Sad to say my brothers & sisters but we’re blowing it big time.
Especially in light of the new reports, one of which says we’re less than 2% of the population and the other report that says overall new HIV infection is down, EXCEPT in the young Gay / Bisexual crowd where the numbers of infection are climbing.
First, it is time for us to stop making the marriage fight about the GAY, instead make marriage about freedom and equality.
We need to stop pissing off the conservative base. We need to recognize they could be our natural allies. I know its hard to fathom but let me explain:
Conservatives are about freedom and constitutional rights. In this age of Obama we might be wise to capitialize on those issues rather than continue to have our collective wagons hitched to a President that may well have assured a conservative Republican takeover in the House and Senate.
The planks these Conservative Republicans are likely to be running on will be Freedom, Smaller, Less Intrusive Government, and Constitutional Rights.
I submit to you that it is a Constitutional right to marry the adult of the same species that you love. The Constitutionalists will be looking to swing disillusioned Democratic voters to their way of thinking and aren’t likely to rock the boat if some or even a lot of those voters happen to be gay, especially given the recent rulings and non-rulings by the SCOTUS.
We could easily have inclusion, not “speciality” in the political process and full equal standing in all rights within the next 5 years. We could even be respected for fighting when it was necessary and knowing when the fight was over.
But then we have IDIOTS like the Houston Mayor.
After someone like this garners national attention over a stupid ordinance, ALL Gay folks are screwed.
Let me set the stage for you.
Someone thought it would be a good idea to get rid of gender specific bathrooms in Houston and proposed an ordinance to the city council.
(Have you ever cleaned a women’s public bathroom? Let me tell you something, you’d rather clean all the bathrooms in a frat house with a toothbrush, the monday after homecoming, than clean a single public women’s restroom. As a male, I’ll take my urinals and relatively clean bathrooms thank you very much.)
This ordinance was passed, a lot of people were pissed off about it and they took action.
What they did was legal and correct, they gathered signatures for a referendum. Specifically, they gathered three times the number of signatures required for a referendum. The City Secretary did their job and certified that there were indeed enough signatures for a referendum.
Then the City Attorney and the Mayor rejected the certification of the referendum. This effectively put The City Attorney & Mayor in defiance of the law, not to mention defiance of the will of a number of civic minded citizens.
The citizens responded by filing a law suit against the Mayor. The Mayor, “aka the city” responded by using the power of her position to attempt to violate the first amendment rights of a number of local pastors and churches, by demanding their sermons and communications with their congregations. Its possible there is a fourth amendment violation in here too but I don’t think that will hold up in court.
If it was JUST that this Mayor was an idiot, it would be one thing. But in this case its well known that the Mayor is gay.
Folks are noticing and commenting on how similar her actions are to the actions of others In the so called Pink Mafia, or those forcing the “GAY Agenda”.
Surely you remember;
Gay people suing bakers to bake wedding cakes
Gays suing to stay at a bed and breakfast, causing the B&B to close forever because the legal fees bankrupted the owners
Gays trying to sue a church into allowing them to have their wedding in the sanctuary.
Don’t even start talking about GLAAD and their bitching about someones offhanded comment.
Lets not forget the great Vodka and Pasta, and Coors boycotts.
Or the forced resignation of corporate executives because they expressed their opinion about gay people, which they have every right to under the first amendment.
Its time for HRC and GLAAD to start being useful in a more mature fashion. Yes, continue to watch for abuses of gay people or curtailment of peoples right based on their sexuality. But a more important job for both organizations might be to begin educating gay folks in how to use their newly gained rights without being assholes.
What we need is a situation where we can all point to an idiotic Mayor and call them an Idiot because of their policies or actions, regardless of their sexuality.