Here's Hoping the Majority Actually Votes.

Positive news for those of us who don't like our state constitutions to be enshrined in discriminatory policy. Recent polls put the notion of putting the ban of same-sex marriage in NC's constitution in a similar light according to WRAL and Elon University's recent data.

 Fifty-six percent of North Carolina residents oppose a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would ban same-sex marriages, according to a poll released Friday.
The Elon University Poll, which surveyed 594 adults statewide between Sunday and Thursday, found support for recognizing gay marriages growing in North Carolina. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points

 Its important to note that this legislation is simply putting the ban in the constitution to further ensure that same sex marriage will be a long term impossibility for the state. Its an abstraction to think that same sex marriages are legal or possible in North Carolina otherwise. This measure is a misdirect and a waste of resources that will serve to divide the state further and marginalize a group that already has little chance of what the ballot initiative seeks to prevent. Salt in wounds, and wedge issue politics that would make Ken Melhman proud. 


Still, its refreshing that the public isn't as gullible as Forrester seems to think we are. If the majority in the sample is representitive of the rest of the state, and that majority goes to the polls, we'll be in good shape. (Or at least not taking steps backwards on civil rights based on bias and poorly articulated conjecture)

 "It must be in the air here..."

A Life of Omission: The Face of DADT (It gets better?)

Joe. My. God.: DADT Repeal Forces Bigots Into Closet:

'via Blog this'

I watched this youtube clip before I found out about the recent, saddening suicide of a sweet boy from upstate NY , and was filled with a great deal of hope about who DADT was repealed for and frankly, its nice to see such a human (and let's be honest, adorable) face to such an institutional and cultural impediment to equality. One imagines many people who have on the whole been forced to live a sequestered life, a social life of omission, that forces one to keep friends and family at arms length might be emboldened by no longer having to. Its a process of liberation, this step of being candid, honest with the people who ought to know you best. Suffice it to say our patriot in question may have gone about it in the most ... instantaneous way, as the story has in as many days garnered a shit ton of views and a fair amount of mainstream press.

All with good reason. We're watching people who've been forced to live with a gag order looming over their ability to casually mention their personal lives in any meaningful way lest it destroy their professional one. It was a particularly inelegant band-aid to have been applied to prevent a "worse outcome". It remains to be seen if the number of wrongful discharges were in fact worse outcomes to the persons who've been ceremoniously fired for aspects of their lives that occur off duty. It was an interesting bit of institutional discrimination that was meant to be less of a discriminatory measure than it happened to be. Good intentions don't neatly absolve one of robbing otherwise good soldiers of their ability to serve their country, mind, but those of us interested in genuine equality ought to celebrate the demise this bizarre period of policy history and call it a day.(Big kudos to Senator Gilibrand among many others for making this come to fruition)




Some uplifting from the pretty keen British Sea Power- Waving Flags
"We're only here for a while, and its all joke." (but don't be scared)

"Getting Over It"- On Racial Obliviousness and Other Ways to Segregate.

Those of you that confront consternation about racism with a pithy "get over it" remark from their armchairs present an interesting, if not a little complicated suggestion about America and race. To "get over ourselves" is problematic in that it actively involves first understanding the self in the first place. As it pertains to the socio-economic implications of race in American culture, we live in a society that considers race so important that every ethnicity/"race" other than Caucasian generally inserts a hyphenated disclaimers FIRST stating our racial background before our nationality. As a way of adding context to this truth; the only time I’ve just been called “an American” in my life was when I was wandering around Montreal having political conversations. It was an odd bit of culture shock at the moment, and one where I was suddenly reminded how important the status of “race” is in our culture.

Some have suggested (ignorantly) that in order to “get over” race, we should abolish the idea that its important….but hundreds of years of stratification and inequality have in fact been caused and perpetuated because of this socially constructed topic. Human lives have been lost and thought irrelevant because of our culture’s inaccurate considerations of race. In short, so many abhorrent acts if human cruelty has been visited upon people of African-American dissent …and so much of our lives has been dictated by a status our culture itself has dictated is THE most important aspect of who we are that it becomes a little insulting for people to suggest we “get over” being black because it suddenly makes things easier for everyone else.

