Capitol Hill Blue Forums We shall overcome

Rick, there will always be str8 people who think gays are less than human, just as there will always be White people who think Blacks are less than human. The real fight is not in convincing them that they are wrong, but in letting them change their minds. The former cannot be accomplished, the latter only with great difficulty. IMHO difficult is always preferable over impossible.

Well, as one of those "older gays", I can only respond to you Rick by asking if you ever took the time to ask any of us? Did you read anything I wrote? Or the many many others who have been writing, preaching, marching and otherwise putting our lives on the line for several decades now?

Your anger is welcomed, but I think your target is much closer, such as the person sitting in your chair reading this post. Did you contribute money to the no on 8 campaign? Did you man the phone banks? What did you do -- and I am not suggesting you did too little, just asking.

Prop 6 came at a time when there was no notion of "gay" much less "gay rights" in the larger public conversation. Take a look at the contemporary articles at the time and what you will see is that we were primarily described as sick pedophiles who couldn't be trusted not to rape their children.

That was not present to anywhere near the same extent in this campaign and to the extent it was I do not think it made a difference. The vote for 8 seems from what I have read aqnd from the people I talk to not on those kind of fears but rather on religious grounds. That requires a very different kind of campaign.

I told EQ california all along their ads were off base but it is hard to convince people that they are wrong without evidence. To some extent I thought it was also necessary to allow younger leaders to go the direction they thought best.

After all, being gay at 30 years of age today is much different than it was for me, so I have to give my thoughts and then stand back and let people work with their own mindset. It is, after all, an issue much more for you and your age cohorts than for me.

So mistakes were made, but I think it would have been an even bigger mistake to pin 8 as a "gay rights" issue. That would have always relegated us to some kind of "exception", some "other" category and lead to claims we ask for "special rights." That claim is the one that the past 20 years of political activity has sought to deny.

Haven't you argued here Rick that we claim nothing more than what everyone else enjoys? That is a claim based on human, not gay rights.

Did you read anything of what I wrote? From the October 29th 2008 RT:


How can one fight for 'human rights' when one is not considered a human? I think that gays should fight for 'gay rights' before human rights. We need to fight the fight that gays have the right to be humans, first.

We can't put the cart before the horse.

The parallels between Prop 6 and Prop 8 for me are very striking:

• Christians being bigots in the name of children

It's always about the kiddies for Christians. It's like kids will never learn about the what really goes on in the world if the "Christians" shelter kids long enough.

How naive!

"Children will be taught about gay marriage in school just like in Massachussettes."

READ: Gays are sodomites and we need to protect our children from knowledge of that sick, deviant behavior.

Nothing changed in 30 years.

"If" Harvey Milk were alive today, I think absolutely he would have made Prop 8 a "gay issue."

So do my strict, conservative Catholic relatives, apparently - oddly enough.

Of course, I had to come at it from a different direction, regarding divorce. They said that they understood the desire for gay couples to have visitation rights and such, but it shouldn't be called 'marriage'... isn't 'civil union' good enough?

Well, I said, what business does govt have in calling ANY marriage more than a 'civil union', legally speaking? Should that not be the domain of the Church, not State?

Specifically, if you are married in the Catholic Church, you cannot get divorced - Catholics can only get a marriage 'annulled' which means 'it never happened' (a debate itself, but not for this thread). How can the government then grant divorces? "Well, that's a different part of marriage, that's the 'civil union' part". Yes, but they granted the marriage license in the first place, which is now 'ended', so are they now not married? "No, in the eyes of the church , they still are married... the govt part is not the real marriage part, the part that makes marriage 'sacred'"

So, the govt part is not the real part of 'marriage', it's only a civil union? So, why call it a 'marriage' license? Why not just let the govt make civil unions for EVERYONE, legally speaking, and leave the 'sacred' part called 'marriage' to the church?

"Well, yes, that makes sense."

Q.E.D.

Nicely done, RB. That's what, IMHO, the argument for straights is. The argument that "gays have a right to marriage" is NOT a political argument, it's a religious one, because politically no one has a right to marriage.

Marriage is a religious institution. To make it a civil institution violates the First Amendment.

I have the utmost of respect for, and solidarity with, the argument that gays should have the same rights as straights. That's why we went to Massachusetts to get our license in August of 2007. But we weren't "married" until May 24, 2008, when we stood in the midst of our extended faith community and declared our commitment to be joined in the Spirit of matrimony.

I am a little surprised that no one has mentioned an excellent cover article in Newsweek


The article goes on to make the argument that... even from a purely biblical perspective... there is very little that supports the exclusion of Gay marriage. The case to religiously exclude divorce is much stronger... yet apparently ignored by the government. Ironically, it seems that Christ suggested that his followers should avoid marriage all together... if at all possible. And there are another cases in the "old testament" that extol one man's love for another.

So even from a purely religious perspective, it appears that biblically based opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage is rooted in a highly selective reading of the Scriptures.

Rick, I did not say you did nothing or were wrong in any way. All I suggest is that each of us ask whether what we did was enough. Collectively of course not. But I am not fond of finding fault with the actions or inaction of others since I have little impact on that. I prefer to ask myself whether what I have done over a lifetime is enough.

I will try to let you know within moments of my death as to what my answer is. Until then, I just keep trying whatever I can think of.