Let me propose a hypothesis to you. Most of the people who voted to outlaw gay marriage don’t really care about gay marriage at all. They care about their own lives and the rising divorce rate, resulting from the tumult and chaos that is part of our changing society. The thing is, even if homos didn’t exist, society would continue to change and they’d still be unhappy. Divorce rates are high for totally unrelated reasons. A successful response would be listening to the concerns that people are voicing, and how the Republicans successfully sold people on it, then designing something that actually addresses people’s concerns rather than resisting the proposed Republican “solution”.
Talk about the rising divorce rate, and how it can be reduced. Say, mandatory waiting times for marriage with offers of education or counseling. Then point out how outlawing gay marriage will hurt straight people by creating unstable marriages as gay people deperately try to conform, until they can’t take it anymore, and end up killing themselves or divorcing their spouse.
Our fundamental values are right.
Ranting about the stupidity/malice/inattention/thoughtlessness of the American public accomplishes nothing except piss people off. They are real people. They matter.
The failure to identify and address people’s concerns is where the Kerry/Edwards ticket lost. It’s not about having the answers. It’s about providing people with a warm fuzzy. On the bread and circuses front, the dems need more circuses.
Fags Against Divorce?
😮
Not a bad idea at all, but my brain (which you’ve already deemed either diseased or not of this world) can’t help but imagine the weekly TV series that comes of this–wherever a middle manager contemplates skipping dinner to work late, wherever the neglected housewife gives the UPS guy a second glance, a team of fabulous gay marriage counselors swoop in to save the day, complete with snapping and head strafing, “Oh no you don’t honey! See that ring you’re wearing? It means something.”
Bingo
There is the Charisma factor. Strike one.
As well as the “I feel like he’s one of us” factor. Strike two.
One of the reasons only Southern Democrats have made it into the Whitehouse in any recent time is that they generally have a “warmer” – AKA Clintonesque personality. People as a general whole didn’t feel comfortable with Kerry – that is a big problem. Its REALLY hard to win an election as a protest vote. (although it almost worked!)
Of course – before the primaries – I don’t think any of the Dems really felt as if they could win. Thank god for Dean – but it wasn’t enough.
I just hope there are stronger Dems waiting in the wings.
(And I do stand behind my critque of the “gay” community – or at least certain individuals and orgs and their poor timing)
Ranting about stupidity might not accomplish anything…
…but I’ve got documentation:
http://chrisevans3d.com/files/iq.htm
curious – what makes you think that they really don’t care about gay marriage at all?
Mostly because it would only affect a very small minority directly. And most of that minority aren’t opposed. =)
mmm, but thinking that someone only cares about something that affects them directly may be a pretty big assumption, no?
I’m basing this off of how the issue is framed by the republicans. It seems to have been an appealing framing. But it was interesting talking to a bush voting classmate of mine who had never really talked to a homo other than me in his life. Ditto at UW Madison for potential classmates.
of course, you mean *knowingly* talked to a homo 😉
of course. =)
I’m one of the people who has expressed dismay over the stupidity of the American people in the last couple days. I’d just like to say that I, at least, needed a couple days to vent out the emotions that had been building up over this election. Give me a couple more days, and I’ll be able to talk rationally about future politics 😉
Seriously, though, I think you have some interesting points. The only part that makes me wonder if you aren’t discounting the side of humans that _wants_ someone to be inferior is that a lot of people still see interracial relationships (much less marriage) as “wrong”, even though it is now perfectly legal, and people no longer claim that it will “harm marriage”… in a similar way, there are a lot of people who really aren’t thinking about divorce rates when the object to gay marriage – they really are just plain scared of it for no rational reason. They’ve been taught that it is wrong, and they react on an emotional, not a rational level.
Heck, even some tolerant people are affected by this – otherwise there would never be this whole idea of “civil unions are okay, but not marriage.” (Huh? It’s okay to give gays all the legal rights, but just not call it “marriage”? Why not just let them marry? It would be the same thing in the end, but not calling it marriage implies inferiority… separate is never actually equal).
