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Just One Of The Gays
Nov. 9th, 2004 08:31 pmSunday found me being lazy in the morning, but I got going in the afternoon, and went out to the Ren Fest. It was kind of dull without anyone else around, but I made the best of it, seeing a couple of shows and just getting out for the day. There were plenty of hot but straight bears running around that were definitely making it tough for the lonely bear who was running around the 16th century woods.
As dusk fell I waited for the fireworks to break out. Being in Texas, we didn't have the Northern Lights that some of the rest of you had last night to entertain, but for the last couple of years, to keep the crowd later, and to try to thin out the traffic snarl there used to be when people would try to all get out on the small Farm-to-Market road that leads back to civilization, they started a fireworks display. They had also tried to get their main cast to do more, having ma main ball at the end of the evening, but the cast has been steadily losing good players for years, and couldn't do the large scale production.
This year they started something new, some sort of Cirque du Soleil wannabe kind of thing for the post-dusk hours. Something to do with fire that they did in the jousting arena. There was the pre-requisite new-age music droning on and on and some people in shimmering suits running around like Geordi La Forge in that horrible episode where he becomes a neon sleesack or whatever that was on Star Trek. I guess the idea was that some guy, who was a fire breather, which was sort of cool, came to them, and brought them, well, fire. So here's something on fire, and something else on fire, and a rope on fire. Now that it had become a rhythmic gymnastics competition - on fire, and with apparently no end in sight, I thought it was time to go. It was sad that none of our glowing sleesacks were brave enough to play double dutch with the jump-rope - of fire!
I never saw the fireworks.
Still there were a few at dinner, all of them on my side.
I got to my parents house, and you know, I had an opportunity to talk to my mother about bears, and didn't take the opening. I was kind of tired, so when she asked me about the symbol on the T-shirt from Fiesta (a interlocking bear paw, sun and outline of a pink triangle - subtle, but one of the most "out" shirts I own), I waived her off and just said it was a symbol. For all of the times I have said I wanted to have a dialog about this with my folks, even moments later I found it strange that I turned her away on that.
We got to dinner and talked about sports for a while, but then Mom brought up the election and we were off to the races. Here we were at Chili's and I'm telling them how disappointed I was with the results. Honestly, the biggest disappointment wasn't with the president himself, I guess I had already steeled myself for that, and I kind of feel that he's a bit more moderate that how his campaign has gone, but it's the win for the Christian Right that frightens me. It's the people who were riding his coattails that frighten me. It's the fact that the opposition party seems to be crumbling that scares me.
Still, I ended up showing my dislike for both sides. Although I voted for Kerry, I certainly had reservations about him. Certainly the race he had run had been very poor, as was the president's, and both had seemed not to be who they really were, but puppets of systems designed by others to try to ensure voter turnout and to polarize certain reactions here and there. Kerry seemed to be the bigger chameleon, often having to follow what Bush has just said with a "me too". For example, if Bush says he'll kill terrorists, Kerry had to shout that he would kill them deader, because he was afraid that someone might not believe that he was a war vet, or that he might not be able to make a tough decision.
The funny thing is, if Kerry had just been himself a little more, and not worried so much about trying to be everything to everyone, maybe he would have gotten a few more votes for him, rather than against Bush. There was a huge turnout of people who were willing to vote against Bush, but I ask you, was Kerry himself compelling enough to excite more people to vote? When america looks and sees Bush, and this guy who isn't Bush, but often spouts positions that are just a little bit off of what Bush's are, is it enough of a difference to get you going?
In the long run of it, I thought Kerry would do just as well or better than Bush in terms of national security that it didn't matter to me. That's not a big endorsement. I kept wondering about those who were more anti-war than I, how they felt about Kerry wanting to still keep the war going, and that he'd kill terrorists? How did they rally around this candidate? It seemed that it all came down to choosing the lesser of two evils, and that was certainly the case for me, so obviously I chose Kerry.
And I lost. You know, with years of living in a Republican state, and dealing with it, voting for it, and knowing the policies, and supporting the policies that were once the hallmarks of the party, I can tolerate some of it. Maybe I'm more Reagan Democrat than Reagan Republican than I though, who knows? Still, Four years of Bush? Well, if I must. The problem doesn't lie so much with Bush, he's a lame duck president...for four years. In fact, I think you'll find that he may be a bit more moderate than the positions that he ran on.
