1. the homosexuals don't want to seem racist
2. they're scared to death of blacks

I dare them to go to the neighborhoods of Oakland or East Palo Alto with the same hatred and anger they've been showing the mormons or white christians. They'd never do it because they know they'd be be beaten to a pulp.

1. the homosexuals don't want to seem racist
2. they're scared to death of blacks

I dare them to go to the neighborhoods of Oakland or East Palo Alto with the same hatred and anger they've been showing the mormons or white christians. They'd never do it because they know they'd be be beaten to a pulp.

Interesting that you don't respond to any of the points are making. For example, why is California being singled out as a “hater” state?

Please do remember that I voted NO on PROP 8. Apparently that's not good enough for you,though. It's not enough that I voted NO, you need me to also agree with you that gay marriage is a civil rights issue. This has clearly now become about more than passing gay marriage, it's about gay dogma

Thx for the Tepper excerpt. With literary and philosophical examples is actually how I best understand things. I'm here to learn, not to preach.

All that said… I can't forsake a habitual signoff, meant exactly as it reads.

Much peace,

e

Actually you and I don't even share the same logic system when it comes to this part, what you're saying there — the dynamics of dialogue and truth.

I don't have a good concise way to directly describe my logic system, but years ago I read a novel that has characters that understand truth and dialogue closer to my understanding than your approach.

It's not exact (for example the focus on memory is not the focus here), but maybe this will at least give you the flavor of where I'm coming from — on my logic's terms, I am not trying to be a peacemaker, but speaking from how I myself approach the dynamics of truth and communication:

Memory was such a strange thing. A viggy would experience a thing and remember it. Another viggy would experience the same happening and remember it as well. And yet the two memories would not be the same. On a night of shadow and wind, one viggy might sing that he had seen the spirit of his own giligee, beckoning from beside a Jubal tree. Another viggy might sing he had seen only the wind moving a veil of dried fronds. What had they seen, a ghost or the fronds? Where was the truth in memory? Somewhere between the spirit and the wind, Favel thought.

Favel had been alone. He had been alone for a very long time, which meant there were gaping, untruthful holes in his memory of his life. When he sang those parts of his life, there were no other views to correct and balance his own — no joyous counterparts to relieve his pain, no voices of hope or curiosity to relieve his own terrified horror. (pg. 180-81)

Sheri S. Tepper, After Long Silence 1987

I should note that this logic is not some sort of postmodern relativism (which I HATE), because it assumes that there is actual truth — this logic just has a particular feel for how to arrive at truth and the need for different parts/beings to be humble about what we and others do and do not understand and perceive.

All by way of saying, I was not seeking to be a peacemaker but rather was responding from a logic system very different from yours.

That said, it may be that the deep clash of our respective logic systems does make it impossible for us to learn from and with each other in a mutual way. While at some level this doesn't make sense to me, I also recognize it as something that happens in this society.

Please be sure to tell all of your alleged gay friends that you voted against Prop 8 because you don't think that gay rights are a civil rights issue, you don't think we're oppressed, and you conceive of gay people primarily as rich white men. And then please write back and tell us their response. And whether they send you a holiday card this year or keep inviting you over to dinner.

::

I have to disagree with this part on its face. There's been more sensationalizing about this issue than there has been factual reporting over the past few years.

If a woman chooses to believe her man is monogamous and not at high risk for HIV infection through drug use and based upon that belief chooses to have unprotected sex with him, that's on her and on her alone.

I'd like for more people to take seriously their role as their brother/sister's keeper, but at the end of the day, we must have the self-esteem and self-acceptance to take care of ourselves.

I've seen too many smart, educated, together women believe anything their man tells them because they feel powerless without a man that they bring ruin on themselves in many more ways than contracting HIV.

But that's a whole other matter.

