Down With "Equality!"

The California Supreme has ruled 6-to-1 that Prop 8 is legal and binding and that existing same-sex marriages are valid. It's as expected, according to most analysts I've heard. So now the conspiracy theories fly, the masses are once again outraged, and crazed queers and allies everywhere are preparing for gay Armageddon. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. But I am interested to see what the rally at the Utah state capitol is like. I'd like to go to see what's in people's eyes, hear the tidbits of conversation here and there, see the faces of protest, and witness the sexual debauchery of a depraved mass of sexual deviants. I hear they're into public displays of their perverse practices, so I'm looking forward to that.

With all the clamor and the battle cries for marriage rights, I think gay activists are, in a way, shooting themselves in the foot. I believe they're fostering or perpetuating a distrust and an "us or them" environment that has stifled and will continue to impede progress in other less hazy areas of equality such as employment, housing, and domestic partnership rights, at least here in Utah. Even if the anger and outrage does win out, I expect the cultural wounds and divides will continue for years to come. So much for harmony and tolerance. "This is war and we've had enough!" OK, so be it. Keep those blinders on and demonize those who oppose you rather than building understanding, just like MLK, Jr. and other peaceful political revolutionaries. Puh-leez.

Do some of you not see that in the minds of most people the marriage issue is not just about "equality" or about hating gay people? Do you honestly not get that it's entirely possible for someone to support and fight for equality in all civil rights but to believe marriage is inherently a male-female partnership already equally available to all citizens? I think until that kind of gay activist starts showing some understanding of that, they're going to be disregarded by their opposition and will reflect a certain blindness, ignorance, or stubbornness. But nobody's allowed to call anyone in the "gay community" such names for fear of political backlash. Wait, screw political backlash. You're blind, ignorant, and stubborn. If you want to show you really understand the issues, pull your heads out, pansies! You can only tell how stanky and limited your perspective has gotten and clean it up after you've pulled your head out and really looked around. If you do it before your equally head-in-butt opponents do, you'll look that much better, too. Sure, your opponents may not be able to see you facing them, standing upright with your newly buttless heads, but onlookers who had been bemused by the scene of two sides of people with butt-swallowed heads will see it and take note of who's really looking at all sides. I'd give the same advice to my friends who oppose same-sex marriage, and to Republicans and Democrats and Mormons and Baptists and atheists and husbands and wives and roommates and...

Hopefully, I'll see something better tonight than a bunch of raging, angry militants with childishly nasty signs and earplugs declaring society's hatred and intolerance. That ain't my scene. What I'd like to see is a unity of strong, self-assured people demonstrating strength of conscience and will through their calm, reasonable insistence that change must come, articulating why and expressing hope, cooperation, understanding, and diligence in achieving that end. That makes more sense to me. We'll see...