Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Confirming something good

Reaction and commentary on the Maine loss:

Here's more from Radical Russ, the guy who noted that Mainers approved medical marijuana but not gay marriage as I reported earlier today. The medical marijuana ads featured real fragile people getting relief from weed with threats of the cops busting down the door. Can (did) the gay marriage promoters present "emotional gut punches of a real live person about to suffer a horrible consequence from which only you, the voter, can rescue them?"

He takes up the idea I posted about before: why should the voter care?
Why does the average married religious conservative het voter need to vote for marriage equality? Because it's fair? Life ain't fair. Because it's a right? Never has been before. What's in it for them? Or, what bad thing is in it for them if they don't support it?

Perhaps the hangup is only on the word marriage. Maybe not, considering how close the Washington state DP law vote was. Gays know their marriages are the same as the straight variety. But do straights know that in the gut?

Currently, as a married het man, being married means I am like other married het men. We share sterotypical stories of wives who nag, mother-in-law jokes, and hidden stashes of porn.
But if gay marriage comes to pass, who I am as a married man is now like the old familiar straight married guys I identify with plus a new set of gay married guys whose roles and identities are different than mine. Absent any compelling need to change, I'm going to vote to keep things familiar.

A reply to Radical Russ notes the anti-gays won on lies and those lies are potent. But through every campaign and the passage of every year those lies will lose their power, and for a simple reason. There's no evidence behind the lies and the public eventually sees what gays, especially married gays, are really like. The lies become more outrageous (the ones they tell now aren't?) and soon the public won't swallow them. Then we win.


Another voice says don't take what happened in Maine as a loss. There are some good things that came out of it:

* We had the opportunity to educate the public about our rights (or their lack).

* 47% of the population voted for us.

* The Fundies seem to concede that gays deserve humane and, perhaps, equal treatment (the margin in Kalamazoo was big). We're now arguing over details.

* The votes this year weren't to fend off something bad, but to confirm something good.

* The flame of our spirit may have flickered a bit but our backs aren't broken. The fight isn't over.

* We can learn from it -- ultimate victory will be a tough slog and take a lot of work. Much of that work now needs to take place in rural areas.

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