You are right.

i recognize that as the danger of all this wordplay. many christians do use it as passive-agressive disrespect, the evidence being how many of us treat other stuff that is considered sin – lightly. the bible throws rocks at thiis political “church” and puts us all on equal ground as sinners. i chose to be a christian based on that yuk! conviction of how we are all equal. no one thing or “sin” can define me. just being human does.

but i'll just hope that you don't still see this as trying to be deceptive. i'm not trying to be that.

That's why I think the fundamental question can't be what my orientation is, but what's behind what makes me say this is right or wrong.

To say “believe what you believe, I support that” is attractive as a peacemaker, but that would disrespect my position and yours. If you believe one thing to be true, and I disagree, then mine must be false. I don't take that as hate, just as the necessary logic of it – even though, yeah, logic is still gonna hurt.

So, if you say, you are not Christian, and don't agree on those grounds, then I must be talking “deceptions.” No need for us to go crying and swinging; but we don't have the option of not recognizing real difference. I respect that.

on the church: i think it's opposite: silence = support, for political reasons. the best of pastors, and there are a few, will actually tell their congregations literally, “Don't take my word for it. You're of less value to this church if you don't study.” the backside of that is that the church that dares to take a bibilical stance on the lifestyle at the root while also looking out for the victims of it (esp. the kids) is still made pariah. these will not be your megachurches. that's not a complaint: it's to be expected. my point: if we can generalize about silence in these churches, i bet the silence isn't based on a stance against helping w/hiv aids, but rather a concerted attempt not to rock the boat by encroaching on the lifestyle of gay people.

I really can't stand this dynamic. And I don't know why Christians who push it can't see how ugly its fundamental deception actually is.

Look. To get raw about this: I know from actual lived experience that there is nothing, zero, nothing wrong with me being gay or having sex with my girlfriend. I mean it's just very basic clear knowledge that lives in various layers of me, including deep lived spiritual knowledge.

So when Christians try to make these roundabout claims that there they would not reject me as a gay person but imply there is something wrong with this behavior — love the sinner not the SIN, right? — and try to hide how that stance disrespects the actual lived experience and perception of those people who actually live this and know that the “behavior” is not wrong — no.

It is not kind. It is not better. To come from a spece of denial of another person's actual lived knowledge. This is passive-aggressive disrespect and ugly.

It does not lay groundwork for real discussion when you are coming from a place of denying and disrespecting other people's actual lived experience, naming something that people experience as good and even sacred in some case as sinning behavior.

Believe what you believe, I support that. But acting like this is some sort of good improvement over the more overt forms of deep disrespect (denigration, though I kind of hate that word) for gay people — that claim is deceptive to my eyes.

Anyway, I am not Christian by ancestry or otherwise, so I normally just stay away from these discussions. But deception gets to me and this deception just got to me hard right now.

I saw it done with the passage of Prop. 209 twelve years ago – Ward Connerly personally contracted this Cal State Professor to come up with the title “California Civil Rights Initiative” which all but STRIPPED away Affirmative Action and Civil Rights in California. The only reason Connerly's initiative hasn't been as successful in other states except Michigan, is because Californians have been countering him in those states and letting their legislatures know what the real deal is.

I'm not talking religion but facts. The number of Black Women with HIV continues to grow, and that's not because all these women are drug-addicts, or dealing with drug-addicts, either. Many of these women believe they are in monogamous relationships with Black Men who are on the D.L. about their sexual identity and orientation. When these brothas choose to keep their sexual preferences in the closet, and engage in relationships with Black Women, and NOT tell them whether or not they have slept with other men, they take away the woman's right to make the decision to have sex with him, which is a violation of a woman's right to choose in the highest order.

Secondly, most Black Churches would rather remain silent on HIV/AIDS and the issue of sexuality because it is believed to discuss this means the pastor is in SUPPORT of the issue. Our people perish because of LACK OF KNOWLEDGE, and would rather depend on what the Reverend is saying in the pulpit and take it as gospel, rather than doing their own homework.

If people don't know or don't understand, they should be comfortable in saying so – then we can get down to the business of educating people on these issues. The Mormons counted on Black Folks' ignorance and played on their willingness to engage in dogmatic application of Scripture, which serves more often to abuse and control, rather than to help and educate.

