Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Tarheel state comes out against something that isn’t happening
I love my southern sistern and brethren. Hard not to really. They produced Faulkner, O’Connor, Armstrong, Young, red beans and rice, peach cobbler (mmmmmm), and barbecue. Michael Jordan, considered by some to be the best basketball player, is a North Carolina native and he learned the game from UNC legend Dean Smith.
So the south has much going for it (there is that thing called Jim Crow but let’s be generous today), but there are moments when I wonder what’s going on when they talk about same-sex marriage. A few weeks ago some group in West Virginia tried its best to make the state ground zero when it comes to the marriage debate. Aside from hubris the group also decided to well lie (or be forgetful with the truth) because it said straight couples would be under the boot of gay couples if same sex marriage became a reality in West Virginia.
This week, in my family’s home state of North Carolina, another group decided to rally against marriage rights. The rally, sponsored by a group called Return America, demanded that state legislators give the people a chance to vote for a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage. Marriage for gay couples is already denied in North Carolina,
These anti same sex marriage advocates perplex me. It’s like they don’t read newspapers or know where the fight is going on. North Carolina and West Virginia!? Maybe I shouldn’t say this to the folk in NC, but I’ll throw it out there. Your home state is safe. You might want to head west if same sex marriage is such an issue with you. In fact there’s some case being heard by the California Supreme Court right now.
James, here in Florida we had 2 laws limiting and defining marriage, yet they still voted for an amendment. They are scared and know constitutional amendments are much harder to correct than mere laws.
BTW, NC is one of the most beautiful states in terms of natural beauty. I love it up there in the Smokeys. I hope the people will show their beauty as well by not voting for this proposed amendment.
Yes there are many talented people that came out of North Carolina and i agree, they came out of NC because they LEFT THE PLACE. I live here and i know that if you have any talents or opinions that doesn’t involve church or family you are scorned. I know NCSA is here but that’s because people who could not get out of here had to MAKE somewhere to go. I can’t go a day without someone telling me i am wrong and i am going to hell. So I am not shocked in the least that someone is trying to stop us even after we have been stoped.
Dear Drewski,
I love you, dear, but North Carolina is not revoking anybody’s rights because they never granted gay people the right to marry in the first place.
But I agree that bashing Southerners is not very productive. The South has produced some of our greatest cultural figures (though most of them had to leave the South in order to fulfill their talent), and in many places in the South queer people lead happy and fulfilled lives.
Right on. I love you Drewski.
I spoke from my knowledge. I never–NEVER–said that suddenly the South had leapfrogged from Tennessee Williams to Deepak Chopra. I specifically acknowledged that I do not live in the South now, and have no desire to do so–I hate hot weather almost as I despise people pushing religion on me. Also, my observation was based on the urban South; just as most Americans don’t realize that Toronto is the size of Chicago, most non-Southerners don’t realize that Southerners are not the backwards, sentiment-ruled characters of Tennessee Williams, “Gone With the Wind,” or the Uncle Remus stories. As more people move to the South from other places (Nashville is 10% immigrant now), views change. The South has no tradition of immigration, but it’s happening now. I should mention that Massachusetts did everything it could to keep out “unwanted” influences from 1620 to at least 1800, and there are frequent references to the ongoing Quaker influence in Pennsylvania laws (like the inability to buy beer outside a beverage store, or any retail alcohol on a Sunday). Yes, the South is still churchy. No, not as much as it was. Yes, the South is still conservative in many respects. No, not as much as it was. But as I can see in these responses, those of us from the South are put on the defensive because we feel like we’re seen as a product of a rigid culture, not as individuals with our own views and experiences. DADT is very Southern in its insistence on a conservative standard, but its tacit acknowledgement of something otherwise. We who are from the South don’t necessarily agree with that mentality, but I can say for myself that it’s insulting that people from outside the culture refuse to make any effort to see it on its own terms, and then immediately assume that all things Southern are also backward and illogical. Check on the Prop 8 appeal before you pass judgment on the South, because right now North Carolina isn’t revoking anybody’s rights.
Was wondering what happened to the guy who used to do 365 gay news before Ross? Can’t remember his name, but wondered what happened to him.
I was born in Kansas, but raised by an Arkansas born mother and a Missouri born father on Long Island, NY from 5-15.
They decided to return to their roots when I was 15 and dragged me to Arkansas.
The culture shock was almost unbearable.
I went from the largest school system in the country to a 7 room high school.
I had been in an honors program in NY. When they transferred my credits, I had just a little over a year to finish before I qualified by Arkansas standards to get my diploma. I went from 9th grade to 10-12 grade. My second year there, I had only two classes.
Critical thinking skills were non-existent.
Everything was based on how they “felt” about it. Opinion beat fact every time. “Humor” was telling someone a lie about some local anecdote and then thinking it hilarious when someone who didn’t know or didn’t care believed the lie.
I never did figure that out.
Unfortunately, I got stuck in the south/midwest for the next 30 years, give or take.