The problem, as I told my parents, is the people with him, those who rode his coattails, and those who, for all intents and purposes, control him. The Tom DeLays, the Rick Sanatorums, the Karl Roves, these are the asses that you'll be seeing for a long, long time, and they are the architects of what's now come to pass, the assertion of a Fundamentalist Christian group into the American government.
It's interesting, Dad and I actually talked about the fact that (white) Southern Democrats saw the party moving away from them in a more liberal direction, and that the Republican party, so weak in the South, was ripe for takeover from within. Sadly, it's been done while kicking out any of the values the party once had. Sure, I'll agree the party wasn't much for social causes, but it was for fiscal responsibility, but that's been lost, it was for individual freedom, but now it's poised to draft some of the most draconian legislation in years, including re-launching the FMA and PATRIOT Act II. Who knows what will be left of our rights.
I'm not sure when it came up, but at one moment Mom said, "Well, we (meaning people of faith, I suppose) were getting tired of being called stupid." I admit I didn't have an answer for that one. I heard a lot of that in the car today, as I had to go to an out of the office training class. "They still think we're stupid, and they (the blue states) want to secede" said about three different hosts today. "Well, don't they know where their food and oil comes from?"
That's the best answer he could come up with?
Now I know these talk shows are trying to bring up trouble. They were talking about the United States of Canada/Jesusland map that I first saw in Alex's (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darke), journal about a week ago. Now that the election's over, they have to keep things hot, or they'll lose all of the audience gains they had from the election. The first rule of ratings, you always have to have an enemy.
"Well", I told Mom, "I can't deal with a group of people who are willing to sell me and my friends out for a few votes." I had wished I had had that chance to explain that symbol on my shirt.
Still, I had the opportunity to explain that it wasn't just about the marriage issue, it was deeper, for one, in Karl Rove's master scheme, it was all about staying in power, it didn't really matter about who he demonized, just as long as he got the needed people to the polls and didn't cost his candidate. Look, it's obvious that the Democratic party wasn't going to go very far to defend us, and it wasn't going to be that big of a backlash to put up a fight against two fags marring. We're a small group. It's still somewhat socially acceptably to knock us around a bit, sad but true, so the gambit was placed.
If they actually went for the real bastard of moral issues, abortion, then there would have been a fight, hell the Dems tried to get stem cell research out there, but even that wasn't a hot button topic. For some reason, it's all about gays getting hitched, even where it couldn't happen.
My mother meekly agreed with the thought that civil unions might be OK. Dad was quiet on the subject. I was surprised on that even. I made mention that if the president actually was in favor of civil unions, then he should make mention of that when he says he wants to "protect marriage". He needs to be clear so he doesn't come off as a bigot. He needs to separate himself from his friends who wrote the Republican platform that provides no protections for gays and their partners, period, and hopes to return to the time of sodomy laws.
Those are the people to fear.
I'm thinking my parents are finding my change in politics, first witnessed by reading my same-sex op-ed from February is permanent. Really, I don't think it's changed much at all, the personal freedoms and liberties that I've been for all along are still there, I'm probably just much more open about the who I'm fighting for (namely me!), and the equality issues that go along with that.
So I made sure to inform them that in many states the nastiness had gotten a little out of hand, telling them that the amendments were not only unnecessary, since most of those states already had unchallenged DOMA laws on the books, but they went farther to prohibit civil unions, and some went farther, like Virginia's recently passed amendment, that prohibits contracts between two people of the same sex, so you could challenge wills, domestic partner benefits, and power of attorney documents in court, since they'd be invalid. This, I said, is flat out bigotry, now being codified into law.
After the silence, I wondered if I had gone a bit far with the folks. In talking to Chris (oakleycub), about it last night, he asked if I had yelled or called my mother a name at any time during the conversation. I said no. "Then you're probably OK."
Chris said he and my sister had talked over the weekend, mainly about my mother, and no, Chris and my folks will not be meeting during the holidays, thank you. Chris told me that Laura and he agreed that one day Mom's going to be listening to Rush Limbaugh or someone and it's going to click that when he mentions "the gays" that he in fact, means her son. She knows, but she hasn't really put it together.
