modern technology, or just think that they can spin anything at a later date.
Let's take the Marriage Equality issue as an example. Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage frequently say that marriage is only between a man and a woman, because, in essence, marriage is for procreation purposes only. So, Maggie, only married couples can reproduce? I am not a straight man, but I do remember my biology, and nowhere in biology class when we discussed procreation was there a caveat that you can only reproduce if you're in a marriage. In fact, if that were the case, wouldn't the abortion rate in this country be lower than it is? That would no longer be a wedge issue.
More importantly Maggie Gallagher, if you truly believe the words you speak, how come your own son was born out of wedlock? How come you have sinned and been divorced twice? More importantly, your current marriage wouldn't have been legal without Civil Rights decisions from eons past as you're currently married to a man that is not the same race as you.
Where were you to protest the wedding of Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris?. CLEARLY this was not a union that would produce children, which as you've cited time and tired time again is the only reason for marriage and why marriage can only be between a man and a woman. You didn't offer one word of condemnation at this un-holy union and how it would clearly violate the sanctity of marriage and threaten your own marriage. Things you claim that Marriage Equality will do.
The real problem with modern hypocrisy is that it comes back to bite you in the ass. You can't have it both ways Maggie, and since marriage is only for the procreation of children you should have been out in public loudly shouting and protesting Hef's wedding at the top of your lungs for the same reasons you're protesting Gay Marriage. The problem is that you don't care if Hef gets married to someone 40 years younger, as long as he's marrying a woman. You don't care that it goes against the same tenets you claim to hold dear. Why? Because you don't believe any of them truly. You just hate the LGBT community and will do anything to keep them second class citizens.
Here's where your hypocrisy bites you in your sizable ass Maggie. Until you start shouting at the top of your lungs against marriages that take place in retirement homes (clearly low chance of procreation there) or marriages that have produced no offspring (the sole reason for marriage, as you claim, remember) you can't possibly hope to be taken seriously. If you're going to spout facts, bring it. Realize that you are going to be accountable, and now, more than ever before in history it is really easy to find out which side you fall on. The rights you so take for granted, to be able to marry the man you love, for example, are the rights you are shouting at the top of your lungs to deny others. Hypocrite much? Let's not even get into the finance issues that surround NOM and where you get your funding.
Get the F*$K out of my state, go home to your husband and enjoy the fact that it's legal for you to marry him and love him openly and publicly. That you have over 1100 rights just by signing your marriage license with him. 1100+ rights you are trying to deny other loving couples, purely because they are different from you! I wonder where you would stand on this issue if we were in the 1960's and you were fighting for the right to marry the man you love. HMMMM, don't have a good answer for that one, do you hypocrite?
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