Box Turtle Bulletin

Christain sharia at work. Just fine by them to make laws that others must obey based on their personal religious beliefs. Not ok for other faiths to do this.

Nathaniel

I read today that although Evangelicals only make up a quarter (or less) of the Republican voting block, they dominate Iowa and South Carolina, two of the earliest Primaries. The result is a great deal of kowtowing to the social conservatives early on. It is no wonder we don’t trust politicians when every action is shaped by the stage in the election cycle you are trying to navigate, rather than a real commitment to ideals and doing the best for your fellow persons. But some GOP hopefuls are avoiding these religious overtures this season. Here’s to hoping they hold off, maybe miss scoring a few early points, so they don’t have to swing back left later in the season; best to let the crackpots have their say, then come swooping in when people are ready to listen to reasonable dialogue.

Paul Douglas

I’m hoping the craziest of the crazies win those early primaries. Love to see the christianists putting out their true colors.

Ryan

That’s the exact same position as Romney in 2012. We’ll see what the heavy hitters like Jeb and Christie say. I’d be very surprised if any of the legitimate GOP candidates would be opposed to an anti gay marriage constitutional amendment.

Nathaniel

Ryan, I expect language more along the lines of “I personally think marriage is between one man and one woman, but the courts have spoken. This is how our system works, so lets talk about something else” from the more mainline candidates. I imagine most of them would be relieved to not have to deal with same-sex marriage anymore. However, our swift swath of courtroom victories could certainly give a brief edge to those calling for a national amendment. But if that didn’t go anywhere between 2004 and 2008, it certainly won’t gain traction now.

Ryan

Well, I guess we’ll see. If the Court rules our way (and they likely will) there will be immense pressure on the GOP candidates to push for an Amendment. They will indeed still “have to deal with it”. It won’t pass, of course, even if the GOP keeps control over both Houses. But I’m just curious to see what Bush and Christie will have to say.

Nathaniel

It will be interesting to hear how more moderate Republicans respond to the impending SCOTUS decision. The upside of the timing is that, should SCOTUS decide for us on both questions, is that conservative rage will have died down by the time primary season actually roles around, and especially before the actual election.

enough already

Nathaniel,
On the level of the party which selects those who go to the primaries, there are no moderate Republicans left.
They’re all hate-driven Christians who want us queers dead.
It’s time we accept this and focus on voting in Democrats.
Christie and Bush will both back an amendment. No doubt of that.
Nor is it by any means certain we’ll win in June. More likely, Robert’s will knife us in the back on both health care and equal rights.
On a side note, we’re getting some data in now on gay votes in November.
It was worse than even I thought.

Nathaniel

Oh, EA. Sometimes I think you aren’t happy unless you are completely miserable.

Really, though, I think there are Republicans that aren’t completely comfortable with the marriage between Evangelicals and the GOP. So many politicians only pay lip service to this vocal voting bloc that I am surprised Evangelicals themselves aren’t filing for divorce (the irony of rejecting divorce in all cases is you stay in an abusive political relationship) and trying to start their own party. Indeed, I keep hoping that a substantive party will rise up that will reject social conservatism while embracing other conservative ideas. We need more options than just Dem or Repub in US politics. Of course, you might have a point – should SCOTUS side with us on both questions, Bush, Christie, etc may join the chorus for an amendment (at least until the same time next year, when they have to tone it down again). But that is what makes it so interesting. Will big names prove to be moderate, or will they hand the mic to the crazies and yet again? We can pretend to know all we want, but we will all be on the edge of our seats waiting to hear if some Republican Presidential hopefuls will concede our win or promise to fight on.

As for backstabbing Justices, if we lose, it will be because Kennedy, not Roberts, betrayed us. While many hope Roberts may want to make himself look good historically by siding with us, I don’t think anybody would be surprised if he joins the conservative Justices against us. I only think he’ll side with us on the question of interstate recognition, and even that I’m not sure of. Kennedy, on the other hand, gave us Windsor, and sided with us on Lawrence. Will he turn against us this time? I hope not. But breaking this case into two issues certainly gives another point to those that think we may only receive partial (if any) satisfaction from this court.

enough already

Nathaniel,
I’m quite a happy person, actually.
I also have been careful to keep my European citizenship, to always have negotiable instruments at hand and to have a (very expensive) ticket out of the country for my husband and myself in the passports (which we keep with us at all times).

