Is it just me or should we be deeply concerned about the state of our social and political systems when chickens are gaining rights faster than homos? I mean, I’ll be the first to admit that chickens have had a long standing solid movement: Everything wants to taste like them, they have had Jim Henson and other prominent members of Hollywood as a long time advocates and promoters, and when you think ‘free range,’ what do you think? You think CHICKEN. And folks, that is some serious branding. So, good for chickens. I am just as passionate about their rights as the rest of California, as we should be. All animals deserve a level of justice and fair treatment, right?
But still, I am deeply bothered by the election results in California (and elsewhere but I am trying to focus on my upsets one and a time here). And after spinning things around and around in my head for a few days I think I’ve found the root source to my deepest place of concern:
Until Tuesday I had assumed that my struggle for equal rights was being funded, mobilized, battled, and batted down by this abstract entity of cross-toting, religious zealots that spend their time yelling to the sky in tongue while mobilizing against the queers with grand venom as a mere distraction to get people like baby W in office. BUT I had never ever, ever considered that the folks that are creating measures and voting against my ability to receive basic human rights were the blue people?!? The liberal, Obama supporting, Whole Food shopping, shade-grown coffee drinking, cloth grocery bag toting, recycle everything to save this planet for our children promoting, freer range chicken voting folks. Ever.
So when I realized this my head did a few flips and when it fell back onto my body and reattached itself I had a few new things to consider: I am obviously a tad more naïve than I would wish to admit; I obviously need to refocused my eyes and no longer safely consider the Obama bumper sticker as an auto-ally; it is unhealthy to ignore how disgusted I am with the people’s ability to abuse my life through government power; and I no longer have any clue as to who I am up against.
Measure 8 (and the other few homo-hating measures that I will emotionally sort through later) was a political hate crime. AND IT PASSED. AND I AM PISSED.
Although I was jumping up and down on Tuesday night, screaming YES WE CAN at the top of my lungs with the rest of the ecstatic Seattleites who took to and over the streets until the wee hours of Wednesday morning, I woke up, read the results and was totally pissed off. I kept asking myself, “who in the world?” until eventually the question went from rhetorical to literal. And that’s when the hurt began to penetrate.
I have no solutions. No plan. No idea where the emotional, community, political and legal repair will come from. Per my usual, I put on a thicker skin before I read the results, just in case, but that sort of blow cut right through to that soft little place that can usually take it easy because it is well protected and rarely gets hit. And it was shattered.
Wednesday morning I read the results of measure 8, hopped on the same old crowded bus to go to work and ended up crammed in next to a man, who, after bumping into another man at a jolted stop, began to rant and rave with a sweaty, red face that he was going to kill that fucking faggot if he so much as looked at him again- that if any homo looked him in the eyes he’d kill them. He repeated this chant several times, and each time he would emphasize louder than the last, and I mean any fucking homo.
I know he saw me as he got on the bus and as he continued to yell I continued to tuck into myself as much as I could, to prepare. I kept anticipating him punching me in the back of my head each time he said it, and I mean any fucking homo, but it never came.
It was 8:45 a.m. in Seattle Washington, one day after Barack Obama was elected president, and I was stuck on a crowded bus, on a stopped highway, next to a man yelling about how fucking queer motherfuckers are all deranged animals, and it is our human duty to kill deranged animals. Don’t let them suffer. Fucking kill them.
He was one of 100 people stuck on that bus and he was the only one that said a word that entire commute.
I was terrified.
And all of a sudden every little abstract attack on homos that I constantly but safely read about on paper or online was now standing right next to me, threatening to kill me over eye contact.
I believe in Barack Obama. I have renewed faith in the voice of the people and our political system. I feel empowered by our ability to apologize to each other and the whole world with our decisive presidential decision. And I am deeply humbled, in a very literal way, that we, the people of United States of America, as a collective, want greater things, want hope and change, prosperity, freedom and the ability to believe that anything is possible right now… for some.
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November 7, 2008 at 5:00 pm
honey
Yes, yes, yes. I also find myself not just disappointed in my fellow human beings (who claim to be loving, open minded people), but also afraid of them. “I thought we were in this together!” I want to yell and cry at all the folks in California who have suffered indignities because they were different in some culturally or socially stigmatized way.
I remember feeling a bit of the same way when W was elected. Twice. I thought, “Wow, I’m surrounded by people who have a value system that is in direct conflict with mine, and this is dangerous”. I didn’t expect to feel this way again, and I was so caught up in the Sunday evening Disney movie that was the election of Barack Obama that I really wasn’t ready, at least emotionally, to deal with such a direct betrayal by my peers.
I want to know who these people are. I’ve scoured the exit polling data in an attempt to understand who still sees gay people as a threat to their way of life. Is it just the religious people? Is it people who should know better? Could they know better? If it’s true that we’re at least one in ten, don’t these people have a niece or an uncle or an old friend who could make them see things differently? Is all the gayness in the media helping or hurting us? Why do people still see us as separate than they are? Why does sexuality and who people love matter to anyone else?
