Subscribe to Breaking NewsGood As You: We are offended. PERSONALLY
365gay will be sharing occasional posts from others in the blogosphere whose work we admire. Here’s the first one.
In this audio snippet from a recent California marriage panel, you’ll hear the voices of Skyline Church’s Dr. Jim Garlow, conservative personality Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, and Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton. Marvel in just how little they realize (or admit) how intrinsically personal their gay-exclusive actions really are.
Okay, first off: We aren’t TRYING to turn anything in this “culture war” into anything. Gay people’s response to having our rights hijacked is not something that we have coordinated in board rooms. The messaging for certain campaigns, maybe. But the pain, the frustration, the deeply personal hurt — that is organic. We accuse the other side of hurting our personal lives because they are — wait for it, wait for it — HURTING OUR PERSONAL LIVES. Realistically. Tangibly. Demonstrably. The hurt is both authentic and gut-wrenching.
As for the veganism argument? Well of course it is easier to disconnect that debate from one’s sense of personal self because it is a dietary choice, not an orientation. In fact, in terms of links between veganism and anti-gay sentiment, it would be a more accurate parallel to compare gay people with the cow! After all, since both the animal protection and the pro-gay arguments revolve around cruelty towards living things, those who are being subjected to the cruelty are the ones who can’t help but feel personally slighted!
And lastly — it is complete and utter B.S. to act as if the LGBT community is packed to the gills with people who are opposed to marriage equality. There are of course some, just like there are some devout evangelicals who are in favor of gay rights. But to suggest that there are “a number of” anti-marriage equality gays traipsing through this nation is as much of a red herring as saying opposing gay civil equality shouldn’t make a gay person feel personally slighted. Both ideas overlook actuality in favor of advantageous rhetoric.
But we do get why these kids feel the need to take this off a personal playing field. After all, human beings do have to sleep at night.
*MORE: Watch the full video from the 10/19 marriage panel. Above part begins around the 20:02 mark:
Jeremy Hooper blogs daily at GoodAsYou.
Dearly Brethren in Christ,
Greetings in the name of Lord our God.
Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus
Christ, Who gave himself for our sins, that he might delivers from this
present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father!
I am Fahim John I am servant of the Lord.I am serving among the poor villager Christian in paksitan I visited your site and I am very happy to see your wonderful work an I am very good in englsih to urdu and English to Punjabi translation I want to translate your newsletter and teachings distribute among the Pakistani chrsitian readers so that they may alos read that and get blessing it will be great pleasure for me that I work for your church I offer myself for this good work. Hope to hear from you GBU
Your in Christ
Fahim john
“… it is complete and utter B.S. to act as if the LGBT community is packed to the gills with people who are opposed to marriage equality.”
Try visiting Oklahoma.
Hurting our personal lives. Of course that’s what it’s all about. It always has been. Gays are, after all, not engaged in an academic debate in which the outcome has little personal importance. We are defending ourselves in a culture war from a malicious, unscrupulous, self-declared enemy. When you’re attacked in a war, common sense dictates that you unify your forces and fight back with a determination to win unconditionally and without apology.
Straight men are so very fragile; dominate powers must be ever vigilant, may never relax. Societal problems are because children don’t have relationships with their fathers. We hear ya’. Why don’t you fellows concentrate on showing up more for the children you father, then, instead of focusing on disallowing other kinds of loving families? It would all work if you just stopped being so damned afraid that you might be reduced to being “sperm doners.” And, you know what? Of course you do: gay marriage is not all and always about the children, it is about equality under the law.
Listening to these things, I find it very hard to not become as anti-religious as these people are anti-equality.
I left the gay life behind years ago, but have never forgotten the pain of being separated out and not acknowledged. Gays have every right to marry and call it marriage. Marriage is not a christian institution (least we find tax benefits, health, inheritance etc…laws that are written for heterosexual marriages) and Jews, Muslims, Indians, etc… are allowed to marry in this country.
It is offenseive to be denied a basic right. The origin of homosexuality should not matter – since it is the right of two consenting adults to decide how they wiull live their life – some resonate with their heart and not anything more.
And Tim has a good point – religious marriage is not the same as legal marriage. There seems to be a fuzzy line that the church is willing to overlook – so long as everyone else steps in line with their views.
Tim: Yea, the religious/civil thing is sort of a pet issue of mine. I’ve dedicated much ink to that subject over at G-A-Y.
-Jeremy
my thoughts:
legal marriage is not the same thing as religious marriage. did the christian church get angry when the government first required legal licenses? equal marriage is a legal issue, not a religious one. being openly gay, i have no expectation of a religious organization to go against its teaching to hold a equal marriage ceremony in its place of worship. that would be like holding a christian wedding in an islamic place of worship. if the seperation of church and state hold true, the idea of religious marriage would only be harmed by sharing the spotlight with its new found sibling. the religious, government, and homosexuals all need to understand this fundemental difference in the idea of equal marriage.
Oh, I see now — the audio snippet is posted at the linked text, “gay-exclusive actions really are.” Still, I think it’s confusing. If there is any way it can be embed like it was in the original post, it’d reach much better.
-Jeremy
I’m not sure why this was posted without the audio. The audio that should go between the 1st and 2nd paragraphs is the whole focus of the piece!
Please read it here for the full effect:
http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2008/10/audio-we-are-of.html
-Jeremy
Jeremy Hooper
Good As You
http://www.goodasyou.org
So we should not protect the rights of a group if membership in that group is voluntary, wait for it… like in a church?