Learn From It

In this late stage of the game, I'm often offended by people bringing up homosexuality like it's just another political notion, or worse, a social-engineering soupbone for the Rabid Right to gnaw on. I'm put off by having to even bring up my being gay when it's a conscious shift in conversation.

I'm the last person in the world to think that any of us <irony>faggots</irony> are somehow flaunting our sexuality by merely stating that we're gay or that we're partnered to someone of the same sex. On the contrary, I find others to be flaunting their sheltered, bourgeois, homogeneity by assuming in the first place that everyone they meet is straight. And if some of you out there want a good look at the gay agenda, well, there it is: stop assuming that hegemony is the same thing as totality.

Yep, that's it, AnnSeanRushWPatAdNauseum, that's all of it. Stop assuming, because you're turning u and me into asses.

Just because you state—from however visible a pulpit—that there's somehow a "tyranny of the minority" with your so-called "activist judges" and "sinister gay agenda", doesn't make it true. It doesn't even make it plausible.

Toqueville identified it a long time ago. He coined the original phrase "tyranny of the majority" in America (see how clever Right Wingnuts can be, flip-flopping that word over and creating a whole new dogma out of it?) Here's a quote from his famous book, "Democracy in America". The quote is from Volume 1, Chapter 15: Unlimited Power of the Majority, and Its Consequences, Part II:

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right which the majority has of commanding, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind. It has been asserted that a people can never entirely outstep the boundaries of justice and of reason in those affairs which are more peculiarly its own, and that consequently, full power may fearlessly be given to the majority by which it is represented. But this language is that of a slave.

A majority taken collectively may be regarded as a being whose opinions, and most frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another being, which is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man, possessing absolute power, may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should a majority not be liable to the same reproach? Men are not apt to change their characters by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength. *c And for these reasons I can never willingly invest any number of my fellow- creatures with that unlimited authority which I should refuse to any one of them.

[Footnote c: No one will assert that a people cannot forcibly wrong another people; but parties may be looked upon as lesser nations within a greater one, and they are aliens to each other: if, therefore, it be admitted that a nation can act tyrannically towards another nation, it cannot be denied that a party may do the same towards another party.]

In my mind, the salient part: "Men are not apt to change their characters by agglomeration; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with the consciousness of their strength.", because contained in it is the word I've been looking for to describe the apparent strength of the American Right: agglomeration. That is not to say that that's all there is to the Republican Party. I would not be so bold as to lump them all together; they're doing the lumping all on their own. But they do lead with it. More to the point, look at all the initiatives the Bushies consider important, and then consider for yourselves, what all those initiatives have in common, from the point of view of agglomeration.

They're defensive. Look up the synonyms of 'defensive' and tell me that most of those don't apply. Oh hell, I'll post 'em here:

arresting, averting, balking, checking, conservative, coping with, defending, foiling, forestalling, frustrating, guarding, in opposition, interrupting, opposing, preservative, preventive, protecting, resistive, safeguarding, thwarting, uptight, watchful, withstanding

So with Cheney's recent comments (or restatements, as some have pointed out) about Mary being contrary to W's just days before the Republican National Convention, and with small-government Republicans (remember those?) being squeezed out while W screeds "I'm compassionate!" from the bully spot, I wonder if gay marriage actually DOES cause straight people to split apart.

The bulk of the behavior of the pro-Bush agglomerate is only a piling-on attempt (often successful) to frustrate and arrest the initiative of those who oppose. Not very constructive—much less inventive—and it leaves them with no bandwidth left to ponder the question "and then what?". Seriously, what does the car-chasing dog do when he finally catches the bumper?

Before a real, nationally-televised split could possibly happen, though, I'm sure the ameliorators and the -cough, cough- peacemakers (blessed be) will want to reduce the importance of same-sex marriage into a very small platform plank. One small enough for the effete white straight men to brandish with stealth and effectiveness.