Gay Marriage to Alfred: Your Thoughts

and the washington vote is good (assuming it holds up), but it's still depressing they had to call it "everything but marriage."

Fucking retards.

― StanM, Wednesday, November 4, 2009 12:04 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

If segregation legislation had to be passed by/could be overturned by referenda in the states many people would still be drinking out of different water fountains. ARGH.

Also I do wonder if it isn't psychologically easier to get people to vote yes to something rather than no - so perhaps YES to marriage/civil partnerships on a ballot would be more passable than NO don't repeal the shiny new law.

I'd like the numbers for how many people would have opposed the Voting Rights Act had it gone to state referenda.

So that old lady who's kneeling in thanksgiving, we're pretty much just waiting for her and her kind to die, right?

That is correct. And as you know from the polling numbers it really won't be long. I take a weird comfort from knowing that these folks are burning up their children's inheritances just to defer the inevitable for a couple of years.

"I will stop gay marriage or die trying" gallows lulz

the other people in that photo don't exactly look decrepit though :(

can we estimate the years since last getting laid for each person in that photo plz

xpost fortunately that's not the way this generational cohort stuff works when the margins are so narrow

VIRGINS ALL

would put money on the denim-jacketed mouth-breathing dude being a virgin

xps

The woman in the black vest in the middle of the shot is clearly undercover with the "Yes on 1" campaign and her rictus grin only hides her sorrow that she and her softball-playing girlfriend will have to postpone their honeymoon to Montana.

the ad is a copy of an irish one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ULdaSrYGLQ

sinéad >>> megan imo

Part of it is that there will always be people who let their ease of disgust co-mingle with their lazy political beliefs, and since there is a great amount of people who view marriage as legitimizing sex and are thus squicked out by the thought of male gay sex, this aspect will never go away. Mix that with people views on identity and trad gender roles, and you've an uphill climb to make.

Still, the horrid aspects of many state's initiative/referenda process seem to be laid bare every election cycle, as there's no shortage of well-funded reactionaries who always manage to get bullshit on the ballot.

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11/a_thought_on_gay_marriage_in_maine.php

kingfish otm that this is never really about "marriage" per se but about legitimacy.

interesting that in Maine as in California, the polls don't quite reflect the vote. apparently the christian bigots don't see anything wrong with lying to poll-takers.

what I heard from people canvassing in Maine is that there were plenty of young people willing to take away other people's rights.

question: do people tend to become socially more conservative as they get older? are all of these teenagers who say they have no problem with same-sex marriage going to feel the same way in 10 or 20 years? I hope so, but I'm not so sure...

look at it like this: how would a vote have gone down 20-30 years ago? 80-20 against or something? let them celebrate for now, they just don't know their history and how it's all going to turn out in the end. it sucks at this moment but it's gonna happen.

p.s. from the coates link: are you fuckin kidding me?

It's quite clear to me that Jim Crow in the South could not have been struck down by a majority vote; interracial marriage was banned in Alabama until 2000, and even then, some 40 percent of Alabamans voted to keep it.

look at it like this: how would a vote have gone down 20-30 years ago? 80-20 against or something? let them celebrate for now, they just don't know their history and how it's all going to turn out in the end. it sucks at this moment but it's gonna happen.

Agree, but with that said we should make sure we are pushing forward on this issue; complacency leads to entropy and equal rights issues are not something that should be allowed to fade into the background.

Also I'm not at all surprised by that info re: Alabama; I actually think most of the country feels that way.

Well, no person is actually WITHOUT prejudice of some kind. But you don't have to vote with your comfort level, do you?? It ought to be possible to vote against what you, yourself, would do because it's NOT ABOUT YOU, OKAY?

There's already a lot of fatalism out there on the anti-marriage front about exactly what Omar is talking about. Example via Dreher, quoted by Coates:

...gay marriage has been a loser. Do I think it always will be? No, I do not, in part because homosexuality is far more accepted by young Americans, and in part because heterosexual America has already conceded the philosophical grounds on which traditional marriage was based (which is why younger Americans are more comfortable with gay marriage). Nor do I believe that the voters are always right.

And there's been similar points made elsewhere -- things DO change, though the frustrations are obvious, and Dan's OTM re: keeping the pressure on. If anything, the anti side seem increasingly wearied.

Keep an eye on the Ted Olson/David Boies action too -- likely this was already linked upthread but it's a good reminder.

Keep an eye on the Ted Olson/David Boies action too

okay lol at slash

basically i think the best strategy is to maintain good cheer and gaiety in the face of this prejudice, which is weakening. much like yankee haters should take heart in the fact that the average age of derek jeter, mariano rivera, andy pettitte, jorge posada, hideki matsui, johnny damon, and alex rodriguez is 37 and rising.

gaiety

o rlly

okay lol at slash

Hahah oh dear.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/10/27/us/27bar_CA0-190/articleInline.jpg

KEEP AN EYE ON THIS ACTION

A rictus of pleasure.

Olson looks like he eats a bowl of Quaker Oats every morning.

