We won and we lost. Obama winning helped to put one piece of injustice to sleep. But injustice is still with us. Discrimination is still lurking in the laws. Liberty is still for the select few. Freedom is still not for all of us. Equality still hunts us down like we were on cotton plantations.
Because “they” are still not allowed to get married. “They” are still held as second class citizens. Tell me? Who the hell are “they”?
Bullshit. Bullshit I tell you.
It’s like playing that whack-the-mole game. You hit one piece of bigotry on the head and another one pops up. Whack! Whack! Whack! It never stops. But unlike the game, we can’t pull the plug on bigotry. Their batteries get charged by their own hatred.
Look. I am REALLY getting sick and tired of this. There is no “they”.
There. Is. No. They.
There is only us. “They” are you who are bigots. The only people who are “they” are those who preach hatred. Hatred for gays, hatred for Africans, hatred for African-Americans, hatred for rednecks, hatred for Jews, hatred for Muslims, hatred for Christians, hatred for… and more hatred and more hatred and more hatred.
You! Yes you! Bigot! That one who hates gays. Or who doesn’t want “them” to have the same rights as everyone else. All that separates you from burning “them” on a cross is some wood and matches. All that separates you from strapping a bomb to your chest and blowing them up is a book in your hand and a different language. Bigotry is bigotry. Hatred is hatred. It’s only the degrees that differ.
You think you are so different from those who kill innocent people elsewhere in the name of a jihad? You think you are so different from those policemen who killed Biko? You think you are so different from the Christians who murdered during the Crusade? You think you are so different from those who flew those planes? You think you are so different from those who kept slaves on the plantations? Who burned people at stakes? You think you are better than a Hutu or a Tutsi? You think you are better than the priests leading Jesus to the cross?
You are not. You are no better. You are separated only by the degrees of action. You speak the same language. You spew the same hatred. You can cloak it in nice words. But so did Hitler. So did Pontius Pilot. So did PW Botha. So did Mao. So did Stalin. So did everyone who believed they were better than “the others”.
You are no better than those who killed and murdered. You are them. Separated by a small degree of heat. A small step. One action separates you. Just one. They are your brothers. Your keepers. In thought and prayer.
Don’t ever call me straight. I am not straight. I am me. Who I sleep with and who I love has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with my bad fashion sense. It has nothing to do with my anger. It has nothing to do with defining who I am inside.
I have no choice about who I am. I am because we are. I have no choice about being straight. I have no choice about being gay. I am just me. Like the color of my skin is not my choice. And my gender is not my choice. Or where I was born was not my choice. It is who I am. We should not be defined by these parts of who we are. We should be defined by our love and compassion for others and for ourselves.
Hell, if I had a choice I would not have chosen to be a pale heterosexual male. Except for the fact that it helped me find the love of my life it is nothing to be proud of. It is nothing special. In fact, I don’t like many of those who look like me. Hitler, Bush, Stalin, Verwoerd – all white males proclaiming to be straight. Too many bigots wear the same “clothes”.
I don’t ever want to be defined as heterosexual. I don’t. Because I am not. I am just a person who met another person and who loves. It could have been anyone. It just happened to be someone from the opposite gender. I didn’t make the choice to love her. It just happened.
That’s all I want the world to have. Just to feel the same love I feel. I don’t care who you are. Jew, Christian, gay, Muslim, straight, male, female, black, white, Chinese, Russian. I don’t care.
I. Don’t. Care.
All I want is “us” to all feel love. And see a better future together. As us. Not as “them” and “us”. There is only us in this world. All of us.
There is no such thing as a “gay issue”. Any injustice is my issue. Our injustice. Any limitation on freedom is a limitation of my freedom. Our freedom. Any inequality takes away my equality. Our equality. Any time the liberty of others are restricted then my liberty is restricted. Our liberty. Any place love is threatened my love is threatened. Our love. There can be no “others”. There can be no “gay issue”. There is only my issues. And our issues. We all have freedom, liberty, equality, justice, life, love and opportunity. Or I have none. I am not gay. But I am gay.
