Monday, February 03, 2014

News Flash - Prop 8 WAS about hate . . . and fear . . . and exploitation

I was reading comments on various issues last night and ran into something which got me angry.

I forget where but the commentator was running that line about how the fight for Proposition 8 was not about hatred but to "protect marriage." And then the commentator segued into the same talking points about how "unfair" it is that those who don't support marriage equality are considered as "haters."

And it got me angry because I realized just how much lgbt brothers and sisters let pass when we are besieged by these arguments. We seem to be put on the defensive by this argument only because we don't get specific.

Whenever I hear someone whine about how the opposition to marriage equality is not about hatred, I make it a point to remind them that if it weren't, then why is there any need to push the false idea that somehow marriage equality will harm children:

 

How marriage equality opponents exploited the argument against marriage equality to appeal to people's fear about their children is a subject we haven't talked about enough. It's a very appropriate subject because this exploitation was used not only in the Prop 8 ballot initiative but others as well, including that in Maryland. And remember, according to Mark Mutty, organizer who worked against marriage equality in Maryland (unsuccessfully I might add), this is argument is untrue and is used to garner attention via fear:



Maybe it's just me, but from where I come from, it is rather bigoted imply that lgbt equality will somehow harm children. It's an implication which those who oppose marriage equality have used time and time again. And unfortunately, we don't do enough to remind them of this fact.

1 comment:

Andrew said...

Yeah, we need more pushback.
1) Regarding the "our children will be harmed" argument: "If your secular argument against LGBT equality is legitimate, then why are you lying about us?" Anti-LGBT speakers usually then refer to "studies" that the general public doesn't know how to evaluate. So we have to know how to conclusively refute and counter those fake studies, which takes an investment of time. As you know!
2) Regarding the "gays hate Christians" argument: there's something called the "tolerance paradox", which asks whether being tolerant requires being tolerant of intolerance. I think it's no paradox at all, because it's a conflation of two meanings for the word "tolerance". As religioustolerance.org points out, bigots are trying to redefine "religious freedom" to include discriminating -- on the basis of their own religion! As the website points out, the quickest way to shoot down that redefinition is probably to call on the Golden Rule: If YOU want to be able to marry and have a family according to YOUR religion, then you must allow your gay neighbor to do the same. If you think it would be hateful for gay people to nullify your (consensual, monogamous) straight marriage, then it's hateful for straights to do the same to gays.
3) The children! The children! Satanists are performing sexual abuse rituals on them! (remember the 80's?) Papists are indoctrinating them in schools! Jews are killing them to drink their blood in secret rituals! Witches are recruiting them for Satan! Black men are raping little white girls! This new cult called "Christianity" is sacrificing Roman children!
I guess that people fall for the same old slanders...as soon as they've forgotten the last time the same slanders were used.
On the lighter side, the site religioustolerance.org is really informative, helpful, and uplifting. See particularly the "tolerance vs. hate" pages beginning at http://www.religioustolerance.org/relfreehate.htm