2012
It’s happening again.
Remember Prop 8? For me, the wounds are still raw (current status: overturned but implementation stayed; trapped in the appellate process [English: not legal but in effect]). I went to a school that threw its 501(c) out the window in the name of religious zealotry and continues to treat some of its students as second-class.
Well, the human-rights-refusing fever has reached Minnesota—and, surprise surprise!, it’s excessively entangled with religion…again.
Go read this. My friend says it better than I could.
2010
On uppity lesbians.
For some reason, usually when I hear about homophobic bigots being homophobically bigoted, they’re doing it against gay men. I have my own theories about why lesbians fly under the radar (girl-on-girl appeals het men, the mere existence of lesbians doesn’t threaten men and who cares if it threatens women, &c.), but no more. The news has been alight this week with homophobes cracking down on gay women.
There’s the incredibly brave Mississippi high school senior whose school cancelled prom for the whole school rather than let two women dance together or worse, let one wear a tuxedo (horrors). The administration is hoping that a private *ahem* party will hold an invitation-only prom-replacement to which teh lesbians will not be invited. I am so impressed by these teens’ courage—it is directly proportional to the depths to which the homophobes sink.
And there’s Washington DC’s Catholic Cadre who [stays classy and has] kicked a preschooler out of school because his parents are *gasp* the same gender. Outrage comes from an unlikely source: Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly (who’s Catholic?! …yeah, okay that explains a lot, akshly.) demands to know if adulterous or divorced parents’ children will be expelled. The hilariously closeted Vatican shill spokesman sputters a bit and has no real reply except the underlying assumed “I’m scared of my own sexuality and so am scared of others’, too”. [h/t Jana]
*sigh* I feel like it’s going to get worse before it gets better (does this count, yet?). But I still feel, deep inside me that it will get better.
2009
The Hypocrisy of Dallin H. Oaks.
I spent about 2-3 hours over the past couple of days writing a point by point rebuttal to LDS apostle Dallin Oaks’ recent talk in which he compares recent violence and harassment against Prop 8 supporters to the violence and intimidation tactics of opponents of the Civil Rights Movement. For the past hour I’ve been reviewing the acts of vandalism against Churches and the verbal harassment of supporters (and in some cases, suspected supporters).
I have to take a moment here to say that I condemn such violence and harassment without reservation. During a peaceful protest at a Mormon Temple after the election, I and other activists tried to restrain some of the more ‘in your face’ protesters when they confronted people leaving the adjacent chapel. Many of my friends, who voted no on Prop 8, attended that meetinghouse, after all.
But reading through the human cost of the Civil Rights Movement, I’m sickened by the analogy to the point where I’m convinced that Oaks is his own worst enemy. As I read about the refusal of Southern State governments to prosecute Klan members for the savage beatings and murders of activists, of police support and coordination of organized beatings of boycotters and sit-ins, of torture endured by jailed freedom riders, of shootings/beatings/arsons against blacks who tried to register to vote, and all of this occurring after decades of systemized, socially-sanctioned and state-supported intimidation and disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, Oaks’ comparison is so bad as to appear satirical.
Further worsening his attempt to make young Mormons feel that they are being deprived of their right to freedom of religion is that his arguments are all hypothetical. Mormons are as free to practice their religion as they ever were. But thousands of gays who, for a short space of time, had the right to marry, were, by Prop 8 supporters, actually deprived of that right. The sad thing is that so many Mormons are uncritically swallowing down Oaks’ verbal excrement.
Further exacerbating Oaks’ hypocrisy is that the Church was no friend of the Civil Rights Movement. Then apostle Ezra Taft Benson, with the backing of President McKay, made several public condemnations linking the black fight for equality with Communism (making it a threat to national security). The Church also withheld exaltation and administrative authority from blacks until 1978 (recall that the Civil Rights Movement was as much about dignity as it was about legal rights), and that a predominantly Mormon Utah had the weakest state protections for the rights of minorities outside of the South. Its single legislative concession during that time was the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws in 1963.
Finally, while Oaks rambles on about how Mormon rights are being deprived because a few churches were spray painted at the height of voter frustration, gays face actual persecution on a daily basis. They continue to be denied the right to marry and to serve their country openly in the military. They are harassed to the point where many find life unbearable and commit suicide. Finally, gays are beaten and killed solely for their orientation. Dallin Oaks, the LDS institution and many of its members continue to contribute to a cultural environment that endangers gays by painting them and love between gays as ungodly, unnatural, sick, depraved, immoral, and threatening to fundamental principles of Christian and American life.
At the moment, my one consolation is that this Church finds me unfit to be a member. I can stand with my queer sisters and brothers and friends with some dignity.
2009
“I have a Gay Friend…”
It occurred to me on this morning (and this is what I think about in bed on a Saturday morning [when this post was written] when I should be dreaming) that there is probably an inverse relation between how much you use the term “I have a gay friend” (especially in political conversations) and actually having meaningful relationships you have with people who happen to be sexually attracted to people with similar reproductive equipment. This data set, of course, excludes people who publicly own their hostility towards gays. I can find no instances of Glenn Beck or James Dobson admitting to having gay friends. It makes me wonder, too, if Ted Haggard and Larry Craig have any friends.
