The other night I was sitting in a classroom with my fellow seniors and I overheard a conversation that, while I hear it all the time, pushed a couple of my buttons.
A group of people were talking about a new Hilary Duff video where she tells people not to say the word "gay". The immediate question that arose in the group, "Is Hilary Duff gay?" The determined answer, "she must be because she supports gay rights".
In this month, black history month, we can't stop but think, "what is our cause, what is our struggle, what is our movment?"
It's staring us right in the face, but we disregard it because it doesn't effect us directly. The American mindset. In that same class we happened to watch Dr. King's I Have a Dream Speech. How relevant. I would never trivialize or minimize what the things that Dr. King and other civil rights leaders did to change rights for African Americans in our country. However, you can't help but think it took a lot of white people in the background to really make it happen. So why would white people care? A white person is never going to be black.
It's about the injustice. It's about rights for everyone. Is that not what America stands for? Equal rights for all people. White, black, male, female, straight............
and there it is. Our movement, our cause.
Gay people are just that, people. People who deserve rights, people who deserve respect, people who deserve to be treated just like me.
I won't get into all of my individual problems with it, because I'm far too opinionated and it would take a LOT of pages. I do want to point out that civil unions, which are even accepted in the majority of states in the U.S. still aren't sufficient and are virtually an insult to everyone.
I understand if people of faith don't want to "corrupt" what they believe marriage is. I understand that, "marriage" has a certain connotation to it that I have no problem with the Christians keeping. The problem lies in the separation of church and state. Marriage is more than the wedding. It has a ton of laws attached to it and you have to pay to get a "license". These laws are what gay couples deserve equal rights to and these laws aren't being provided through the civil union.
Gay couples can't visit their dying partner because they are not their "husband" or "wife". Gay couples don't have automatic rights to their partners estate when they pass away. If I were to pass away and have had children, and I had a gay sibling or even parent, they could not adopt my children. Instead they would either be given to a stranger or be stuck in a shelter.
Gay people are people, and it takes all of us gay and straight to stop this glaring injustice in U.S. history. When our children look back in history class at who we were during this time period are we going to be the leaders of a movement that was past due or the Bible thumpers who said that gay rights were wrong (sounds a lot like the excuse used for suppressing the blacks)
Food for thought.
I agree. I'm always particularly struck by intolerance on the college campus. I guess in my head, colleges are super-liberal hippie lands where we can build up our ideas and prepare ourselves to face the grimy real world and all of its assholes. But really, college is real life and people have wildly different points of view on everything--which is good, mostly. But if tolerance and social change doesn't start with idealistic college kids, where the hell is it gonna start?
ReplyDeleteBut are you saying that our struggle/movement is particularly lgbtq equality, or equality in general, or just an overall change in the American mindset?
tracy it's like you've read my mind but such a great way to put it. You get to college and it's supposed to be the educated, the thinkers, open minded. Unfortunately I group these three concepts together and think they are synonymous when unfortunately they are not.
ReplyDeletewhat i'm talking about doesn't have to be specifically the lgbtq movement, equality does need to be offered to all. It's said to watch people claim their "land of the free, and equal" country, this "melting pot", when honestly we've left out so many ingredients. We can't say we are equal if we simply aren't. I however do feel most strongly about the lgbtq movement and thus I'm prone to speak mostly on that topic. :)