Well, if You Insist
My vent the other day has had one reaction, sent off-list, which is very much worth reading. I added it as an anonymous comment.
I've finally been seeing some glimmer of recognition that the one thing the pro-equality forces have not done so far is get their hands dirty. Dignity is no use when someone has mugged you and dragged you into the gutter. You are already in the gutter: the question becomes whether you will fight to survive or not.
So, being more than usually bent, I'm tossing out some ideas that may be useful in the gutter, and could at least add to the theatricality of the next few months.
What about "Kiss Kris" and Kiss Cirignano" campaigns? Keep in mind that these are people terrified of AIDS, and perhaps generally phobic about contact with all humans (the ones they aren't knocking down). Many such people also believe everyone who is gay or who supports same-sex marriage is HIV-positive and infects with a touch. It's time to comfort the poor bastards with a nice wet smooch, or at least a hug, whenever they appear in public.
The best thing about the door-to-door campaign is that it's so boring. Don't think for a minute that the straight majority really are on your side. They're just bored with it all. It's valuable to bore as many people as possible.
The worst thing about the door-to-door campaign is that there is no time for it.
However, it may be possible to bore another 15 legislators. If boredom fails, there's fear. Depriving several thousand people of civil rights without due process is a constitutional minefield that could easily turn against opponents of same-sex marriage. One might remind the holdouts that if their actions led to that outcome, everybody on the right would blame them; personally. All that argument needs is enough persuasiveness to plant seeds of doubt in obviously swayable and gutless people.
It might be time to drop the Brooks Brothers thing at demonstrations. In the early stages of public demonstration, at least, it was tacitly understood that the Equality people wanted a non-threatening look on the picket line: Fat lot of good that did: they still hated us. It's time to rub it in their faces. You could give them the Brooks Brothers as long as they behave themselves. When they act up, send out a drag platoon to spread hugs and kisses to the righteous multitude. Move another battalion of leatherfolk to the front ranks, just to stand there and silently intimidate the fanatics.
I'm sure the idea would give Mass Equality fits. Well, they want my money. I want to see some spine and some street theatre for my money. Of course, such methods would require Mass Equality to get off its high horse, recognise differences within the ranks of the "different" (some that it has created), and make peace with people it too has marginalised.
The righteous always like to bus people to our demonstrations. Why are we not busing people to demonstrate at their churches?
Speaking of churches, there must be some people who are still trying to be gay and Catholic. OK, my catechism taught that civil marriage is no marriage at all. When did civil marriage become the obsession of the Catholic Church, and is this obsession not error*? Time to push back on this one...past time.
Somewhere along the line, the church stopped dwelling on the principle that non-Catholic religious marriages also were not marriages. How about bringing that out of the closet along with several other divisive chestnuts. Let the Protestant extremists see that in the inner sancta of the Vatican, the Counter-Reformation is not over, just taking a break. That, friends, is the biggest wedge issue of them all.
Is it not possible to probe the pasts of several of the key opponents of same-sex marriage? People so rabidly obsessed with this issue almost certainly have something to hide. I'm an old PR puke. I know that disclosures need merely to seem unseemly, not to meet a standard of evidence. You can knock righteous people off-centre with innuendo as well as indictment.
I'd like to see some evidence of that legendary gay creativity (coughs). If the system continues to fail this cause, there will be plenty of time for outrage (people ought to be planning that, just in case). What we need now is outrageousness. Cautious propriety has not done the job.
I'm glad to see that someone with actual readers thinks the same way:
http://queertoday.blogspot.com/2007/01/trav-esty-of-justice.html
Damn, I hate being right all the time.
-------------------------------------------
*Error, in Catholic usage, is
"A false judgment; a discrepancy between the mental judgment and the object of this judgment. Error is different from ignorance, although it implies ignorance and proceeds from it. Ignorance implies lack of knowledge without the formation of a judgment; error can occur only in the presence of some knowledge, and expresses a mistaken judgment...." (New Catholic Dictionary)
Isn't that terrific? By the way, The New Catholic Dictionary is a valuable insight into the religion's fundamental contradictions. It's loaded with canonical legalisms and unintended humour.
I've finally been seeing some glimmer of recognition that the one thing the pro-equality forces have not done so far is get their hands dirty. Dignity is no use when someone has mugged you and dragged you into the gutter. You are already in the gutter: the question becomes whether you will fight to survive or not.
So, being more than usually bent, I'm tossing out some ideas that may be useful in the gutter, and could at least add to the theatricality of the next few months.
