How would you feel if someone subjected YOUR marriage to vote?

(Mostly shamelessly stolen from The Frisky, really, The Frisky is like the best site on the entire internet for us ladies, maybe except for DListed. Oh. Hmm. Yeah. DListed. Damn…)

• Did you know that there are so many kinds of people? People Who Are Old, People Who Are Secret Hookers, People Who Are Pretty and Smart and Funny and Nice (I like believing they have very small dicks), People Who Don’t Believe in Evolution but Love Antibiotics, People Who Are Just a Down-to-Earth Guy, Who Enjoys the Little Things in Life Like Going for Walks, Lifting Weights, or Just Doing Whatever (LOL), Whose Friends Would Probably Describe Him as Honest, Truthful, Loyal, Affectionate, Compassionate, and Romanceful, and Is Looking for a Woman Who Is That Rare Combination of Stunning on the Outside and Beautiful on the Inside, and Most Importantly Down to Earth, Enjoys the Little Things in Life, Loves Children, Animals, Has a Passion, Laughter. I Especially Like Asians…
• A new spray cures premature ejaculation. By that, the inventors mean they have managed 74% users last longer than 2 minutes. TWO. MINUTES. Count them. That won’t last long. (SEE WHAT I DID HERE) Two minutes no longer count as premature ejaculation? WAAAAH — straight people, I pity you. (Have you tried this special invention called “condom”? Personally I find it helps enormously, as in “after two or three hours my legs really start to hurt”.)
• Horses wearing wigs. Yes. You have read that correctly. Listen, why just not go and have a look.
• This gorgeous hunk of a man plays in Harry Potter, is 19 years old (no, not 49, 19) and got arrested for driving while stoned and owning a plantation of weed. Life, eh?
• Anti-gay organization National Organization For Marriage launches a campaign against gay marriage. *Yawn* There is an interesting bit about this one though. Did you notice what they are wearing? Yes. This is what world would look like without gays and lesbians. Gray, damp, and really, really badly dressed. Glad NOM realise that much.

Harvey Fierstein via Joe.My.God.:

“A couple of boys were calling my best friend a faggot one unhappy day at summer camp. Courses of action seemed slim to my adolescent mind. I could stand up for Jack branding myself a fag as well and insuring myself a miserable summer, or I could join in with the name callers, lose my closest friend, but assure my standing with the majority. I sacrificed my friend on the altar of popularity. I don?t think I need to tell you that political expediency was a terrific short-term solution but a long-term nightmare. My summer concluded uneventfully but none of those boys became my friend or did me any favors. And forty years later I still feel the loss of Jack along with a piece of my self respect that I can never win back. Mine was an act of cowardice and betrayal.

“It seems Obama is now maneuvering through the summer camp of his political adolescence and is about to make the same bad choice as I. He can call the placing of a hate monger like Rick Warren on the world dais political healing or inclusiveness or any other nicety he?d like, but I call it pandering to the lowest instinct of the worst kind of politics.

“President Elect Obama, your victory was made possible in no small part to the votes and wallets of the gay and lesbian community along with our supporters. Turning your back on us does not make you more mainstream American. It just makes you a coward.” – Harvey Fierstein, writing on Facebook.

Time Writer: Obama Is a ?Very Rational Sounding Sort of Bigot? Against Gay Americans (via my boss)
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=246723

There is an article in today’s “Gazeta Wyborcza” — leading Polish daily paper, viewed by most as left-wing/liberal — about the “gays fighting against Obama”. Written by Marcin Bosacki, it contains all elements of the semi-civilised right-wing speech I got used to: careful choice of words to depreciate the “gays” (lesbians, as always happens in Polish press, barely get a mention); the gays, also known as “they”, “boom” and “accuse”; anyone who in any way supported Prop 8 is their “mortal enemy”, and in the eyes of “most members of the gay environments” Warren has “committed an unforgivable crime” by “supporting the introduction in the California constitution the definition of marriage as an union between a man and a woman”. The article does not mention that Prop 8 has taken away an existing right, nor that the loving pastor’s way of supporting was comparing gay marriage to incest and pedophilia (the quote is mentioned in a different paragraph, which also informs us that Warren has many gay friends with whom he wouldn’t be seen dead in public — which sounds strangely similar to “I am not racist, my best friend is beige”). Andrew Sullivan “has loudly publicised his own gay wedding” — because heterosexual couples make sure nobody finds out about theirs. And so on.