My husband was raised in New Hampshire and thru some life-stuff got stuck in the south/midwest too.
The first opportunity we had, we moved back to New England…Maine, specifically.
People have asked how we could give up the warm weather of the south for the bitterly cold winters in Maine.
Our response?
You can shovel snow. You can’t shovel stupid.
I know all the southern guys here are going to pitch a fit, but southern people are stupid. They are raised to put more emphasis on opinion, “feeeeelings” and fantasy–mostly due to religion, but partly due to plain old denial–than on evidence and reality.
This is the strongest “tradition” of the south, and, face it, it shows.
To quote that venerable philosopher of film, Forrest Gump, Stupid is as Stupid does.
I lived in the Carolina’s for 17 years from age 8 to 26. There are no bounds when it comes from “Christian” Hate in the south. Their Al-Qaeda like religious extremism marks it as a racist, bigoted area that invites derision and scorn.
Believe it or not, it IS happening in the Tarheel State. North Carolina already has a Defense of Marriage law — “marriage is restricted to one man and one woman” — but some very vocal, well-funded groups are trying to stir up a state constitutional amendment. If they succeed in getting it to the voters, it would pass…the churches would make sure of it.
Meanwhile, we backwards Charlotte queers — and those others in Raleigh, Wilmington, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Asheville and elsewhere — are skulking around. We’re writing and calling our assembly members urging them against this. Oh wait, that almost sounds like activism. I forgot we’re all living in fear here.
I suppose the backward, fearful Southerners will have to do it on our own…but we’ve done that for ages and we’re used to it.
I have one more gripe.
YANKEE GAYS SHUT UP!
Where are you when we need you? Do you think of having events in our small community states? Do you think to bring your dollars and influence our communities? Do you think to have a national Pride event at different sites around the country so that cities fight for it so they can make money?
Or do you move to NY in Chelsea or Chicago in Boystown or San Francisco in the Castro, where you can disappear into a ghetto and have no effect on policy or politics as demonstrated by the Prop 8 and failure of the NY legislature to vote for marriage. GIve me a break. You are as a big of a coward as anybody.
And if you really were moving somewhere for political power, it would be Delaware. If the gay population of NY CHI an SF moved to Delaware, we would have a gay Governor, Senators, Reps, State Legislature and the rest. But you are just chicken looking to find a roost.
Well, I grew up in NC. And that is nice of you to bash our state sir, but you are not completely correct.
North Carolina is the first southern State to elect an openly gay mayor to one of its cities. And then the same city elected his partner to mayor subsequent to him.
North Carolina legislature has defeated a proposed amendment to the NC Constitution not once. But twice.
An openly gay man ran for Senator, and was taken seriously, this past year.
And Asheville, Charlotte, Chapel Hill, Raleigh WIlmington and Durham are becoming more friendly every day.
This is the same state that 20 years ago was represented by Jesse Helms. It is the buckle of the bible belt. And the home of the Southern Baptist Convention’s most relevant conservative seminary.
We tarheels have come a long way baby. And NC is the most progressive of the southern states. And one thing you should know about tarheels. They may not agree with what their children do, but they sure as hell are not going to let you tell them nor harm them.
I’m from the south. Thankfully my father moved us to CT for a New York job when I was quite young. The school in Ridgefield sent me to speach therapy, me being the only southerner they had encountered! (they kept trying to make me say butter instead of budd-ahhh).
But I visit the south often. My company has a call center in very, very backwards Charlotte. Gay men there live in fear…they don’t want to be “out” like we are up here (ok I’m generalizing) and are very sneaky and uneasy going out, using the back entrance etc.,etc.
Around the office I try to avoid religion. Here in the North people think you’re a nutter if you talk about religion (my favorite Tony Blair quote), but there, they wear it on their sleaves.
Sure, some urban centers have evolved, but why? Northerners have moved in. My native town of Atlanta is not the same because you don’t even here accents..it isn’t southern anymore, not even on the south side…..all transplants from New Jersey, it seems.
So it may be the churches, but it is the people that accept their evil influence. One time after driving from the airport I asked a group of coworkers if they were embarrassed that the first road you drive on in Charlotte is Billy Graham Parkway. They had no idea what I was talking about! They actually didn’t know the bigoted and evil workings of the southern church. Amazing.
yer kiddin’ us all, right Drewski?
It’s the churches. Same way across the South. People on their own–big city or small town–aren’t nearly as backwards as non-Southerners like to think. It’s possible to qualify as a redneck and have a pretty sophisticated take on human relations. But get in a group, and start with the churches, and all the sudden it’s a different story. The South has produced America’s best literature because of the Southern conflict between using the brain you have versus living in your traditions. That heritage is also why, though I don’t wanna move back to the South, I’m also very proud of the HUGE changes that have been embraced. The South isn’t the bastion of racism any more; the South isn’t resentful (of Northern commerce) any more; the South has shown an ability to stay deep in tradition and still move ahead, even if with baby steps. It’s still progress.