I’ve written a lot on gender and queer issues and against Prop 8, so I wondered if I ever used the phrase myself. I found only one instance, in a brilliant (if I do say so myself) *satirical* piece last October. I should note that this post is probably contains several counts of whatever it was that made them kick me out of the Church.
As far as I can tell, conservatives wield “I have a gay friend” like a talisman to shield themselves against charges of discrimination. “I can’t be homophobic or bigoted against gays, because I have a gay friend! (Vote for Prop 8!)” The most famous example in recent history is Sarah Palin, who said “I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her dearly. And she is not my ‘gay friend,’ she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made. But I am not going to judge people.” Note her clever disavowal of the gay friend cliché: “I’m not using the trope if I say I’m not.” And her love for her friend allows her to dodge the bigot bullet when she opposes the right of all gays, including her friend, to marry.
Finally, I wonder what is the reverse of the phenomenon of the conservative’s gay friend? Do we liberals have token Fundamentalist Christian friends who we drag into political conversations as unwitting, never-present allies? Certainly conservatives aren’t the only ones who fall to this temptation?
On a serious note, I don’t think that I’ve escaped the trap of “I have a {blank} friend” in the past, and so in one respect, this is a self-critique. Hopefully I’ve learned from past mistakes. That said, let me state that at least in one sense, I don’t have any gay friends. I have friends with names and lives and passions and experiences and quirks and jobs and beliefs and heartaches and goals. This is not to deny that , and I acknowledge that, too. But I realize that all my friends and family and coworkers and acquaintances are complex human beings who don’t represent or sit in for an entire race or class or gender or sexual orientation. I hope that I will never will treat my friends of any stripe or creed as political or status symbols.
And remember, conservatives, that merely having a gay acquaintance is not an automatic “I’m not a bigot” card. No matter what kind of lip service you pay, no matter how you dress it up, denying an entire class of human beings of a basic right simply because they want to marry someone of the same gender is discrimination, bigotry, homophobia.
2009
Extinguishing the Lights Along the Shore: One Man Speaks against Prop 8 in an LDS Meeting
b&w lighthouse by john curley, shared under a creative commons license.
I loved to sing as a Mormon. I sucked, but I didn’t suck so bad that I couldn’t do a public performance on occasion. I particularly loved singing in small, 4-man choirs. I was usually the baritone.
One of my favorite hymns to sing this way was Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy (lyrics and mp3: warning, LDS Church site). It describes a dramatic scene: a storm-tossed sea, sailors on the verge of being overcome, hoping desperately to land, and behold: you stand in a protected harbor, and by holding your lantern high you guide the half-drowned souls to safety. Here are some of the lyrics:
1. Brightly beams our Father’s mercy
From his lighthouse evermore,
But to us he gives the keeping
Of the lights along the shore.[Chorus]
Let the lower lights be burning;
Send a gleam across the wave.
Some poor fainting, struggling seaman
You may rescue, you may save.…
3. Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;
Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,
Trying now to make the harbor,
In the darkness may be lost.
If you buy into the LDS Church’s totalizing world view, with its strict but loving Father God, (as I once did) then the story described above, while filled with danger and darkness, is a noble one. But let’s say that your conscience dictates that you shouldn’t work actively to deprive a minority of their rights, and you attempt to shine forth your light on that subject. Here is one such example:
The Bishop in this video did not hold up a light. He ran through the darkness, knocked the lamp out of the hands of a man engaged in a selfless gesture, and stamped it under his heel until the flame went out.
This, my friends, is the institutional Church’s attitude towards the truth. Todd is a brave soul–it’s a shame that you actually have to be brave to voice your personal opinion in an LDS service on a political position that Church leaders on the one hand have said is yours freely to choose, and that you won’t be disciplined for. Note that the Church shouldn’t be upset about using the pulpit to voice his feelings on Prop 8: I witnessed LDS authorities do that when I attended a pre-election Prop 8 rally and organizational meeting via satellite broadcast from LDS HQ last year.
And even if you can argue that the Church has every right to constrain what is said across its pulpits, the truth is that it does not value any member’s voice of conscience that contradicts or criticizes its doctrines, policies or leaders in any venue.
The LDS Church defends a particular narrative, and guides all comers towards it. I don’t deny that many have found safe harbor there. But what if you’re trying to land nearby, or even to sail away from it?
Then the Mormon Church is a shipwrecker, shining a false light from its tower, actively seeking to destroy the lamps held by its members. And the saddest thing is that the metaphor crosses into reality at this point, and lives are lost in those dark waters as the lights go out.
2009
Spark: Video of LDS Security Taking Down Gay Couple.
