There has been a lot of recent buzz in the state of Washington. On the November ballot this year is the hot topic of gay rights. Here is the wording for Referendum 71, so there will be no confusion about what I am about to discuss.
This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage.
Okay, I think that is quite clear! All same-sex partners are asking for is the equal rights of married couples. Call it a Civil Union, call it a Contract Agreement, call it the end of civilization as we know it...whatever! But I think the wording at the very end of the last sentence says it all: a domestic partnership is NOT a marriage. Have the people against gay marriage even read what Referendum 71 says??
You would think that opponents of gay marriage rights who have for years now been trying to "protect the sanctity of marriage" would be okay with this. Right? I mean we're not trying to pervert the highly successful marriage rate that is never ruined by the concept of divorce, cheating spouses or reality shows (I'm talking about you, John and Kate - because there is a perfect example of a happily sanctified marriage!).
Today as I was driving my bus route, I saw a sign in the back window of a car. It looked like it had been printed off a website, but the gist of it was to reject Referendum 71 to protect marriage and the following website was conveniently displayed in large bold letters so I could look it up when I got home.
http://www.protectmarriagewa.com/
Wow. Seriously? This is still an issue for people? One would think that people who are trying to protect the definition of a word would back off considering that the referendum CLEARLY states that domestic partnerships are NOT defined as a marriage. Exactly what leg do these people have left to stand on?
Seeing this defense still being used makes me wonder if this really is about their precious marriage definition. Perhaps this is really about fear. Lord knows the far right loves to spread hate through scare tactics. They fear what they do not understand so they rush to judgment and preach thinly veiled defenses for their agenda.
What other conclusion can I draw? It's right there on the front of their website:
Are the homosexuals finally going to take control of our culture and push their depraved lifestyle on our children and families?
Senator Val Stevens leads off her article on the front page of their website with that question. Well, Val - may I call you Val? -- the answer to your question is "NO!". Homosexuals, by asking for the same rights of married couples, are not trying to push our "depraved lifestyle" on your children and families. In fact, we promise we won't even invite you to the commitment ceremony, though we all know you'll be there anyway with pickets and cries of injustice. That's just your way.
If you want our tax money, then the least you can do is give us the same rights of married couples - a right we deserve no matter what your errant, fallible Bible says.
Senator Val Stevens continues: Amidst harassment and even death threats by the homosexual radicals pushing this into our faces, just enough signatures were gathered to give you the final say on the upcoming ballot.
I love when the far right takes their argument here. I jump up and down, giddy and clapping my hands. Is she seriously going to make this statement? Okay, clearly she is and has. I have yet to hear any of these claims proven in news reports. One would think that such claims, were they true, would be newsworthy. Last Spring police raided a gay bar and severely beat a gay man. We all know the story of Matthew Shepherd. Those stories were ALL over the news. Why have I not seen news reports backing up the claims of Senator Val?
There have been claims that people who signed the petition to get the issue of gay domestic partner rights on the 2009 November ballot are too scared to make themselves known because they worry about death threats and harassment. Well, there's that fear again! But seriously, are they that afraid that their own tactics will be used against them? I guess they are. I once heard someone say that people who stoop to criminal activity are often wary of having it done against them.
I had a conversation about this issue with a co-worker last week. I have been hearing an anti-referendum-71 commercial on local radio station Star 101.5 the past several weeks. The gist of the commercial is that Washington's politicians are "out of touch with the issues" and should be focusing on more important things like our wounded economy and the current war and the housing crisis. Frankly, this sounds like a recycled commercial script from past right-wing propaganda. It appears as though someone copied and pasted the script from previous editions and didn't really think to proofread his work. The commercial has no direction or purpose - well other than to promote fear and get people to reject Referendum 71. Oh, and by the way, it wasn't Washington state politicians who pushed to get this on the November ballot. It was, in fact, the right-wing conservatives. Senator Val herself admitted that.
Anyway, I was mentioning this commercial to my co-worker - a right-wing conservative Christian. He immediately shared with me something he heard on the radio -- a conservative DJ (I'm guessing Rush Limbaugh or that other idiot Glenn Beck) who said that the problem with Democrats is that they want everyone to not be concerned with the bedroom, but want to control every other room in the house. They want to suggest which light bulb we should use and which car we should drive.
I laughed and said to my coworker, "But can you see the difference between how Democrats face an issue and how Republicans do? If a Democrat doesn't like the light bulb you use, they aren't going to beat you within an inch of your life and leave you to die in the middle of nowhere tied to a fence. If a Democrat doesn't like that you drive an SUV or a Hummer, they're not going to declare for you eternal damnation because the Bible says so."
His response was to share with me reports of vandalism to SUV's and Hummers in the downtown area. Apparently, environmentalists have launched a campaign to inflict damage to vehicles parked in the Seattle area in the way of broken windshields, slashed tired and broken head and tail lights. My mouth must have dropped open because my co-worker stared at me and said, "What?"
I said, "Are you seriously comparing the beating of a human homosexual to the distruction of an SUV or a Hummer?" He tried to backpeddle, but still insisted that the distruction of private property is clearly wrong.
