-Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn propose a compromise on the issue of gay marriage.
-James Dobson resigns as chairman of Focus on the Family.
-The New Mexico state senate votes against domestic partnerships.
-The Tennessee legislature considers a bill that would ban adoption by individuals in a same-sex relationship.
-The NAACP calls on the California Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8.
-Randy Thomas reiterates: “Actually I do think there is a relational and possibly comprehensive worldview/ideology that underlies even the premise of identifying as gay.”
–Acceptance of gays and lesbians grows among British evangelicals.
Re Rauch and Blankenhorn….
In further breaking news, black people are to be counted as three-fifths of a white person. It’s a COMPROMISE.
By ‘person’, I mean ‘man’. Actually, also, ‘by’ should be ‘buy’ — I prefer using purely commercial terms when I’m talking bout the coloured folk, or natives etc.
I’d like to argue that point, and all that, on the grounds of “All Men are Created Equal” etc … but it’s apparently it’s all Constitutional and reflecting the (w)ill of the People. By ‘people’ I mean ‘white people’: I already believe that most of the coloured folks will appreciate my stepping in and preventing them from the consequences of, well, being coloured folks. All part of the service we Caucasian people provide. There’s only so many 24oz bottles of booze, gang-bangings and illegitimate children coloured folks can deal with.
Sorry folks, let me just lean into this bucket {hurl} oooh that’s better. Much better.
Where was we … oh yes… Jonathan Rauch…
We will organise around, but never COMPROMISE with prejudice.
Jonathan Rauch will live to regret that column. Ya know, and he knows. Already.
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And… who cares what randy thomas ‘reiterates’.
He claims to have been gay, and deformed by drugs, at the same time “Flock of Seagulls” were a one-hit wonder. He is still not yet heterosexual, despite being an Expert.
There’s something about “I Ran” that makes our heterosexual f[r]iends laugh their heads off whenever we whip it out. It’s nonsense. Pretence. Wimpy pathetic 1980’s BS.
Kind of like Exodus, put to music. Honestly, who’d go for that???
Big difference between the what Rauch & Blankenhorn propose and the example from history you refer to as an analogy: the Three-Fifths Compromise had nothing to do with furthering emancipation and everything to do with power. Northerners didn’t want slaves counted at all since that would give slaveowners more representation in Congress than they deserved, while Southerners wanted slaves counted as full persons even though they kept them in chains. This compromise is the only thing that kept the South in the Union at that time. We can argue about the morality and/or necessity of this but this example is entirely irrelevant to what Rauch & Blackenhorn propose. If you want to draw something from the long struggle for full rights for blacks, this proposal is like the many compromises that were made over the years in reaching that goal. Why do we think that we are any different than every other group that has had to pick and choose its battles, including making perhaps distasteful compromises, in order to achieve their goals?
My letter to the NY Times editors about the “compromise” editorial
This is real upsetting to me as I will be moving there in June of this year. I get so frustrated that a gay person has to either fight for his/her rights, and it has to been done every day on a city, county, state, and federal level.
And if they are denying us basic rights because of their belief that we are immoral, then anyone who commits an immoral act should have their rights immediately stripped away. So the next time a RCC priests destroys the life of an unsuspecting altar boy, he shouldn’t even be given a pot to piss in. If another Evangelical Minister uses his church money to pay a prostitute to have realtions with, his marriage should be null and void immediately upon conviction.
Bottom line … being a second class citizen sucks.
Part of it is the “immorality.” But I don’t think that that’s the reason people like ex-gays give for opposing equality. I say that because the Christians who “love” us are all to quick to point out that they, too, are sinners. But their sin is not “endorsed” and “rewarded” with equal rights.
And there are those who will, no matter what, not ever think two men or two women (or two people without a gender, for that matter!) will ever be anything more than roommates or “f**k buddies.”
We need to show them the stories of love. When people see that two gay men are not an abstract concept of deviancy and are actually two committed partners who seek marriage, that’s when the walls start to collapse in people’s hearts.
Emily:
You are absolutely right. But it does get frustrating dealing with people who can’t think outside the box. I just wish they had to go through what most of us go through, just for an hour, you know, walk in someone else’s shoes sorta thing, because I know they wouldn’t last twelve minutes. If they went into a hospital to see their son who was injured at school and asked to show court documents proving that he is their son, or have their spouse be denied health care coverage from their insurance company, or plan vacations according to tolerance (you know, like Utah may not be a friendly place to visit…better in a gay-friendlier state, etc.)
If evangelicals don’t have to recognize gay marriages, then the compromise should include not having to recognize Christian marriages. It’s the end result of the Golden Rule – if evangelicals are treating people the way they want to be treated, then treat them accordingly.