You’re obviously one of those blue-eyed optimists who think the hate-driven Christians wouldn’t really do what they say they want to do.
I grew up in Germany and the worst of the worst of Bible-Belt ameriKa.
You have no idea how fast these things go once the haters take control.
Gay men will have hours to get out of this country.
At best.

Nathaniel

EA, at least you practice what you preach. I wouldn’t call myself a blue-eyed optimist, but I do believe change won’t happen by running away from the problem or staying silent. So, I try to spend some of my social media time speaking out against injustice. I also believe that hearts and minds can change, and I know too many moderate Republican voters and Christians to believe that an R, or D, or C(hristian) in front of anyone’s name will tell me how well or poorly they will treat me. But, I have never been (truly) persecuted. I wasn’t out before Lawrence, much less personally experience the brutality a hate-driven state can inflict up on its ‘undesirables’. Were I in your place, I would also probably have a passport and plane ticket ready at all times.

Eric Payne

Nathaniel,

I was born in suburban Ohio, raised in urban Pennsylvania “Dutch” (though it’s really German) Country, then, as an adult, lived in NYC, Los Angeles, a couple of decades in the San Francisco Bay Area, a decade in Phoenix and, now, the last decade here in Atlanta.

I’m 56 years old. One of my first priorities whenever I’ve moved since leaving the Lebanon, PA, area in 1978 is to register to vote and then, at every election, to — gasp! — vote.

My gypsy-esque life has taught me the same cynicism EA exhibits. I know, first-hand, most people are civil only because they have to be; give them a chance to be anonymous, and the daggers come out.

Almost 20 years ago, Hawaii’s courts determined marriage inequality was unconstitutional. Immediately, the state Legislature decided not to follow the ruling but, instead, to friggin’ change the Constitution.. Acquaintances of mine, who live in HI (and had been together over 40 years), began hosting fundraisers as the Amendment came up for a vote. They met thousands of people, spending a great deal of “face time” with everyone, and absolutely knew the Amendment “would not get voted in.”

Bill Clinton, historically the first Presidential candidate to actively court the “gay vote,” whose campaign manager I had interviewed in San Jose and for whom I voted, unexpectedly interrupted a family vacation in Hawaii to return to Washington on a Sunday night, simply to sign into law the odious “Defense of Marriage Act.”

I used to be a member of a Segway online forum. The specifics of how a conversation we were having devolved, but what had started as a discussion of the “Americans with Disabilities Act” became a discussion of the “perques” given the handicapped, then further dissolved to the “special rights” of homosexuals. When another member of the group — a person I know, and whom I considered a friend — posted he would vote for a “Prop 8” in his state, had it been offered in his state, he would have voted for it.

He lives in Boston. So does his sister. A lesbian who married her partner right after Goodrich. So why would he support a MA “Prop 8”?

Because his “insurance rates went up and stayed up” after marriage equality became law, and he’s, somehow, convinced the latter is responsible for the former.

People don’t vote the way we’d like them to cast their ballot. Even those who consider themselves “knowledgable” tend to succumb to fear or “hive mentality.”

Ryan

Jesus, EA. Given that you think it’s a distinct possibility that gay men (or even that there’s any chance in hell) will have hours to get out of the country should the wrong people take over, it’s truly amazing that you’re quite a happy person. I think I would’ve eaten

Ryan

…a bullet a long time ago.

enough already

But, Ryam – it’s always been that way for gays and Jews and Negroes. You just don’t want to believe it.

Nathaniel

Thanks for sharing, Eric. I don’t doubt good people do stupid things out of fear or selfishness. But that swings both ways. Frankly, I am surprised you and EA even bother voting, given your dismal outlooks on how people behave, although I give you props for continuing to be politically active. I vote and I proselytize, because to do otherwise would also be to give in to fear. Fear is the mind killer. It can drive us to hurt those around us. It can also drive us away from defending ourselves or standing our ground when others try to hurt us out of fear. Even when votes ultimately turn against us, it isn’t the end of the world. Our efforts aren’t pointless, even if they fell short. At such times, they can be built upon, as an example of why voting and proselytizing are so important, and the fruits of our efforts will be borne out in time. Your friends’ efforts in HI are likely to have played an important role in HI eventually bringing marriage equality by legislative action, even though they failed to stop the passage of their amendment.