I am the “gay issue”. We are the “gay issue”.
Because… I am because we are.
All of us. I am us. I am the “we”.
We will not fail each other. Because there is no gay issue. There is only an us issue.
A few other posts of mine looking at the “gay issue”:
The “gay problem” or The Idiot’s Guide to Bigotry
How to solve the “gay marriage problem”
_________________
A friend of mine just passed me this link to something Keith Olbermann had to say on gay marriages. I missed it completely as I don’t watch enough telly. But it seems as if Keith and myself have more in common than what I thought. Go watch what he had to say. It is long. But it is worth it. His questions are very similar to mine. Just more eloquently put…
November 13, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Your words speak an important truth. I just had a journal discussion about the legal meaning of marriage. I learned a lot.
We can and must call out the bigots, but we must also go after the institutions that foment this under the cover of being 501c3 organizations. They need to be put on notice. As long as we have the separation of Church and State they have no business in these ballot initiatives.
November 13, 2008 at 10:52 pm
It takes nothing away from our lives to live and let live. It takes so little to be a good human being on this planet. Kindness is kindness in any language. And it is freeing. Human rights aren’t privileges, but birthrights. I believe it is insecurities that are underneath the judgments of those we don’t accept, don’t understand or condemn because they are gay. And maybe fear.
An old post of mine – If I Was Gay….:
http://ilovemylifebrothersandsisters.blogspot.com/2007/10/if-i-was-gay-i-would-want-to-be-free-to.html
which includes this hilarious youtube:
November 14, 2008 at 12:37 am
[...] and Angry African writes just as well in his blog posting, “Just don’t call me gay. OrStraight“ [...]
November 14, 2008 at 12:42 am
Absolutely beautiful. Thank you for your voice and your writings.
November 14, 2008 at 3:23 am
I have just given you an award, check it out on my blog http://lookingoutabrokenwindow.blogspot.com/
ps. I hate barney too
November 14, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Thank god my brother… you wrote this post. I swear. I have been thinking exactly how to write this very thing. How it has been bothering me. How my own state voted for it overwhelmingly. It saddens and sickens me.
How can people think about voting on giving someone else the “right” to marry? The ones who scream the loudest about keeping their right to keep weapons according to the constitution are the same ones who want to take away the rights of others as convenient to their own belief system. Its all so convenient. Makes me sick!
November 14, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Excellent post. Brilliant. I’m so moved!
November 14, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Ubuntu, AA. Beautiful post.
My husband and I watched the Olbermann spot and we both wept. It seemed that Keith was on the verge himself.
I just … don’t … get it. Legislating love? Where did this insanity start? … Perhaps by those who don’t know how to love … those who haven’t received “enough” love in their lives (that could be all of us at one time or another, eh?) … those who are so jealous about their own lack of love that they don’t want *anyone* to give or receive it.
We’re all bigots in one way or another … We’ve been conditioned by our cultures, religions, families (etc.) to see ourselves as “us” and certain others as “them.” I myself come from a staunch, mostly WASP background … I’ve heard every crass moniker in the world applied to anyone who isn’t as white as Wonder Bread (and male, and straight, and rich, and blah blah blah). I also had the gift of several huge hearts who loved me when I was a child — nearly all of them were “them.” People considered inferior by those who hired them to tend their children (me and my sibs), cook our meals, clean our messes. People who gathered me into their arms, their stories, their all-encompassing hearts. One of them, a woman of Yugoslavian descent, is my chosen spiritual mother.
When we become adults, we either choose to carry on our own inoculated bigotry, or we choose to move our minds beyond it.