A rictus of pleasure.

if it lasts more than 4 hours, call a mortician.

call leticia, your mortician...

BAN MARRIAGE

if gay marriage is illegal, only gay outlaws will have marriages.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080928/obit-newman/images/81b14fe7-8c1f-4d7f-a6f9-9d4dfaae19d3.jpg

question: do people tend to become socially more conservative as they get older? are all of these teenagers who say they have no problem with same-sex marriage going to feel the same way in 10 or 20 years? I hope so, but I'm not so sure...

The answer is no. People do not tend to get more socially conservative as they get older. They tend to hold on to a core worldview from cradle to grave. Older people present as more socially conservative because they reflect the dominant paradigm of 30-50 years ago.

in summary

http://media.photobucket.com/image/haters%20gonna%20hate/Thatairsoftkid/HatersGonnaHate.jpg

(ahem)

in summary

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj303/Thatairsoftkid/HatersGonnaHate.jpg

http://www.standformarriagemaine.com/?p=525
...
http://www.otsd.org/Directories/directories.htm
Assistant Principle of Leonard Middle School?
jenni✧✧✧.c✧✧@rs✧✧✧.o✧✧

It really does seem like it's up to Olson and Boies now. The state-by-state strategy does seem to have played out. we now have an anti-gay governor of New Jersey who has stated that he will veto any same-sex marriage legislation and work toward an amendment to keep it down. The NY legislature couldn't be more cowardly, and will likely use the win in Maine as an excuse for inaction. What's left, DC? Maybe Washington state will take the next step if referndum 71 is approved. Other than that it doesn't look too hopeful in the short-term.

"look at it like this: how would a vote have gone down 20-30 years ago? 80-20 against or something? let them celebrate for now, they just don't know their history and how it's all going to turn out in the end. it sucks at this moment but it's gonna happen."

I agree with this, but I don't feel like I have 20-30 years. Are you satisfied with waiting that long? MA approved same-sex marriage 5 years ago and the sky hasn't fallen. The time is now. I'm just not sure what we can do about it except not shut up or let go, ever.

I am, yes, a terrible person but what about starting a website called thebigotlist.com

see: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2214000503&ref=search&sid=535151176.2010637873..1

question: do people tend to become socially more conservative as they get older? are all of these teenagers who say they have no problem with same-sex marriage going to feel the same way in 10 or 20 years? I hope so, but I'm not so sure...

The answer is no. People do not tend to get more socially conservative as they get older. They tend to hold on to a core worldview from cradle to grave. Older people present as more socially conservative because they reflect the dominant paradigm of 30-50 years ago.

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Wednesday, November 4, 2009 7:27 PM (11 minutes ago)

my sister's first yr psychology textbook kinda said the opposite, i don't want to dig it out but what you said is not necc true maybe(?)

i don't think people change as much as the world changes around them, and since they don't move from their positions they're more conservative contextually. they may have been incredibly liberal thirty years previously.

i think what happens is that people's personalities don't change all that much after 30, it's just that cranky people tend to die earlier

NOT NEC TRUE!!!!

guys there was a snappy new yorkerish cartoon that made it memorable

Dan S., I'd suggest this: say what you want about Sullivan, I think he put it best last night:

In Washington State, another referendum on gay couples' equality was also a squeaker. But in this one, gay couples won. The state's domestic partnership law grants gay couples all the rights of married couples at a state level. The usual forces tried to reverse it, as they tried in Maine. But in Washington, the gay side won by 51.1 to 48.9 percent. Again, it's such a slender margin, it's stupid to draw any vast conclusions.

But I do want to point out that, from the perspective of just a decade ago, to have an even split on this question in a voter referendum is a huge shift in the culture. In Maine, where the Catholic church did all it could to prevent gays from having civil rights in a very Catholic and rural state, gays do have equality but may now merely be denied the name. The process itself has helped educate and enlighten and deepen the debate about gay people in ways that never happened before the marriage issue came up.

I am heart-broken tonight by Maine, and I'd be lying if I said otherwise.

Somehow losing by this tiny margin is brutalizing. And because this is a vote on my dignity as a human being, it is hard not to take it personally or emotionally. But I also know that the history of civil rights movements has many steps backward as forward, and some of those reversals actually catalyze the convictions that lead to victories. A decade ago, the marriage issue was toxic. Now it divides evenly. Soon, it will win everywhere.

The trick is *not to stop* -- and not to pin hopes on one sole approach.

No one's going to have to wait 30 years. These measures are barely passing today.

Shit the mere fact that you can say you don't want to wait 30 years is a sort of astonishing measure of how close this is to happen. 30 years ago the mere question of marriage would have been incoherent to even the fringiest fringe of activism. 30 ago Liberace was afraid to COME OUT!

Hell I remember reading through Virtually Normal back whenever it was released in the mid-nineties and thinking, "Can't happen, can it?"

Sullivan OTM. The dispirited handwringing at every setback is sorta not helpful. Time, demographics, and the equaninimity of the law are on our side.

yeah but we could all be dead tomorrow. fuck this noize, i'm getting some lions, gonna persecute me some christians.

Yum!