How about the distruction of the human spirit? How about the distruction of human rights? How about the distruction of souls? Well, I guess if they belong to perverted homosexuals, then they don't count.
My cousin was over for game night and, as usual, we had lots of giggles. I'm not sure how it came up, but at one point she asked me if I had heard the rumor that Matt Dallas, the really cute blue-eyed guy with the gorgeous smile from the ABC Family show Kyle XY is gay. I hadn't, but was very intrigued because, well...the guy is hot!
Naturally, I put a halt on our current game and ran to my computer to confirm this juicy bit of gossip. Unfortunately, every single website I found that was willingly spreading the rumor pointed to Prez Hilton as the source of the rumor.
I am NOT a fan of Prez Hilton at all. Sure we all love a bit of gossip, but Prez Hilton has made it his ... hobby? career? sadistic goal in life? to out closeted gay actors and I think it's a really shitty business.
When I was still trying to come out years ago, I was friends with a lesbian co-worker who is in her 50's. She doesn't hide who she is at all and frequently talks about her partner. I think it is great that she can be so comfortable about who she is. At the time, I was wishing I could be more like her, but it took all I could for me to just come out to her. Once we were sitting in the computer break room at work and in front of several people she asked me how my "date with the guy I liked" had gone. All heads turned to me and I gave an embarrassed chuckle and said "Hey, guess what...? I'm gay..."
Later I confronted her and asked her to keep questions like that for a time when there weren't other people around. Her response was something along the lines of it was time for me to come out and maybe she was right, but I really have a problem with out gays and lesbians who think that busting open the door of timid homosexuals and pushing them into the limelight. Let them come out on their own time!
This is what Prez Hilton does. He takes it upon himself to ruin the public life of celebrities for his own shits and giggles and I think it's disgusting.
Now I will admit that when my cousin told me about the Matt Dallas rumor I was thrilled. Frankly, he was the only reason I really ever watched Kyle XY. So yes, like a school girl I shamelessly flocked to find out more about this juicy rumor. But when I hear that it was started by someone like Prez Hilton, all the magic sputters out of the moment like air from a deflating balloon.
I guess this makes me a hypocrite. I was so willing to want to hear more about the rumor until I discovered that it was started by Prez, a bastard I'm not fond of because he outs closeted celebrities. Of course, I'm also contributing to the life of the rumor by talking about it here on my blog... What really bugs me is that he sites no reason for the rumor on his site. He just announces that "sources tell" him it's true. Ergo...it must be! Who needs proof when you're potentially ruining a man's career, right?
Okay, sure... Neil Patrick Harris has risen above his outting by the blog queen, so Matt Dallas has a chance to as well, but Dallas' show Kyle XY was cancelled and right now he's on the new show Eastwick as the boyfriend of one of the witches. He is SOO adorable, by the way! But his character is expendable and it wouldn't take much for ABC to decide that his character is no longer believable so they should just write him off the show. Then the poor guy is off looking for work again.
So, if there is truth to the rumor, well, welcome to the family, Matt. From what I've seen of you in interviews, you are a really sweet guy and don't deserve to be kicked from your safe haven by a bitchy blog queen. If it turns out that Prez is full of shit, I wouldn't be too upset if you beat him up to get even. Either way, I still think you're awesome!
Last spring a coworker and I were talking about views that people tend to have on life based on what they interpreted from the Bible. He lent me a book called Sins of Scripture by John Shelby Spong and told me that I would probably enjoy it. I didn't get around to reading it until last week and only then because my co-worker has started asking for his book back.
I only read the section of the book where Spong talks about homosexuality, but after doing so I placed a request on the book from the library because now I want to read the whole thing. For the topic of homosexuality, Spong addressed the verses most commonly used to promote homophobia and verse by verse explains how such views of them are groundless. While these ideas have been written about and debated before, I really enjoyed Spong's take on the verses and his commentary.
I was also struck by his views of the Bible. In the section I read, Spong goes to great lengths to explain how and why those verses might have been written. The book of Leviticus was written for an exiled Jewish community as a guide for how to keep themselves separate from the Babylonians with whom they lived at the time, hence all the diatery and other laws that Christians (who so frequently point to Levitical laws on homosexuality) don't themselves follow.
He also addressed the story of Sodom but, unlike the Christians who often point to that as a reason why God hates fags, he shows the entire story in context. He explains the practices of ALL cities at the time regarding visitors to a city who aren't immediately taken into a home for shelter (there weren't hotels at the time because traveling was so dangerous) and how the people of that town would proceed to humiliate them sexually. He also questions why an all-knowing God would need to send scouts to a city in the first place to determine if there are enough righteous souls worthy of saving that city from destruction. Wouldn't He already know? Furthermore, he questions why Lot, who offered up his virgin daughters for gang-rape in place of the angel scouts was considered a righteous man and spared from the later destruction of the city. Why were his daughters, who later slept with their father to bear children were spared as righteous. Far more questions are raised than answered when the FULL story is examined rather than just a small part.