I needed this laugh.

And I had to give sistergirl many kudos for her exquisite essay.

I agree, the challenge is much greater. Which is why I think it's far too simplistic to keep comparing each and every injustice to the Civil Rights Movement. Especially when the parallels aren't necessarily there.

Again, I have a similar beef with black leadership today. It's time we stop milking the sentimentality of the Civil Rights Movement and come up with new strategies to affect change. Our ideas have grown stale and predictable. This is one of the reasons I supported Obama's candidacy . . . NOT to push the old guard out, but to let more of the new guard in.

We've grown accustomed to believing that every social issue fits neatly within the mold/template of the Civil Rights Movement. They do not. And while there are clear emotional connections to the past in theory, they do not necessarily translate to effective change in practice.

For example: Comparing gay marriage to Loving v. Virginia is an emotional tactic. The analogy works until one realizes the fact that sexual preference/orientation is NOT a suspect classification. Sure, it's a legal distinction, but it makes a big difference if you plan to argue same-sex marriage before the U.S. Supreme Court (which is where I think this issue is headed).

The gay rights movement will have to jump through a series of hoops (fair or unfair) before it convinces the Court that homosexuality is an immutable trait (that's if they even decide to go that route). That, along with a well-documented history of anti-gay discrimination, is the key to obtaining strict scrutiny under the law.

In Loving v. Virginia the Court acknowledged the suspect classification of race in its reasoning:

“Over the years, this Court has consistently repudiated '(d)istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry' as being 'odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.' At the very least, the Equal Protection Clause demands that racial calssifications, especially suspect in criminal statutes, be subjected to the 'most rigid scrutiny,' Korematsu v. United States (1944), and, if they are ever to be upheld, they must be shown to be necessary to the accomplishment of some permissible state objective, independent of the racial discrimination which it was the object of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate.” (emphasis added)

This entire quote is “strict scrutiny” jurisprudence. And it's a privilege of legal rationale that, at the moment, is not granted on the basis of sexual orientation/preference. This is a big missing piece from the puzzle of gay equality.

It's hard to avoid strategical calculations when discussing civil rights. Indeed, I still believe Loving v. Virginia might not have turned out the way it did had the petitioner been an interracial couple composed of a black man and a white woman (but that's another discussion altogether, dealing with the sexual politics of bm/wf interracial couples).

My guess is that the gay rights activists want to go in this direction of immutable characteristics. But it's going to take a lot more strategy to get there than simply invoking the spirit of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, it will take a dedicated effort to educate and build coalitions with other groups to get there.

So when I talk about strategy, I'm asking for gay rights activists to lay out an effective political and legal argument . . . this is not based on emotion, but on case precedent.

When I talk about political strategy, I speak of a need to openly discuss the issue of “covering” as it relates to the gay community. I believe that this “covering” serves as one the biggest obstacles in black/gay coalition politics. For the most part, blacks can't sympathize with “covering.” I think a lot of us see it as a privilege, not a burden. . . which is why comparing the two struggles of blacks and gays is often a non-starter.

Strategy, education and outreach is the path to success. Unfortunately, I think the political left is lacking on all three fronts at the moment.

I'm not denying anyone's right to feel emotionally about this subject. But emotion won't win gay equality under a rightward-leaning judicial branch.

::

This is a simple truth, rikyrah. My literary work explores this from every angle. I hate to shamelessly plug (well, not really), but my book “Fumbling Toward Divinity: The Adoption Scriptures” is the most comprehensive exploration of this that I've written today.

There will be more.

::

This very Supreme Court already laid the groundwork for declaring any law against gay marriage as unconstitutional when it struck down anti-sodomy laws on the premise that they are covered by the right to privacy.

And this very Supreme Court already told us as much. It practically invited a gay marriage case to be brought forth, but in the years since the invitation, there's been nothing but chirping among gay marriage activists.