I recall after 9/11 — one of my brothers, who is a pilot with United Airlines (two of whose planes were destroyed that day), raged against “the fuckin’ Arabs” during a phone call a few days after the attack … Part of me couldn’t blame him, as he lost friends/colleagues … so I let him rant, hoping that he might turn the volume down over time. He didn’t. He also thinks that “fags” should be “lined up against a wall and shot.” Breaks my heart, and he won’t listen to reason. Some of the sweetest souls I’ve ever been graced to know were what we might call “a six on the Kinsey scale.” One was a man who I fell madly in love with. He told me that “if any woman could do it for me, Jaliya, it would be you.” He was as erotically drawn to me as I was to him … It just about drove him nuts (and me too, in a different way!) ’cause he couldn’t figure out this attraction to a woman! Sometimes we laughed ourselves senseless over it; we called each other “Hubs” and “Wifey”; we slept together many times — literally; no sex — we were a perfect “spoony” fit. A few times we clashed; once we necked at a wedding and other people thought that *we* were newlyweds. It was such fun … so frustrating … and ultimately we knew we were kindred spirits who just weren’t meant to be together in “that way.”
I’m deeply aware of my own reactions to “the other.” Bigotry is a stubborn beast. I recognize my own contradictions — I am disgusted by the recent American bans on gay marriage (especially in light of Obama’s nomination as President!), and I feel a tiny glitch in my gut at the same time. I admitted to my husband recently that some weird, miniscule part of my mind insists that marriage *should* be between one man and one woman. He asked me, “Where does that come from?” — I honestly couldn’t figure it out. It stymies me. There it is, the contradiction within myself. I’m shaking my head at it as I write these words. But I’m not going to inflict my own contradictons on anyone else. I’ll converse about them with anyone who’s willing to engage in dialogue (the word “dialogue” comes from the Greek: “a common search for meaning,” if I recall correctly…). I’ll admit my own glitches and challenges; I’ll acknowledge where my own thinking is still stuck, and I’ll do my best to get out — and stay out — of the mud.
Your mindful, passionate post places me square in the center of my contradictory thoughts, and bids me to cast light on them yet again. Thank you.
May we all be at peace with our many facets … We are one species, one being …
November 14, 2008 at 2:14 pm
You’ve very eloquently expressed my opinion as well! Awesome post!
November 14, 2008 at 2:52 pm
So now I am a hate filled bigot for supporting a proposition on defining marriage. An action away from Stallin and hitler and mao and the theocrats using religion to gain power under the jihad aka “personal struggle”. Thats right I am an action away. I also am an action away from murder, and if I had power of the presidency an action away from genocide. Those are the crimes of those people above. But since I am an action away that means I am a lawabiding citezen. But legal is not aways moral which is what your getting at.
Well, a man and a women liveing together while haveing sex is legal, so is man and man and women and women.
So there can not be any bigotry there!
Now, What is marriage? What are our laws intent? Because we have a lot of laws making rules on marriage just and unjust. History lesson upcoming; Marriage is God’s way of creating a family. Families are the building blocks of nations in fact before there were nations the world was run on fatherly rule.
What are the rules of marriage? Before recently it was a man and a women. Way back you could substuite women(pural). Only these people in this family should have sex. Sex was forbidden with their children, dogs cats, relations, nonrelations and the women or man next door. You raised children and you are responsible for teaching them.
This is what the lawmakers ment by marriage.
I still have not detected the emotion of hate.
People have decided to change, except for the churches who follow God. Hey freedom is! No one stopped the change of individuals actions. What the majority of people have said is marriage is between a man and a women.
And from what I am hearing is, if that amendment to the consitution were not in place, the court would make rules forceing religions practices to change with out a debate in a legislature. In other words by fiat. In other words making laws concerning religion as banned by the 1st. Make no mistake this a challenge to the courts power because courts can not challenge the constitution.
My word is “us” can get, no mater who we are the same things by contract law as marriages have. With the exception of tax codes, and I am right there with you in tearing those down. Other than that no one has convinced me of the harm that people, who are our fellow americans, suffer.
Marriage is a God thing, civil institutions are civil.
November 14, 2008 at 8:12 pm
@sahlah – Yes! The battle lines have been drawn.
@ilovemylife – Thank you. For your words of wisdom and the links.
@Katrina Olson – And thank you for the kind words!
