Friday, December 19, 2008

Sois sage et travaille bien

Some gay dude is telling Barack Obama to put some meat on the bone. I usually want a guy to buy me a beer before I let him fuck me in the steam room, but hey, some people just aren't into all that preliminary romance. Oh, hey, it's the head of the Human Rights Campaign. Well, that explains his charmingly moronic naïveté. The HRC is one of those bland vehicles through which queers made themselves one more stripe in the dull rainbow of coalition politics, repudiating any radicalism or activism in favor of public-policy-speak and mid-American respectability. While I'm skeptical of the broad utility of protest, at least the dudes and dykes in ACTUP accomplished something other than getting urban Democrats to put little equality stickers on their Priuses. Why should Barack Obama, or any politician, go out on a limb for a constituency that's going to keep voting for him and keep raising money for him and keep manning the phones for him regardless of what he does? Man up, you queens. Why don't you try to infiltrate the inauguration. Throw some fucking shoes. Whip out your dicks. This kind of writing isn't outraged, it's pathetic.

Posted by IOZ at 1:11 PM | email »
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15 comments:

Solar Hero said...

"Throw some fucking shoes"

You're brilliant, man. Lots of good stuff on shoe-throwing at ATR today, too.

2:36 PM
Christopher said...

It is difficult to comprehend how our president-elect, who has been so spot on in nearly every political move and gesture, could fail to grasp the symbolism of inviting an anti-gay theologian to deliver his inaugural invocation.

I don't find it difficult at all; Obama was quiet on the gay rights front, essentially told the gay community that the most they could expect from him was not to fuck things up further, and, if I'm not mistaken, he's one of those seperate but equal folks who want to give gays a different word to use when they get married.

Honestly, people should pay better attention.

4:22 PM
erin4iraq said...

Really, all same-sex couples who want to get married are "loving and committed"? I doubt it. Maybe one of them wants it more than the other and is just going along to keep the peace in the relationship. Or maybe one is a controlling jerk or cheating on the other, I don't know. But there is no reason to believe that just because the love is same-sex directed, it is somehow always pure and wholesome.

This is a basic problem with the gay rights message - the narrative the world is supposed to buy is that gay people are entitled to equal treatment under the law because they are kind and funny and good and loving and generally wonderful human beings. What a pile of horse manure. (And I am not saying, obviously, that gay people cannot be these things, just, really, is it necessary to the argument that they are?)

Gay people should argue that they are entitled to equal treatment under the law because they are people, not because they are exceptional or even good people.

That being said, I do not think unequal treatment under the law comes into play when a state prohibits same-sex marriage. The same law applies to us all, regardless of sexuality. The state is not singling out gay people and treating them differently when it prohibits them from marrying someone of their same sex. No one has that right.

A better approach would be for gays (and all of us in fact) to simply acknowledge that committed, same sex relationships are different from marriage in only one fundamental way: they involve two people of the same sex. Then just call it something different, like "garriage" and get on with it.

5:01 PM
IOZ said...

Yeah, like how white people couldn't marry black people, but also, black people couldn't marry white people. I'd like the state to get out of marriage altogether--why should people have additional rights because they choose to cohabit and share a checking account, or whatever. That said, you're lousy with tautology, erin.

5:46 PM
la Rana said...

Erin, as IOZ said, that was a compelling argument...in 1966. In addition to the miscegination analogy, in the early 90s, a young law prof by the name of Andrew Koppelman methodically took every one of the arguments against gay equality behind the shed and killed them. Look him/it up.

There is no longer (well, never was) any intellectually compelling argument that preventing same sex marriage is consistent with the 14th amendment and subsequent jurisprudence.
And, as Andrew has capably demonstrated, it unquestionably meets the definition of sex discrimination (though no court has had the sack to face that inconvenient fact).

Update yer rolodex.

6:36 PM
erin4iraq said...

la rana - I will look him up and consider his arguments, but you and IOZ must agree with my other point that the way the gay rights message is presented is wrong-headed and basically propaganda.

7:42 PM
Anonymous said...

Oh dear, a social/political movement is using propaganda to advance its cause. What has the world come to.

7:59 PM
eric said...

IIRC, HRC (the MOR gay group, not the soon-to-be-ex-Senator, though the coincidence is interesting) endorsed Al D'Amato (the other HRC's predecessor -- I fear I'm getting lost in a loop), during at least one of his Senate re-election bids. Perhaps Al the Pal, being a sophisticated dude from Lon Guyland wasn't a gay basher. But he was unquestionably a huge prick (and not in the good way).

9:33 PM
Mr.Fundamental said...

where's that clip of that dude who said he did coke off Obama's cock or whatever? he's got a legimate gripe yo.

9:53 PM
IOZ said...

At least it's an ethos.

2:41 AM
alansmithee said...

HRC is one of those pwoggie orgs whose job it is to make you feel comfortable with your second class citizenship. Kinda like if Shakespears Sister ran a PR company.

9:51 AM
Mr.Fundamental said...

Like state recognized gay marriage is going to do anything to society that has not been done before. Erin you are more a preservationist than a conservative. If marriage is so not special than why are you defending it intensely? If gay marriage does get recognized,will there be a mass exodus of heteros from the institution? Basically, what is your point? There is more to it than just a pair of ovaries and testes.

10:36 AM
LA Confidential Pantload said...

Sorry, IOZ, I gotta throw the flag on the forced Lebowski reference. Five yards, enforced from the site of Rick Warren's inaugural prayer.

11:40 AM
Anonymous said...

the narrative the world is supposed to buy is that gay people are entitled to equal treatment under the law because they are kind and funny and good and loving and generally wonderful human beings

Who said that, the voices in your head? I've never heard anyone insist on anything other than the fact that, as human beings, they're entitled to equal treatment. Sounds like somebody is offended that there's no portrayals of gays on tv as irresponsible kiddie-diddling, AIDS-daring drug addicts.

And IOZ, don't tell people to throw shoes, you dirty rascal! Haven't you seen how many liberals are all upset that anyone would disrespect the office of the presidency like that (as if anyone could do so more than Dubya)? Check out Digby's BFF, Rick Perlstein, as he demands a severe jail sentence for the scoundrel. Imagine how quickly they'd decide gays aren't respectable enough for their consideration if they acted up like that!

1:09 PM
Anonymous said...

Dat HRC is jus like sundy krischuns.

9:22 AM

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