What about "Kiss Kris" and Kiss Cirignano" campaigns? Keep in mind that these are people terrified of AIDS, and perhaps generally phobic about contact with all humans (the ones they aren't knocking down). Many such people also believe everyone who is gay or who supports same-sex marriage is HIV-positive and infects with a touch. It's time to comfort the poor bastards with a nice wet smooch, or at least a hug, whenever they appear in public.
The best thing about the door-to-door campaign is that it's so boring. Don't think for a minute that the straight majority really are on your side. They're just bored with it all. It's valuable to bore as many people as possible.
The worst thing about the door-to-door campaign is that there is no time for it.
However, it may be possible to bore another 15 legislators. If boredom fails, there's fear. Depriving several thousand people of civil rights without due process is a constitutional minefield that could easily turn against opponents of same-sex marriage. One might remind the holdouts that if their actions led to that outcome, everybody on the right would blame them; personally. All that argument needs is enough persuasiveness to plant seeds of doubt in obviously swayable and gutless people.
It might be time to drop the Brooks Brothers thing at demonstrations. In the early stages of public demonstration, at least, it was tacitly understood that the Equality people wanted a non-threatening look on the picket line: Fat lot of good that did: they still hated us. It's time to rub it in their faces. You could give them the Brooks Brothers as long as they behave themselves. When they act up, send out a drag platoon to spread hugs and kisses to the righteous multitude. Move another battalion of leatherfolk to the front ranks, just to stand there and silently intimidate the fanatics.
I'm sure the idea would give Mass Equality fits. Well, they want my money. I want to see some spine and some street theatre for my money. Of course, such methods would require Mass Equality to get off its high horse, recognise differences within the ranks of the "different" (some that it has created), and make peace with people it too has marginalised.
The righteous always like to bus people to our demonstrations. Why are we not busing people to demonstrate at their churches?
Speaking of churches, there must be some people who are still trying to be gay and Catholic. OK, my catechism taught that civil marriage is no marriage at all. When did civil marriage become the obsession of the Catholic Church, and is this obsession not error*? Time to push back on this one...past time.
Somewhere along the line, the church stopped dwelling on the principle that non-Catholic religious marriages also were not marriages. How about bringing that out of the closet along with several other divisive chestnuts. Let the Protestant extremists see that in the inner sancta of the Vatican, the Counter-Reformation is not over, just taking a break. That, friends, is the biggest wedge issue of them all.
Is it not possible to probe the pasts of several of the key opponents of same-sex marriage? People so rabidly obsessed with this issue almost certainly have something to hide. I'm an old PR puke. I know that disclosures need merely to seem unseemly, not to meet a standard of evidence. You can knock righteous people off-centre with innuendo as well as indictment.
I'd like to see some evidence of that legendary gay creativity (coughs). If the system continues to fail this cause, there will be plenty of time for outrage (people ought to be planning that, just in case). What we need now is outrageousness. Cautious propriety has not done the job.
I'm glad to see that someone with actual readers thinks the same way:
http://queertoday.blogspot.com/2007/01/trav-esty-of-justice.html
Damn, I hate being right all the time.
-------------------------------------------
*Error, in Catholic usage, is
"A false judgment; a discrepancy between the mental judgment and the object of this judgment. Error is different from ignorance, although it implies ignorance and proceeds from it. Ignorance implies lack of knowledge without the formation of a judgment; error can occur only in the presence of some knowledge, and expresses a mistaken judgment...." (New Catholic Dictionary)
Isn't that terrific? By the way, The New Catholic Dictionary is a valuable insight into the religion's fundamental contradictions. It's loaded with canonical legalisms and unintended humour.
posted by Uncle | 02:18
1 Comments:
Well, I confess that I got impatient. The last I saw here was good daughter/bad beer. The recent political pieces are heap good.
It astonishes me too that so many self-identified progressives and liberals state that the pro-marriage-equality folk must, just must, play by all the rules of nicety (and subsequent loss). This odious amendment got as far as it has with that Pollyanna attitude, aided strongly with the complicity of our gelding ex-governor, our senate president, our attorney general and our very cowardly SJC. So, now, the good guys are supposed to be sweet and compliant?
As Patrick Henry would say, "Forbid it, Almighty God!"
Much of the burden will fall on the pro-equality lobbyists in the next five months or so. I agree that they should be able to turn six legislators or more. Coupled with the six pro-equality ones elected and the absence of the worst haters who just retired, we should be set.
When Trav knows before the ConCon even starts that the Dark Side doesn't have 50 votes, watch him suddenly favor debate and a vote to defeat this amendment.
Then, let the people say, "Neener, neener, neener."
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