I said yeah, maybe. I don't know if that's sunk in just yet. We are from a red state, you know.
As dusk fell I waited for the fireworks to break out. Being in Texas, we didn't have the Northern Lights that some of the rest of you had last night to entertain, but for the last couple of years, to keep the crowd later, and to try to thin out the traffic snarl there used to be when people would try to all get out on the small Farm-to-Market road that leads back to civilization, they started a fireworks display. They had also tried to get their main cast to do more, having ma main ball at the end of the evening, but the cast has been steadily losing good players for years, and couldn't do the large scale production.
This year they started something new, some sort of Cirque du Soleil wannabe kind of thing for the post-dusk hours. Something to do with fire that they did in the jousting arena. There was the pre-requisite new-age music droning on and on and some people in shimmering suits running around like Geordi La Forge in that horrible episode where he becomes a neon sleesack or whatever that was on Star Trek. I guess the idea was that some guy, who was a fire breather, which was sort of cool, came to them, and brought them, well, fire. So here's something on fire, and something else on fire, and a rope on fire. Now that it had become a rhythmic gymnastics competition - on fire, and with apparently no end in sight, I thought it was time to go. It was sad that none of our glowing sleesacks were brave enough to play double dutch with the jump-rope - of fire!
I never saw the fireworks.
Still there were a few at dinner, all of them on my side.
I got to my parents house, and you know, I had an opportunity to talk to my mother about bears, and didn't take the opening. I was kind of tired, so when she asked me about the symbol on the T-shirt from Fiesta (a interlocking bear paw, sun and outline of a pink triangle - subtle, but one of the most "out" shirts I own), I waived her off and just said it was a symbol. For all of the times I have said I wanted to have a dialog about this with my folks, even moments later I found it strange that I turned her away on that.
We got to dinner and talked about sports for a while, but then Mom brought up the election and we were off to the races. Here we were at Chili's and I'm telling them how disappointed I was with the results. Honestly, the biggest disappointment wasn't with the president himself, I guess I had already steeled myself for that, and I kind of feel that he's a bit more moderate that how his campaign has gone, but it's the win for the Christian Right that frightens me. It's the people who were riding his coattails that frighten me. It's the fact that the opposition party seems to be crumbling that scares me.
Still, I ended up showing my dislike for both sides. Although I voted for Kerry, I certainly had reservations about him. Certainly the race he had run had been very poor, as was the president's, and both had seemed not to be who they really were, but puppets of systems designed by others to try to ensure voter turnout and to polarize certain reactions here and there. Kerry seemed to be the bigger chameleon, often having to follow what Bush has just said with a "me too". For example, if Bush says he'll kill terrorists, Kerry had to shout that he would kill them deader, because he was afraid that someone might not believe that he was a war vet, or that he might not be able to make a tough decision.
The funny thing is, if Kerry had just been himself a little more, and not worried so much about trying to be everything to everyone, maybe he would have gotten a few more votes for him, rather than against Bush. There was a huge turnout of people who were willing to vote against Bush, but I ask you, was Kerry himself compelling enough to excite more people to vote? When america looks and sees Bush, and this guy who isn't Bush, but often spouts positions that are just a little bit off of what Bush's are, is it enough of a difference to get you going?
In the long run of it, I thought Kerry would do just as well or better than Bush in terms of national security that it didn't matter to me. That's not a big endorsement. I kept wondering about those who were more anti-war than I, how they felt about Kerry wanting to still keep the war going, and that he'd kill terrorists? How did they rally around this candidate? It seemed that it all came down to choosing the lesser of two evils, and that was certainly the case for me, so obviously I chose Kerry.
And I lost. You know, with years of living in a Republican state, and dealing with it, voting for it, and knowing the policies, and supporting the policies that were once the hallmarks of the party, I can tolerate some of it. Maybe I'm more Reagan Democrat than Reagan Republican than I though, who knows? Still, Four years of Bush? Well, if I must. The problem doesn't lie so much with Bush, he's a lame duck president...for four years. In fact, I think you'll find that he may be a bit more moderate than the positions that he ran on.