LGTB, or “they” are unhappy because “in their opinion there is no space for compromise”. What kind of compromise is there to be made? Either you think non-heterosexual people are fully human, or you don’t. Either you believe a gay or lesbian couple should have the right to get married, or you don’t. Where’s the space for compromise? The “civil unions” aren’t a compromise. As handy as they can be, as much as they are a step into the right direction, they are yet another way to underline that LGBT people are less human; no, you can’t get married you stinky little queers, that one not for you, but here, here, have a civil union, go get civilly unionised and shut up about your rights for fuck’s sake, naah you don’t have to thank us, just don’t publicise it like that awful, awful man Andrew Sullivan (probably not one of Rick Warren’s gay friends) did. Would it not be racist if there was a Prop 21 taking away the right for interracial couples to marry? Would it not be racist if those couples were informed their love is equal to incest and pedophilia? Would it not be racist if they were told that, if they must, they can get certain rights as long as they don’t call themselves married? Would the supporter of such law get invited to speak during Obama’s inauguration? And remember, there was a time when the definition of marriage did not cover mixed race couples. I’m not writing science fiction here.

In the last words of his article, Bosacki writes, cynically: “After failing in California and on the same day in Florida and Arizona, gays go on comparing their fate to that of Negro slaves or even Jews during the Holocaust.” (No quotes there somehow, but I’m sure that’s just because the author ran out of space, there must be millions of “members of gay environments” comparing themselves to Jews during the holocaust.) “But, in fact, outside of making an uproar in the media, they can’t really hurt Obama politically. Their numbers are less than those of the members of Evangelical churches, whom Obama wants to reach via Warren. And even if their vote counted more, what would they do? Vote Sarah Palin four years from now?”

I don’t think that Darian, the author of Living Out Loud With Darian has read Bosacki’s article (which by the way sounds like something straight out of a right-wing competition of “Gazeta Wyborcza” — “Rzeczpospolita”) when he wrote this:

There comes a point when a person gets sick and tired of being sick and tired. When fighting for the same amount of respect, recognition, and access to equal protection under the law should not be a battle but a given.

When you can no longer deny the hostility directed at you from a group of people who look like you but are the first to disown you. Yet for the sake of “belonging” you continue to endure the torture hoping by some state of osmosis things will change.

There comes a point when you get sick and tired of having to explain your right to exist on this earth as you are.

[...] There comes a point when you get sick and tired of hoping that religion will catch up with science and when the word abomination is mentioned in a sentence it won’t be directed at you. Or when you hear the word spoken again you won’t buy into the lie that it defines you.

When your happiness doesn’t require the approval of family, society, or an ancient book that was once a source of hope for so many, but has now been turned into a weapon more dangerous than anything requiring a bullet.

There comes a point when you get sick and tired of your rights being put up for the popular vote and you get so angry that all you know to do is take to the streets by the thousands.

When you get sick and tired of explaining that a dog or a goat can’t sign a marriage license but another human being can.

[...] There comes a point when you get sick and tired of being marginalized and the second class citizenship you’ve become accustomed to is no longer sufficient.

When you expect your leaders to carry through with campaign promises to make this country a place where all men and women truly are equal regardless of race, class, sexual orientation, or gender identity instead of the same old empty rhetoric.

Yes there comes a point when you’ve had about all you can take and your body and mind becomes numb and you can’t feel anything.

The fact that Rick Warren will speak at Obama’s inauguration doesn’t actually have a meaning by itself. It’s not like Obama’s years in office are doomed because of that, or like the gay vote has suddenly turned to Republicans. What it does is give a very clear signal: The Change you Believed In is not for everyone. Yes, We Can, but the definition of “we” must now, post-election, get somewhat narrowed down. Thanks for your votes — but really, it’s not like you could have done anything else, I mean, Sarah Palin anyone?

Also, yes, I am aware that I am not American and that in the country I come from civil unions would have been a MAJOR step. But my belief in the change to come is right now a bit less than it was a few weeks ago — and supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin just got a reason to celebrate; perhaps it will be same old, same old after all.