I'm writing this post in pink so as to stir up your primal fears.
Some crappy entertainment show, Morning Sunrise, decided to cover Sydney’s first legal gay marriage this morning. Wow! Big deal! And what a big deal it was for some, decidedly intolerant, people.
Maybe it is a sign of my lack of tolerance, but I just can’t understand in this day and age how a gay coupling can ruffle some people’s sensibilities so much. One complainant wrote in stating, “I’m a traditionalist, a family man, and I think Sunrise should be ashamed for covering this event.” What could be more traditional than two people in love getting married? Does the fact that two gay people love each other mean that the heads of heterosexuals everywhere will suddenly explode? Now that he knows (as if he didn’t before!) that gay people are out there, will our traditionalist friend suddenly find himself unable to stop wearing pink, or perhaps discover that he's in the helpless thrall of topless Brad Pitt posters?
When will the world grow up?
But, hey, perhaps a little logic will help the bigots and homophobes out there. Let’s analyse where the real evil lies. Let me draw cards against the local homophobe. I’ll draw out of my deck the most evil, staunchly heterosexual men that I can think of. Okay, I’ll take out Adolph Hitler, Dick Cheney and Joseph Stalin. Now, which evil cards shall we draw from the homosexual deck? Hmmm… It seems real evil stems from heterosexual, middle class males.
‘I don’t care what they do in private, I just don’t like their ways being thrust in my face.’ Fuck off! I’d run out of fingers very quickly if I tried to count the amount of times I’ve seen a teenaged guy slobbering all over some girl at the local bus stop, however I can’t readily bring to mind the last time I saw two girls passionately going at it in the same environment. I can’t for the life of me remember the last time I saw two men holding hands. Even if the world was full of gay expressions of love, how hard would it be for the phobes to turn their heads? Every day the world turns its head away from racism, violence and the degradation of the environment, so how hard would it be to turn one’s head when confronted with the ‘horror’ of homosexuality?
Thus ends my rant for the day.
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5 comments:
Canada legalized gay marriage about a year and a half ago and holy heck what a shit storm that stirred up. What really gets me about the people who complain and picket against it (as well as most other forward thinking legislation) is that they somehow feel completely justified in forcing their views on others. Gays and lesbians just want the same rights as everyone else, these right wing nutters just want to force their lifestyle choices on the entire "free" world.
thankfully despite a bit of a right wing ruckus the gay marriage legislation hasn't stirred up any major issues here in canada. surprisingly, the whole thing blew over pretty quickly and nobody seems to care anymore :)
That is two conflicting accounts of the Canadian reaction to SSM. Maybe there was a different reaction in different provinces.
there was definitely a greater shitstorm created in some places like Alberta, but from an internal perspective most people were kind of embarassed by that response (the leader of that province claimed he'd invoke some ancient law that would exempt them from complying with federal law, but he's a nutter that somehow keeps getting elected for lack of competition - I mean for crying out loud, he once wandered drunk into a shelter and started yelling at homeless people -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Klein).
it seems that in terms of public opinion it was 50% on the pro side, maybe 20% "whatever" and 30% "hell no", most of which were Christian right-wingers who were vocal enough to grab global attention that did not adequately reflect public opinion.
honestly, CNN wouldn't report the rest of us shrugging our shoulders and going "yeah, so?".
and aside from some religious zealots mostly from a region bordering UTAH (that should say enough), most other religious leaders backed the legislation since a) they were not forced to allow anyone to marry within their religions and b) they feared that any limitations could be used to further limit religious practices and therefore generally preferred the government taking a less-restrictive stance on anything in order to prevent a sort of 'slippery slope' into state involvement where it should not be.
that's definitely not thorough and might not make sense but it is Monday morning which is a good excuse for lack of clarity, yes? :)
Yeah, and I live in Saskatchewan- I can see how things out east went a little smoother than here. We actually have an "activist" group in Regina that has had city counsel declare a "heterosexual pride day" complete with parade, the sole purpose of which is to bash homosexuals. The leader refers to himself as an "anti-sodomite marcher." http://www.christiangallery.com/whatcottparade.htm
The religious zealots, though the minority, always seem to garner so much more attention then the people who are tolerant.
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