Finally, Spong looks at "homophobic Paul." I had heard the theory before that Paul was a closeted homosexual, but to this notion, Spong also suggests that Paul was a fundamentalist and fanatic follower of Scripture and his reason for including his verses on homosexuality were because he was wrestling with his own homosexual feelings and what he had always believed he had been taught through Scripture. He would have been well aware of the Leviticus laws and would have been horrified to see this in himself, so the only way he could deal with it was by condeming it. To me, this is like a senator condeming gays and fighting hard against gay rights and then being found seeking gay sex in an airport bathroom. Or a mayor fighting hard against gay rights and then finding himself in a controversy where he offered governmental positions to young men in exchange for sex with them. Just how credible are their condemnations of homosexuality now?
Shortly after reading this section of Spong's book, I was watching The Colbert Report and learned about Conservative Bible Project, a recent project of some conservative Christians hoping to change the Bible as we know it. Their goals are to remove all the Liberal propoganda put into current translations of the Bible. I once heard a woman on Montel Williams rave about something similar. She kept praising her black Bible which told her that white people are the enemy and are hated by God.
These two things have really gotten my thinking about the God I grew up worshiping. I have said before (and frankly, it's kind of obvious) that I was a Christian before I knew I was gay. Oh sure, there were signs I should have noticed very early on in my life. But the one thing I always knew from the moment I was baptized was the existence of God and his Son and their work in my life.
I have always believed that God exists because I see the miracles all around me and they are enough to convince me. Lately, though, I have found myself not going to church. I have found my talks with God to occur less and less. In wondering why this is happening, I have blamed this on my prolonged struggle with my sexuality. I keep hearing about the tyrant God who seems to hate everyone! This God of Love that I sung about in Sunday School is starting to be described by sign-weilding fanatics as a monster who throws a tantrum if He doesn't get His way. If I continue to be gay, then He will send me to the fiery depths of Hell.
This God that the Right-wing Christians love to speak for is not the God I grew up loving. The God I have always known saved my mother from meninjitis and, the year before that, from a very nasty spider bite. He is the God whose loving touch created things like puppy dogs and spectacular sunsets. The God I grew up loving doesn't hate.
Frankly, I don't think that the right-wing Christians who claim to be the spokespeople for God are what they claim at all. I think they are completely missing God's mission of Love. As they march around with their WWJD bracelets, they do exactly what Jesus would never do. Would Jesus kill doctors who perform abortions? Would Jesus have rudely picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard or soldiers who died fighting in a war? They are so driven by their hate that they are blinded to the real Message. They remind me of certain terrorists who took over planes and flew them into towers and the Pentagon eight years ago.
Thankfully, I know that not all Christians are this way. I have found many churches that don't agree with this picture of a hateful God. They are accepting of everyone and more in tune with God's Message. Those are the kinds of people I want to be hanging out with!
I just need to get my lazy ass to their church on Sundays!
*Sigh*
Today, I had an all day chorus rehearsal and for lunch, a friend, Jeff, and I walked to Westlake Center for lunch. On our trip back, we passed by a group of four or five people holding up poster-sized pictures of President Obama on which they had stenciled mustaches resembling Hitler's. As we passed by them, I was quietly commenting to my friend that those people were very disturbing and then I turned around and added "...and pathetic!" so they could hear.
Now, I don't think it is a big surprise that I was not a fan of George W. Bush. I think he did a fantastic job of ruining this country and I think that the Republicans are trying to put that blame on our current president. Never, in the four years of that terrible presidency, did I have a desire to stand on a street corner holding a picture of him with a Hitler-like mustache. It would just be too pathetic.
I saw many people protesting Bush's decision to take us into a war, but not once did I see anything as offensive as what I saw today. The man was made fun of because he said really crazy things. Jokes were made about him questioning his intelligence and status as an effective president. But I honestly don't remember ever seeing anything as disturbing as what I saw today and I have marched in a gay pride parade past closed-minded bigots with signs declaring that there is a place for me in Hell because God hates me. I think that what I saw today was way more disturbing than "God Hates Fags!" signs. Those people are foolishly claiming to be the Voice of God by holding up those signs and I fully believe they will have to answer for that after they die (if they even make it to Heaven) and they are doing their best to ruin a fabulous parade. But we fags can march right past those pathetic morons and pretend that they aren't even there.
But how can you walk past pathetic cretins who are holding up signs that pictorially depict the President of the United States as one of the worst criminals, murderers and bigots in the history of the world? I mean seriously! What in the name of everything good and holy in this world can justify comparing Obama to Hitler? How is that comparison even seriously considered? Is the creation of an unpopular health care plan REALLY up there with the murder of millions of Jews and an attempt at world domination? Okay, so President Obama called Kanye West a jackass. Kanye West IS a jackass! Does that make President Obama Hitler? Seriously, I really want to know what makes these pathetic morons compare our President with Hitler. 'Cause I just do not see the connection!
Those people I saw today are pathetic. Yeah, yeah...freedom of speech, yadda yadda... But no doubt about it, those people are pathetic.