Er, I’ll stop now. Like I wrote above, I’m still emotional about this, and need some time to cool down 😉
“civil unions are okay, but not marriage.” (Huh? It’s okay to give gays all the legal rights, but just not call it “marriage”? Why not just let them marry? It would be the same thing in the end, but not calling it marriage implies inferiority… separate is never actually equal)
However, this at least is a view I can comprehend. They’re uncomfortable with gay marriage due to meaning they’ve placed on the word, but at least they see the inequality in rights. It’s not like I can run around calling myself African American.
To continue to use them as an example, prejudice against them is being removed one step at a time. It’s taken us centuries to get to the amount of prejudice that exists against them now. IMHO gay rights will end up needing a similar path. First get civil unions passed, then wait for adults to grow up having known gay civil unions since birth, then manage to pass gay marriage. I’m not justifying things, just predicting.
I just wish the Confederate States would secede again.
I completely agree with the idea that at least it is a step forward – those people are recognizing the inequality, and realizing the inequality is bad. My purpose is bringing that up was to point out how even tolerant people are affected by the “emotions over reason” issue 😉
Off topic, but I finally figured out why your lj icon has been bugging me. I keep having an image of you saying “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”. Except that it somehow seems more credible coming from you.
As well it ought, though there was that one time at band camp…
I like your questioning, but wish you’d left out the needless election postmortem.
And just to show that I’m two faced, here’s my armchair analysis: I don’t believe that “divorce rates” is really a chief worry of the american populace, although it does key into a worry, which is the destruction of the american dream. That is, their lives will not meet the ideal that was sold to them as their lifelong aspiration. I think Marraige, in the american theology, means stability, certitude, fulfillment, and entitlement.
The only one that’s really likely to occur anymore is fulfillment, and even that takes a lot of work and isn’t guaranteed. The topic of gay marriage serves as a reminder that the dream they were sold is not becoming reality, and a vote against it is a desperate plea to regain those elements, or at least stave off their erosion. Creating a healthier social environment for marriages would be a task well accomplished for any national leader, and would assuage these concerns, though I’m not at all certain how this can be achieved from political actions. Morover, to create healthy marriage, I believe it is necessary for people to lose their expectation of entitlement. As such, I believe gay marriage will indirectly contribute to giving them what they are looking for.
Honesty as a political force
Well I think we’ve been incredibly duplicitous in our arguments for marriage. It is partially financial yes, and legally helpful, but really what this comes down to is equality. Tug at the heart strings, ie you just want what your parents have, or cinderella or whatever. We’ve made this about money, which works up to a point, but there’s no emotional connection there. It’s much harder to reject the concept when its more than a concept. Very few people would ban divorce, having known many a man or woman who needed to get out of a marriage.
We’re almost at a crest of a wave, just like the 70s, where we were moving so fast and AIDS forced us backwards, and forward. Backwards in the sense that all over the country people were given another, more palpable reason to demonize gay men, and forward because many, many people started to come out, rather than just move away to the coasts, cutting all ties. More people need to be honest about who they are. In D.C. there is a tacit tolerance of gays by African-Americans, as long as they aren’t black. Black gay men in particular, need to do a better job of standing up for themselves. The argument that the church is too powerful to be resisted doesn’t cut it; Massachusetts is full of Catholics.
More of us out, and interacting with our surroundings, our fellow people, will help our cause.
Then again, some parts of the country are just dangerous to stay in. Even so, the state with the most gay male couples raising children is Mississippi, according to the census, and many of those are black gay men.
/RANT
Re: Honesty as a political force
“In D.C. there is a tacit tolerance of gays by African-Americans, as long as they aren’t black. Black gay men in particular, need to do a better job of standing up for themselves.”
I’ve noticed an increasing tolerance of Asian-Americans by African-Americans as well, based on purely anecdotal evidence. As an Asian-American, I certainly don’t want to be stuck in one of the conservative states. Pittsburgh wasn’t even too bad and it was pretty annoying.