Maybe I am a blue-eyed optimist, after all. But to be otherwise would be to give in to the same fear that drives others to deny me my rights; if I am better than them, I better act like it.

Priya Lynn

I thought I was a pessimist until I read the comments by EA and Eric.

enough already

Nathaniel,
I think some of this is cultural – I write in English well enough to come across as an American, but I’m not.
I’m German. German as in, late-nineteenth-century philosophers’ outlook on the world German.
It’s a bigger distinction than most realize.

To address the matter at hand: When normal people don’t vote, when normal people aren’t active in politics (I’ve frequently mentioned that I’m active in the Democratic Party) then the wing-nuts take over and make the decisions.

I understand, of course, how easy it is to generalize from the actions of those queers whom one knows personally to all of us. Priya and Nathaniel live in politically-correct, social-sciences dominated queer worlds. Of course all the people they know vote the proper way.

My background is in the hard sciences, the natural sciences. My queer friends are mainly gay men and transgender couples who have settled out here in the middle of nowhere because people leave us all alone.

A very different milieu.

As for being ‘paranoid’ and ‘unhappy’. Nathaniel, I was held prisoner in an insane asylum as a teenager. Subject to electro-shock therapy, ice-baths and other such delightful Christian tools of torture in a (failed) effort to make me ‘heterosexual’.
I only gained my freedom at the age of 18, when I passed a mandatory sanity test and was able to leave.
I’ve experienced first hand what Christians do to us when they have the power to harm us.
During the Aids holocaust, I saw more people die each month than most of us lose every fifty years.
All through that time, the Christians rejoiced in their deaths and did everything in their power to make life hell on earthfor their partners, who had cared for them to the end (although they, themselves, all too often were dying).
These men spent their last weeks and months carrying for their partners and were then thrown out into the streets – literally, look up the literature from that era – to die themselves by the good, Christian families.
Moving on a few years, I’ve heard and read the comments about us from politicians. Even if we grant that Bill was preventing worse harm (I don’t), then consider the enormous hatred and harm the Christians did to us with DADT and DOMA.
Finally, look at 2004 and Prop. 8 and all the rest.

If you seriously believe that I’m overreacting by taking these matters seriously, then I have only one suggestion left to make: Read the translations (Google Books) of the commentary of the standard German press throughout the late 1920s. It says it all – from liberal society to Weimarer Republik to disaster.

It can happen here, it will happen faster than you imagine it will if we don’t prepare ourselves and fight unceasingly to stop it.

Eric Payne

Ah, forgot one, Nathaniel, that affected me, personally.

Bill and I were living in Phoenix in 2006. We had a small group of friends — about 8 of us , Bill and I, three straight couples — all neighbors of close proximity (all in the same block) Friday nights, we’d all get together at someone’s house, to hoist a few beers, gab and stargaze.

One Friday night, the husband of one of the other couples brings with him a petition he wants us all to sign. The petition is to place on the ballot Proposition 107… limiting marriage to “”One man and one woman.” He, honestly , didn’t understand when I wouldn’t sign it…

The thrice-divorced, childless, African-American man and his Caucasian wife on her second go-round honestly believed the sanctity of their marriage was in need of protection from Bill and I.

As the general election came close, it he electorate came to realize the Act could invalidate “partnership agreements” signed by Sun City senior citizens, and it was voted down — the first time voters rejected a DOMA in a state, after over 30 states had approved a DOMA.

Election night, even as the defeat was announced, I went on record as saying: “It’ll be back, but it’ll be clearer that it’s “just about the fags, guys!”

In 2007, the state legislature re-wrote the proposal so that it was just about us, and it passed by a huge majority.

Our friendship with those other couples ended that night. Bill just wouldn’t have anything to do with them anymore… and since he’s the nice one in our coupling, you can probably guess how I reacted. That night, I was, literally, yelling at the husband with the petition.

Because “It’s not the same” for us. Everything I pointed out — his marriage being illegal in AZ just 40 years previously, or it being perfectly legal to fire him from his job, or dictate where he lives, or pay him a lower wage — just weren’t the same.

Nathaniel

Well preached,EA. I can’t fault your reaction to your experiences, and can only shake my head in sorrow at the vast human capacity to perpetuate sorrow on others.

But I will dispute one thing. I am a geneticist.

enough already