*sigh* I hate these uphill struggles

[pameladean]

I can't talk meaningfully, as some others have today, about what God has joined. But it is meet that I set it down, that I think all those people who got married in San Francisco earlier this year are still married. It's just a pity that hospitals, insurance companies, and people's annoying relatives don't recognize me as an authority on the matter. Furthermore, so long as we are on this topic: If you live in Missouri, and are gay, there is nothing wrong with you. You aren't evil, and you aren't crazy. Those 70% who voted to define marriage in a way that leaves you out, they have something wrong with them. They may be thoughtful, devout, well-intentioned, kind to children and cats, but they're wrong and they have done a wrong thing. I hope they may live to be sorry for it, and to make amends.

I am particularly aware just now of the fact that I get both to be legally married and to have my family arrangements depicted as the terrible ultimate immoral consequence of allowing gay people to marry one another, not just by lunatics but by some of the people working hard for marriage equality.

It's a strange world..

Pamela

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I believe that not only are these people here in California are still married, but yesterday's foolish fiat is not going to last. It's not just the people who got married who got used to the fact, but all their families and friends. Many conservative people with gay folk in their familise not only got used to the idea of marriage, but came to like the fact that their family members had a legitimacy in the eyes of the law. I really think that after all this time, to have legitimacy snipped away so arbitrarily is going to rouse the votership.

I don't listen as much to fellow liberals because they are singing in the same choir as I am. The ones I pay close attention to are the Republicans and conservatives around me, and the mostly politically apathetic youth. These latter are especially roused and angered by the short sightedness of the California Supreme Court.

[pameladean]

I've heard really encouraging things about the high level of tolerance in the younger set, too.

I hope you are right.

Pamela

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Not all of us, but some of us.

And I know some baseline twenty-somthings who are as much saner about sexuality than baseline thirty-somthings as the thirty-somethings are about race than the fifty-somethings.

It's hopeful.

*g*

[pameladean]

The study I actually saw was of people from 18 to 25, which is exceedingly hopeful.

Pamela

[penwiper26.livejournal.com]

Well, I was in the other 28%....

And was disgusted. You should see the Editorial section of the paper here.

Found this via synaesthete7; hope you don't mind my randomly popping in.

[pameladean]

Not a bit; please feel free to comment on whatever you like!

It's absurdly cheering to me to hear from one of the other 28%.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I love being the reductio ad absurdam. That's so much fun.

Sigh.

[pameladean]

Even HRC disowns us. Wah.

Pamela

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

One of my friends in California thought that we were going to get all the chic pop culture references this decade or next, the way people started playing with/joking about BDSM in the '90s. I think that he's dreaming or that if he isn't, it won't be taken seriously, it won't be something people actually do in their lives.

I guess I have a murder mystery to work on now when I feel this way, but somehow it doesn't help today.

[thinkum]

On a more encouraging front, next month Jerry and I are off to the wedding of two female friends (Chrissy & Sue) in Massachusetts. There is some small measure of sanity in the world, despite all the bigotry and rampant stupidity still to be overcome...

(BTW, it's completely unrelated, but you might be cheered a bit by this entry by mollpeartree)

[pameladean]

Ohmigod. I know Krissy and Sue. Please give them my very heartiest congratulations and good wishes. Not that they need them; they figured out all the hard stuff years ago, and I just hope that being legal means they can relax.

Hi to Jerry, too.

And yes, the unrelated entry made me giggle a lot. I am sorry to say that my basement might very well be that awful under the right, or should I say wrong, circumstances.

Pamela

[thinkum]

Ohmigod. I know Krissy and Sue.

I thought that might give you a lift. ;-) The wedding's Sept. 18th, but so far that's all I know, as Jerry hasn't shown me the actual invitation and he never remembers details like that. (What date a particular comic was published, who did the artwork, who wrote the story, and which previous comics it references -- THOSE details he remembers. The location of a wedding of two old friends? Nope. *g*)

Jerry says hi back. ;-)


- Katrina

It made me giggle a lot, too

[(Anonymous)]

Especially because one of my father's dicta, whenever anyone in our family tipped a chair, was "We have a whole attic full of broken chairs!"

Helen

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

. . . and to have my family arrangements depicted as the terrible ultimate immoral consequence of allowing gay people to marry one another, not just by lunatics but by some of the people working hard for marriage equality.

One wonders, does one not, how long it will take till humankind starts to see "rights" as something more than "my own ox not being gored."

(J says that marriages of more than two would be a bit trickier legally--for example, if a health care decision must be made for one spouse, which of the other spouses gets to make that decision, if they disagree. I say, make one of the paperwork requirements for a legal union the filing of a health care power of attorney. Everyone should do it anyway.)

[pameladean]

Yes, it would be trickier, but I agree with you that a lot of people ought to be more conscious about making decisions of this sort rather than letting stuff default, so I can't get too broken up about it.

In the short run, really, I'd settle for not being used as a stick to beat gay people with. I deeply resent it.

Pamela

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

In the short run, really, I'd settle for not being used as a stick to beat gay people with. I deeply resent it.

I don't blame you. I maintain, as you know, that "marriage" should be defined only by the people involved in it. Religious groups can restrict their ceremonies with whatever qualifications they choose. The state ought to regulate only the contract issues.

[pameladean]

I forgot to reply to your more general remark about when people will start seeing "rights" as more than "my ox not being gored." There really is a lot of that, but there's also a kind of ruthless pragmatism -- as you observe below that Jonathan has observed, multiple-partner marriages would require some kind of legal tinkering or at least thought, whereas same-sex couples fit tidily into existing law, even though some opponents of marriage equality say they don't. Multiple-partner marriages would be, if not actually any more disruptive to the social fabric, productive of a lot of discussion and probably some kind of new law; they would make more of a stir and take more effort. I've actually been hugely amused, when I didn't want to just put a nail through my head, at various attempts to demonstrate that, really, marriage equality is Just Too Much Trouble, and at the ease with which such assertions can be dismantled as long as one sticks to the two-partner model. I'm sure that some people just think "one battle at a time." But others really draw a hard line and get just as judgemental as their loopy opponents.

Pamela

[lcohen]

But others really draw a hard line and get just as judgemental as their loopy opponents.

actually this feels like a theme in the glbt community over so many issues. the log cabin republicans who decry the leather boys marching in the pride parade. the whole theme of one set of the community complaining that another component is giving them a bad name. andrew sullivan comes to mind. it's really tiresome.