The problem, as I told my parents, is the people with him, those who rode his coattails, and those who, for all intents and purposes, control him. The Tom DeLays, the Rick Sanatorums, the Karl Roves, these are the asses that you'll be seeing for a long, long time, and they are the architects of what's now come to pass, the assertion of a Fundamentalist Christian group into the American government.
It's interesting, Dad and I actually talked about the fact that (white) Southern Democrats saw the party moving away from them in a more liberal direction, and that the Republican party, so weak in the South, was ripe for takeover from within. Sadly, it's been done while kicking out any of the values the party once had. Sure, I'll agree the party wasn't much for social causes, but it was for fiscal responsibility, but that's been lost, it was for individual freedom, but now it's poised to draft some of the most draconian legislation in years, including re-launching the FMA and PATRIOT Act II. Who knows what will be left of our rights.
I'm not sure when it came up, but at one moment Mom said, "Well, we (meaning people of faith, I suppose) were getting tired of being called stupid." I admit I didn't have an answer for that one. I heard a lot of that in the car today, as I had to go to an out of the office training class. "They still think we're stupid, and they (the blue states) want to secede" said about three different hosts today. "Well, don't they know where their food and oil comes from?"
That's the best answer he could come up with?
Now I know these talk shows are trying to bring up trouble. They were talking about the United States of Canada/Jesusland map that I first saw in Alex's (
darke), journal about a week ago. Now that the election's over, they have to keep things hot, or they'll lose all of the audience gains they had from the election. The first rule of ratings, you always have to have an enemy."Well", I told Mom, "I can't deal with a group of people who are willing to sell me and my friends out for a few votes." I had wished I had had that chance to explain that symbol on my shirt.
Still, I had the opportunity to explain that it wasn't just about the marriage issue, it was deeper, for one, in Karl Rove's master scheme, it was all about staying in power, it didn't really matter about who he demonized, just as long as he got the needed people to the polls and didn't cost his candidate. Look, it's obvious that the Democratic party wasn't going to go very far to defend us, and it wasn't going to be that big of a backlash to put up a fight against two fags marring. We're a small group. It's still somewhat socially acceptably to knock us around a bit, sad but true, so the gambit was placed.
If they actually went for the real bastard of moral issues, abortion, then there would have been a fight, hell the Dems tried to get stem cell research out there, but even that wasn't a hot button topic. For some reason, it's all about gays getting hitched, even where it couldn't happen.
My mother meekly agreed with the thought that civil unions might be OK. Dad was quiet on the subject. I was surprised on that even. I made mention that if the president actually was in favor of civil unions, then he should make mention of that when he says he wants to "protect marriage". He needs to be clear so he doesn't come off as a bigot. He needs to separate himself from his friends who wrote the Republican platform that provides no protections for gays and their partners, period, and hopes to return to the time of sodomy laws.
Those are the people to fear.
I'm thinking my parents are finding my change in politics, first witnessed by reading my same-sex op-ed from February is permanent. Really, I don't think it's changed much at all, the personal freedoms and liberties that I've been for all along are still there, I'm probably just much more open about the who I'm fighting for (namely me!), and the equality issues that go along with that.
So I made sure to inform them that in many states the nastiness had gotten a little out of hand, telling them that the amendments were not only unnecessary, since most of those states already had unchallenged DOMA laws on the books, but they went farther to prohibit civil unions, and some went farther, like Virginia's recently passed amendment, that prohibits contracts between two people of the same sex, so you could challenge wills, domestic partner benefits, and power of attorney documents in court, since they'd be invalid. This, I said, is flat out bigotry, now being codified into law.
After the silence, I wondered if I had gone a bit far with the folks. In talking to Chris (
oakleycub), about it last night, he asked if I had yelled or called my mother a name at any time during the conversation. I said no. "Then you're probably OK."Chris said he and my sister had talked over the weekend, mainly about my mother, and no, Chris and my folks will not be meeting during the holidays, thank you. Chris told me that Laura and he agreed that one day Mom's going to be listening to Rush Limbaugh or someone and it's going to click that when he mentions "the gays" that he in fact, means her son. She knows, but she hasn't really put it together.
I said yeah, maybe. I don't know if that's sunk in just yet. We are from a red state, you know.
