sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2004-04-30 08:07 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2004-04-30 08:07 pm
The possible good thing about Virginia...
I was reading a book review the other day about books concerning Brown vs. The Board of Ed. and it made me think about current events.
The thing about this law in Virginia is that it isn't surprising--it seems sadly inevitable. But inevitable does not mean final. On the contrary, in this review I was reading recently about new books about Brown vs. the Board of Ed. it talked about how we tend to think of that decision (which de-segregated schools in the US) as a huge landmark when ten years later in the deep south more than 98% of black children still attended segregated schools. The writer made the harsh but frankly true point that civil rights tend to be granted to minorities when it benefits the majority and I think the same is true now. The best thing that could happen for gay rights is for straight people to wake up and realize it benefits them as well. If there's a law that says one person can't decide who to leave their money to, why couldn't it apply to someone else?
So here's where I think Virginia could work in favor of that. In this review (which is in this week's New Yorker,) it's suggested that Brown inspired extreme opposition. And the civil rights movements of the sixties responded to that--it was a backlash to the backlash. That's the thing that struck a chord with me--the backlash against the backlash. First there were a few public statements in favor of gay marriage. These statements were enthusiastically received by a lot of people. But then the other side hit back hard, offering Constitutional amendments and now this. It was like total overkill; suddenly we were talking about writing discrimination into the Constitution via amendment. It was insane, even if it was never going to happen. (Of course, the scary thing about this administration is that they are extreme to the point of insanity and the more insane they are the more some people like them.)
But things like the law in Virginia, to me, seem like a good thing in their awfulness. Because I think it's a good thing that people can't hide behind a polite, "Oh, I really do support gay rights I just think it's confusing if we call it marriage because that's always meant man/woman during my lifetime." Now, in a perfect world it would be great if we had three different words for the marriage of two men, two women and a man and a woman just for clarity's sake or whatever. But really, it's always seemed to be it's not about clarity at all but about not wanting "them" to sully the word marriage. The Virginia law is, imo, at least honest. It says: if you are sick, we want to be able to keep your girlfriend by your side. If you were to die we want to take your child away from his father and give him to strangers. We also want to have a way to steal money you might want to leave to care for your significant other. We want to drive you out of our state.
This, I would hope, is in a small way a little like people who were suddenly confronted with the reality of separate but equal. There's a picture in the magazine I've seen before, that shows a young black woman, nicely-dressed, carrying a notebook, eyes straight ahead. Behind her are a whole lot of ugly white people, mostly women, glaring at her and shouting. These were no doubt people who before enforced de-segregation would have politely described segregation as just a way of life that suited everyone, a friendly thing. But challenge it and you get hard-line white supremecy, something that's harder for other white people to shrug off or not be humiliated by.
I'm not saying this is a completely parallel situation or anything, but it just seemed to be following a similar pattern. First it was a polite, "Oh, we all like it this way. We've got nothing against gay people. We just don't want them to use the word marriage" But challenge it and you gett laws saying it can't even be like a marriage. That yes, we we want to be able to legally break up families and hurt children and keep private citizens from conducting their own lives in ways the rest of us can. It just seems like this would hopefully be something that would speak to all the normal straight people who might not have noticed otherwise. It gets down to the real point: we don't like these people and would like to mistreat them legally.
I'm not saying this law is going to make everything better, and of course it would have been a lot better if people could have just been civilized to begin with and treat their fellow citizens with respect because there's no reason not to, but apparently that's not to be. I mean, it seems like the US has a habit of lurching from one extreme to another on things; it's the way we have to do things. I'm hoping that's what this is, that we just need the worst aspects of the country to come out to remind us what we really have to fear.
We seem to be doing it all at once, too. At the same time we're sinking to new heights of humiliating bigotry at home we're acting out in humiliating ways in the world and throwing tantrums when things don't go the way we want.
OMG. We're![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
potterstinks.
The thing about this law in Virginia is that it isn't surprising--it seems sadly inevitable. But inevitable does not mean final. On the contrary, in this review I was reading recently about new books about Brown vs. the Board of Ed. it talked about how we tend to think of that decision (which de-segregated schools in the US) as a huge landmark when ten years later in the deep south more than 98% of black children still attended segregated schools. The writer made the harsh but frankly true point that civil rights tend to be granted to minorities when it benefits the majority and I think the same is true now. The best thing that could happen for gay rights is for straight people to wake up and realize it benefits them as well. If there's a law that says one person can't decide who to leave their money to, why couldn't it apply to someone else?
So here's where I think Virginia could work in favor of that. In this review (which is in this week's New Yorker,) it's suggested that Brown inspired extreme opposition. And the civil rights movements of the sixties responded to that--it was a backlash to the backlash. That's the thing that struck a chord with me--the backlash against the backlash. First there were a few public statements in favor of gay marriage. These statements were enthusiastically received by a lot of people. But then the other side hit back hard, offering Constitutional amendments and now this. It was like total overkill; suddenly we were talking about writing discrimination into the Constitution via amendment. It was insane, even if it was never going to happen. (Of course, the scary thing about this administration is that they are extreme to the point of insanity and the more insane they are the more some people like them.)