Obviously, I’m still suffering through this too. I’m deeply hurt. I’m also excited, though. I’m excited that this might get a bunch of us gays (and our allies) off our butts and we’ll do more to change things, starting now with all this pain and hurt and anger and translate it into changing the world. Haven’t you always wanted to change the world? Sounds fun.
November 7, 2008 at 9:32 pm
JMc
I fear the day I will be yanked out of the perceived safety of my bubble. Shit like that on the bus would have scared the piss out of me.
@Honey too, I think the latest stats say we gays are 1 in 3…I haven’t done the numbers but there should still be close link in everyone’s life.
Ok, I did quick numbers, because I am nerdy, and like stats. For comparison…something that hits close to home, 4% is the rate of cancer occurrence in the US, for all types of cancer, both genders, including all ethnic backgrounds. So even at a mere 3% chances are that everyone has or will have a gay connection in their lifetime…I hope it opens their eyes.
November 10, 2008 at 12:48 pm
em
Hi,
I’m em, I have been reading your site for awhile. I really loved the way you wrote about Fraidy.
I’m delurking because … well, since the election, I can’t shut up, really is the truth of why I’m delurking. For what it’s worth I was raised by fundamentalists, people who believe crazy things, ranters. So I’m very cranky about most Christians. And I wanted to blame prop 8 on the Christians. But then I volunteered for the No on 8 people and saw how they were running the campaign from the inside and though I’m disappointed to say it, I think that our No campaign is the main reason that we lost. That is not to remove blame from all the people who funded the Yes side. I was in southern California and maybe the northern California response was different, but down here, we were asked to not engage with anyone who didn’t agree with our position. We were asked to phone bank people who were already our supporters. And the thing is, I think we missed a big opportunity to talk to the people who are ignorant about gay…ness. Back in the 80′s the fundamentalists hit on a way to talk about homosexuality that they have embraced since then. It’s a Lifestyle! People choose to practice homosexuality! We hate the sin, not the sinner! And whether we like it or not, that resonated with a lot of people. I run into it all the time, to the point where anyone who knows me flinches if someone says “lifestyle”. It enrages me and I switch into education mode and bore the hell out of anyone within earshot.
I really believe that most of the people who voted for 8 are people who just don’t understand and we need to explain it to them. This is difficult for me to even say, because what I WANT to do is not explain. What I want to do is scream at them, and shame them for their stupidity. But that isn’t going to work, and I think explaining things will work. And even if the judicial process reaffirms equal rights in California, it’s in our best interests to educate the people around us because it will defang those hateful bigots known publicly as Mormons and Catholics and Spirit Filled Christians and whatever else they go by… though I’m honor bound to admit that they are not the only Christians out there and if other Christians want to stand up and help us educate I will be glad to have their help.
Something I think needs to be said out loud is that we are gay before we are sexual. How many of our mothers have said “oh I knew you were gay when you were 5 and you (fill in the blank)?” The argument that the “Christians” want to make is that homosexuality is about sex, and since Americans are neurotic about sex, that plays against us. But how many of us were teased pr shamed or physically threatened before we were pubescent because we were different? How many of us felt different than our peers before we understood why we felt that way? Many people who voted for Barack voted for republicans in other elections, but he explained to them why they needed to vote for him. He didn’t write off the south, he went in and included them in his conversation. I think that if we build bridges between us and straight people, we will be participating in healing the abominable rifts that Rovian politics have made in America. I didn’t see the No on 8 campaign willing to do that, and that is why I’m out there right now, writing comments, protesting the vote, processing my rage so that I can go build bridges with people I’m really mad at… people that have hurt my feelings really.
I’m sorry for writing a book in your comments, and thank you for your wonderful writing. I’ll probably go back to lurking now.
November 11, 2008 at 3:53 pm
jessejames
I appreciate, very much, all three of your well thought out and intelligent comments on this. I have more to say about all of it and not sure if I will post about it again. Regardless, your insight helped me to further sort things out and I thank you.
A few responses to your responses:
JMc- the stat comparisons are a great way to look at this. My concern is that even with the folks that are connected to me, family even, although they may love me, may, behind closed doors, vote against my potential to gain rights.
Honey: You put it perfectly with “…I’m surrounded by people who have a value system that is in direct conflict with mine, and this is dangerous”. Being stuck on the bus with that raging homo-hater really made that clear as it gets for me.
em: First of all, you are very well spoken and more than welcome “to write a book in [my] comments” on my blog. It is wonderful to get first hand insight on this as well. My very favorite thing, the bite that I am still chewing on is this, “Many people who voted for Barack voted for republicans in other elections, but he explained to them why they needed to vote for him.” How simple. How reasonable. How peaceful. How authentic. And it worked. There’s something really big in that idea that needs to be looked into.
November 11, 2008 at 5:54 pm
my gay agenda does not include patience « just like jesse james
[...] my rights as a homo. And honestly, I still don’t know what to do about things like measure 8 or the guy who threatened to kill me over eye contact a few days ago. But I am looking at our political history and our political present and I see a [...]