The video doesn’t starts with the security guards and the gay couple getting acquainted. There’s only so much you can get out of a video like this, but to my eye it seems to confirm Aune and Jones’ version of the incident. The couple is not a threat; they remain seated until the takedown; they are outnumbered (and outweighed!). The body language of the guards is telling as well.
2009
By xJane
No Comments
Spark: Gay Legal Rights Upheld
Nationwide, Christians who refuse to provide services on the basis of gender orientation are losing legal battles.
2009
By xJane
2 Comments
OMG, go watch Kings, now.
It’s got it all: atheism, spirituality, god, scifi, and good music!! Hulu’s got the first four eps up right now (and it doesn’t keep them forever), so go catch up. It’s too smart and too well written to stay on the air for long.
It’s the story of Kings David and Saul transposed into a country that looks like present-day America. It’s smart, sometimes funny, and often reminds me of Dune with it’s spiritual overtones (the King has been selected by a nebulous God, only to be usurped by the next King by the same God). Each ep gives me another song that I want to get (including one by Liszt). The characters are sympathetic and real, even the minor ones; the issues that they have are painful and don’t feel contrived.
This is a new generation of scifi—it’s not utopian or dystopian. It’s just other. And awesome.
2009
By xJane
20 Comments
Fucking Friday: Rape (S.A.A.M.)
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and, to kick things off, I’d like to take issue with the growing prevalence of the word “rape” as a slang synonym for “dominated”, “rocked’, or “killed”. Both I and a friend have recently had Facebook “friends” (which of course could be anyone from a mere acquaintance to a spouse) claim to have “raped” a final in their status:
her: is hoping that she raped that final!!! PARRRRTTTAYYYY time!!!
him: Fuckin raped 2 finals and now one more to go
I know the author of the second well enough to comment on it. Facebook now allows a user to “like” or give a thumbs up to something someone else has posted. The following thread ensued:
me: “Fuckin raped 2 finals” …I wonder if one can “unlike” a comment.
him: haha possibly… all you gotta do is type that you dont like it.
me: consider it done
He later changed his status to
him: fuckin destroyed all three finals and now time to turn off the brain!
which I considered a win. I “liked” that status.
But now I wish I’d gone farther. I wish I’d made it more clear that I was offended by the status, and that I was offended by “raped 2 finals” rather than “fuckin”. Swearing on your Facebook page is stupid, but inoffensive to me (I know for a fact that all his managers are on Facebook—I’m friends with most of them). Using “rape” as a description of power and of power over an inanimate object is flat out offensive. When I sent my messages, I felt like the Bad Feminist FriendTM: the one who is offended by little things that “normal” people aren’t offended by and don’t even notice; the one who never finds jokes funny and is just a pain to ever be around. But I simply couldn’t let it slide.
I know that others disagree, but I would much rather replace “rape” with “kill” in the above. I have killed finals in the past (I have had finals kill me, too); I have dominated, I have destroyed, but I have never raped a final. Or anything else (besides the earth, with my car…). This is not a term to be used lightly. This is not a word to be normalized.
2009
Spark: Vermont Approves Civil Marriage
The Vermont Senate, finding (correctly) that Civil Unions for gay couples fall short of providing equal rights, voted overwhelmingly to approve Civil Marriage for gay couples. The matter still has to go before the Vermont House (and since I’m late to this, may already have gone), where it is expected to pass. The margin by which it was approved is too great for the governor to veto (if he were to try).
As others have said before me, This Is How We Do It!
2009
By John
7 Comments
Finally, Some Good News!
Today, the Obama Administration signed onto the UN call for the decriminalization of homosexuality. In 77 countries, it is a crime to be attracted to members of the same sex, and in seven, merely being gay is punishable by death.
This UN declaration has nothing to do with visiting rights or adoption or insurance for partners or marriage or sex: we’re talking about the criminalization of a fundamental desire. The U.S. under a conservative Evangelical Christian last year and many Islamic states and the Vatican still refuse to sign something that asserts that gays have the basic right to life. Someone want to make the case, in this context, that conservative religion is a force for progress?
Finally, I have to say that I am impressed with the Secretary of State’s strong advocacy:
Human rights is and always will be one of the pillars of our foreign policy. In particular, persecution and discrimination against gays and lesbians is something we take very seriously.
Well spoken, Madame Clinton. This is why I voted for your boss.
2009
Sexual Identity & Faith: Growing Up Gay in a Christian Family
This is another lecture that was put on at my school, this time by the ACLU, in response to Prop 8. The California Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments about the Constitutionality of Prop 8 a week from tomorrow. In preparation for that, the local ACLU chapter invited to gay people who grew up in religious families to tell their stories to us—one whose family eventually accepted him and the other whose family is not as accepting.
My first thought at arriving at the appointed time & place was that I must be in the wrong room. There was far too good a turn out (including a number of professors). The president of our local chapter introduced the two panelists and said that she felt it was important, with Prop 8 looming on the horizon, to put a human face on the reality of our homosexual friends and neighbors. She wanted us to hear the story of people struggling for acceptance in their family, community, and faith, but that it was not her story to tell. Read more >>