But things like the law in Virginia, to me, seem like a good thing in their awfulness. Because I think it's a good thing that people can't hide behind a polite, "Oh, I really do support gay rights I just think it's confusing if we call it marriage because that's always meant man/woman during my lifetime." Now, in a perfect world it would be great if we had three different words for the marriage of two men, two women and a man and a woman just for clarity's sake or whatever. But really, it's always seemed to be it's not about clarity at all but about not wanting "them" to sully the word marriage. The Virginia law is, imo, at least honest. It says: if you are sick, we want to be able to keep your girlfriend by your side. If you were to die we want to take your child away from his father and give him to strangers. We also want to have a way to steal money you might want to leave to care for your significant other. We want to drive you out of our state.
This, I would hope, is in a small way a little like people who were suddenly confronted with the reality of separate but equal. There's a picture in the magazine I've seen before, that shows a young black woman, nicely-dressed, carrying a notebook, eyes straight ahead. Behind her are a whole lot of ugly white people, mostly women, glaring at her and shouting. These were no doubt people who before enforced de-segregation would have politely described segregation as just a way of life that suited everyone, a friendly thing. But challenge it and you get hard-line white supremecy, something that's harder for other white people to shrug off or not be humiliated by.
I'm not saying this is a completely parallel situation or anything, but it just seemed to be following a similar pattern. First it was a polite, "Oh, we all like it this way. We've got nothing against gay people. We just don't want them to use the word marriage" But challenge it and you gett laws saying it can't even be like a marriage. That yes, we we want to be able to legally break up families and hurt children and keep private citizens from conducting their own lives in ways the rest of us can. It just seems like this would hopefully be something that would speak to all the normal straight people who might not have noticed otherwise. It gets down to the real point: we don't like these people and would like to mistreat them legally.
I'm not saying this law is going to make everything better, and of course it would have been a lot better if people could have just been civilized to begin with and treat their fellow citizens with respect because there's no reason not to, but apparently that's not to be. I mean, it seems like the US has a habit of lurching from one extreme to another on things; it's the way we have to do things. I'm hoping that's what this is, that we just need the worst aspects of the country to come out to remind us what we really have to fear.
We seem to be doing it all at once, too. At the same time we're sinking to new heights of humiliating bigotry at home we're acting out in humiliating ways in the world and throwing tantrums when things don't go the way we want.
OMG. We're
potterstinks.
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What do you mean, "We're potterstinks?" Who are "we" and why are "we" potterstinks?
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http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomboyfag/100657.html
It's really sad that gay-bashing and fat-bashing seem to be so prevalent of late. *sigh* We really didn't need gay-bashing legalized in any state.
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I haven't seen the fat-bashing lately-lucky me. I'm sure it's out there.:-(
Interesting...
OMG. We're potterstinks.
Heh - indeed! That's what I thought as well, when I read your post. :D But my brain has also been running in circles for the entire week because of NA - God, the players know just how to mess with our heads! ;)
Ehm, also: Hi! I'm a lurker who often reads your journal. I hope it's ok that I friend you. :)
-+- Juwely.
Re: Interesting...
I'm definitely trying to hope for the best here, though of course nobody says it has to swing back the other way.:-(
One good thing is it seems like polls have shown that attitudes towards gay people are very different in younger people than older. There are many people alive who grew up at a time when discrimination against gay people wasn't even considered discrimination. Hopefully the courts will start to reflect a more realistic attitude in the future, and this will just be considered the dark time where insanity gave its last gasp on this issue. It's scary how unstable rights are.
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*prays*
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The backlash to the backlash theory has some merit. It’s true that civil rights tend to be granted to minorities when it benefits the majority. It becomes a political expedient to grant them, in order to stay in power. But the difficulty is in bringing the majority round to the view that granting the rights is indeed of benefit to them. And that can take ages and much energy and dedication. In the meantime there is, as you say, the sad inevitability of seeing the worst in people being spelled out.
To my (admittedly not American eyes) there are a couple of significant differences between Brown vs The Board of Education, which is the finding of the Courts, and the law in Virginia. The Brown case was a positive judgment, which resulted in a negative backlash (the picture you mentioned illustrates this), which then triggered a positive backlash.
On the other hand, I think the Virginia legislation can only be characterised as negative. There may well be a backlash to it (and even here we’ve seen some of the demonstrations against other Bush legislative initiatives, relating to late termination in pregnancy…another minefield of worrying decision-making), but the fact that it is enshrined in law makes it a harder obstacle to overcome. And in the meantime, peoples’ natural rights will be denied.
It’s incredibly worrying when the legislature is used to legitimise inequity. As I’ve mentioned on westmoon’s LJ, it’s the trend in government here too, with the Govt proposing to enshrine in legislation the meaning of ‘marriage’ as being ‘between a man and a woman’. Apparently this is to ‘reaffirm a bedrock of understanding in our society’. Right.
The world is a scary place, after all.
Lol – potterstinks indeed! I have been checking into the ‘Net more times this weekend than I ever have before, solely due to NA. I’m caught, and I’m definitely wibbling.
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Apparently this is to ‘reaffirm a bedrock of understanding in our society’. Right.
Isn't that completely insane? I mean, obviously it isn't a bedrock of understanding because that's why so many of us are saying otherwise. I can't stand it that they pretend they're re-affirming something we all agree on when of course they're just saying their own opinion is correct and others' opinions are wrong. Grrr.