@kelli – Thanks! Mmm, I think the right winger will Barney gay too. He is purple isn’t he? Hell, they actually did do that…
@Amber – Exactly! We give freedom but they don’t respect freedom! ONly the freedom that allows them their own “freedoms”.
@Lisa – Thank you! I tend to go overboard when I get a bit worked up. Glad you saw it for what it was. A hit at bigots.
@Jaliya – Isn’t it liberating though? I love finding the bigot inside me. I just love it. There is nothing like looking at myself in the mirror and finding some of the things that are still in my head. Because I know I will overcome it eventually. We are lucky people to know ourselves and challenge ourselves. Man, I admire you.
@James Hipps – James! Wow man, and that coming from you! (Psst people… This is THE james Hipps! The fighter for justice!) Thank you so much James.
@EnergyEngineer – Two things on your argument.
1. Seperation of Church and politics thank you.
2. And what God are you talking about? Be specific? Don’t say the Christian God because there are different Christian types. And then… Why do you say that the marriage between Muslims and Hindus and Jews etc are okay? Your God didn’t talk about them. Only about Christians. So why do you allow them to get married in sin? Maybe they can redefine marriage as a Christian religious union between a man and a woman. So, that will result in many more civil unions out there…
And oh, it’s not just the tax code. “Civil marriages” don’t get the same medical or federal benefits as hetro couples. And just the name civil union… I want my friends to be married like me. Just like me. Because they are just like me.
Lastly, laws are made to be changed to adapt to time. Remember when women couldn’t vote? Or slaves couldn’t marry? Etc? Old laws that were outdated. Same thing here. We have grown up and the lae needs to catch up as well.
November 15, 2008 at 5:30 am
There are some things I will never understand and this is one of them, I don’t want to understand why they do it because I know it will never ever make any sense.
Who died and made them God? Sick
November 15, 2008 at 6:30 am
[...] Read the rest of this beautiful post at AngryAfrican! [...]
November 15, 2008 at 10:41 am
Wow. Just wow. Couldn’t have written it half as good as this.
We have just immigrated to South Africa. We are just “we” here. Feels very good to be “we”.
November 15, 2008 at 11:07 am
Well said! Agree with every word …
Be happy, that’s the main thing.
November 15, 2008 at 2:53 pm
AA,
Government recognition of marriage is a policy decision that should remain in the purview of the people. After all, no one argues that relationships require government sanction; two people can cohabitate without permission, as long as they’re consenting, unrelated adults. They can form contractual partnerships just like any two adults can, as long as the purposes remain legal. The argument in this case is for government sanction of the relationship as marriage — and as such is a public policy decision.
Had the people of California chosen to recognize gay marriage through legislation, I’d accept it — and in truth, I’d consider that a more rational policy than civil unions, which basically reproduce marriage with a different label. Government stopped being in the sacrament business at the moment it offered no-fault divorces. A civil-union contract has more binding power than does marriage these days. States would do best to leave the term “marriage” as an exclusive province of the churches and have all couples sign civil-union contracts instead, and let the individuals determine whether they feel “married” or not.
Bottom line is, asking churches, synagogues and mosques, etc., to recognize gay marriage is an infringement on religious liberty, and contrary to one of the great ideals on which this country was founded.
Your mantra seems to be “tolerance for everyone, except the religious.” Not really fair, if you ask me.
You would do well to check out the terms “projection” and “self-loathing.”
November 15, 2008 at 3:07 pm
@SanityFound – Well put SF. well put…
@TheGT – Thanks. And odd. I had to come over here to fight this issue and you had to go over there to find peace… Weird world hey?
@Mark – Thanks! Yep, happiness and love. Just that.
@sayway – I get that. I don’t expect churches or synagogues or mosques to do that. Some churches already do it. Hell, churches don’t do recognize other marriages outside of their own churches. My point is that there should be no difference in government policy or treatment. The religious groups can do what they want. As long as they don’t force their ideas on others. So my “tolerance for everyone” includes churches doing what they want. I don’t expect the Catholic Church to marry a Muslim couple. And I don’t imagine a Protestant Church will marry a Hindu couple either. That’s something different. But the religious groups can’t decide who should be called “married” under the government rules should they? Seperation of church and politics I think is what they call it.
It is a decision that shuuld not be decided “by the people”. Like I would expect the voting rights of others (women, minorities etc) not to be open to debate. Equal rights isn’t a debate. Or don’t I get the freedom and liberty part right?
Let religious groups do what they do. But let them stay outside of what rights should be given to others or not. Or whether people should be treated and called the same thing under the law. Or else remove all reference to marriage in the books. Either everyone is in civil union or everyone is open to get married under the rule of law as set out by government. What the church decides… That’s up to them. And that is their right.
November 15, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I’ve been cruising websites and news sites re: the protests around the US today. I’m heartened by the turnouts … There’s definitely an awakening happening, on so many levels …
AA, thanks for your singular voice
You’re a great soul!
November 16, 2008 at 3:25 am
I wish the general public wouldn’t get so upset about letting people have their human rights. I wish they would get more upset at war in DRC, poverty in Louisiana, lack of modern education in Somalia… the list is endless.
Basically, giving people the right to find out how their loved one is doing in hospital shouldn’t upset anybody. But, apparently, it does… enough for people to go out and vote against it.
Great post, AA.
November 17, 2008 at 10:47 am
I love you my friend. For you have said here what lies in my own heart and soul, and the hearts and souls of so many others that are closest to me. The truest form of Ubuntu……
You are so right, there is no gay issue, no gay agenda; it is a human agenda. An agenda toward total human self-realization, spreading the love, spreading the love, spreading the love.
For a government, or its citizens, to think that it can legislate love by telling some of us that we are not allowed to marry is really ridiculous. We love in spite of that denial of equal rights…… we love in spite of that, we go on and on and on with that love, into infinity………..
There was a time, not very long ago, when I was willing to accept if we would just be given civil unions, you know, if that would not be too much trouble???
Fuck that……. I want equality, pure and simple. The idea of marrying my beloved, with our closest family and friends with us, brings tears to my eyes….. not a pseudo-marriage or something “like” marriage under a different name, but the real deal. And, it really isn’t about having a ceremony for the hundreds, or trying to prove a point or make a statement…… it is about what is equal and fair and right.
The love will go on no matter what we are allowed to do by law, because our love is permanent, and infinite, and pure……
No matter what…….
November 17, 2008 at 11:10 am
Love, love, love your blog! You speak about so many things that I am thinking and feeling. I’m looking forward to frequenting your blog more often. Have I mentioned I love it?
Feel free to check me out at:
http://www.leahomar.wordpress.com
November 17, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Such splendid eloquence, as always – I only wish this was not so, so true…
Sadly it’s the same all over the world – in France, I hear on a daily basis the following examples : “I don’t have anything against gays/blacks/jews/arabs…etc, it’s just that it’s not natural/normal that they should take our jobs/run our most profitable businesses/live off our social security system…etc”
I was brought up to “live and let live” + I was always encouraged to seek the difference in others that could enrich me as a person and help me grow – as an adult I gravitate toward people who are generous, open-minded, and DIFFERENT (whatever that differnce may be..!) and I shy away away from narrow minded bigots..!
Beautiful post, as always, thought provoking and full of insight – I’ve missed reading your posts in my brief absence..:)
November 17, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Well said AA!
The time has come for people to realize that we have to consider everybody’s rights as important.
You have made the case and I am pro your stance.
Please stop by my blog. I have something there for you.
November 18, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Just dont call me gay. Or straight. | Reblog…
This is one of the most intriguing blog posting I’ve ever seen. The author, The Angry African, expressed nearly the exact sentiment I wish I had the talent to. I’ve included it in it’s entirety here to share with you, my visitors.
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December 14, 2008 at 12:35 am
[...] Just don’t call me gay. Or straight [...]