I’m reminded of a conversation I was relayed by a good friend and neighbor before Heritage day this year. The friend overheard people we know at a party say , “Man, what is up with Black people and slavery? It happened over 200 years ago! Get over it!” The suggestion that these aspects of our history that are negative and have had real and lasting implications for an entire group of people based on (arbitrarily) their racial background seems to trouble those who grapple with how to process this experience you resent and consider “white guilt”. The irony? The next day we as a community were celebrating the history of an event that happened far far earlier. I’d be curious if he felt we should get over celebrating that (arguably white) heritage as well. So again the dominant culture gets to dictate what the minority culture considers relevant, when the dominant culture has previously gone out of its way to create and perpetuate these concepts of racial and ethnic difference in the first place.

What I find suspect is that a group of people who openly display that they are neither willing or interested in considering that the history of African-Americans is no different than the history of America in general, the group of people who suggest they “get over” blackness, slavery, jim crow and the like are often the very same people who are quick to remind us of our “otherness” of our hyphenated statuses. To bring this full circle, would you or anyone other than a Holocaust denier (who I hope we can all agree would be on the wrong side of History) suggest that someone who told a Holocaust survivor or his or her direct descendants to “get over” the Holocaust and forget the fact that an entire community or nation got together and decided they should be imprisoned, and or killed based on their ethnic or racial status? How then can you be so disconnected in this regard?

Its an interesting conundrum. If you ran a poll asking people belonging to an ethnic minority group if they would like to get beyond racism as an overall society, I bet you the lionshare would say yes without hesitation. What I see as the problem to what you suggest is that your “get over it” response doesn’t – like the overheard partygoer- come from a place of historical context or awareness. It comes from a place where you feel inconvenienced and annoyed for having to recognize the negative aspects of American racial history and the part dominant culture (the part more people than you come from, I remind) has played in that. That there’s a suggestion that you as an individual of a certain status haven’t had to (ever) consider the matter of how race impacts you fully due to your status. That’s a privilege. It’s a luxury. And one I rather envy.

I can count the number of times I’ve been reminded of my statuses as being a national outsider in my own nation. Again, it took going to Canada to be reminded I was “interesting for an American”. I would LOVE to be able to “get over race”, but first it would require that a bunch of people who seem so utterly disconnected about how much its shaped the recent past of American culture actually acknowledging that these differences our culture has created happened in the first place. Coming to terms with an issue with such a profoundly large social impact requires a lot more than just deciding to “get over it”. It requires examination and understanding, reflection and awareness. If our culture’s relationship with the issue of slavery has taught us anything- its that most people in the majority aren’t interested in doing that long enough to move forward.

New York States of Mind.

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/06/ny-senate-approves-marriage.html

In "In Hope For the World Yet" News, it would be remiss of me as a Jr. level pseudo-social activist not to post an entry in honor of the recently official approval of gay marriage in New York state. Its a great boon for those of us who prefer we collectively work towards equality, and not seem as much the regressive nation we may in fact happen to be when compared to a our allies. The right to marry in NY seems long overdue in ways, as so much of the western world looks to Manhattan as second only to San Francisco as true north when it comes to gay communities and life in general.

It bares noting that this doesn't necessarily mean a sea change regarding the rest of the nations rigidity on the so called issue of same sex marriage. New York state as of last night has become one of only six states in the union who actively seeks (after much deliberation, apparently) to recognize the humanity and equality of all its legal taxpaying adult citizens. Compare that with the number of states where marrying one's cousin is permissible and on the books... and shutter at the sheer wrongness of it all.

Secondly, the victory for marital equality in New York state does not mean that there are not those who will seek to hamper and demonize gay people and this issue of civil rights. The dialog that has been generated around this issue in states where its on the docket is quite simply vitriolic in many cases. Much the way voting President Obama into office hasn't been the harbinger of the "post racial" society I'd heard so much about, the vote here in the right direction isn't going to stop idiots like Archbishiop Timothy Dean of NY from making the hackneyed slippery slope analogies we hear so often:

"That’s what’s going to happen here. You think it’s going to stop with this? You think now bigamists are going to want their rights to marry? You think somebody that wants to marry his sister is going to now say 'I have a right.' I mean it’s the same principle, isn’t it?"

I suppose we could waste valuable time dissecting just how impossibly stupid this line of logic is. If what the good Archbishop implies is correct, the ONLY thing keeping men from this urge to marry their sisters is... a law in place that prohibits this... the man does not much faith in general decency of his fellows it would seem. The ways this analogy fails is tremendous, as two loving (not related) human beings who already share a life or seek to, have no reason to live their lives as though a subjective religious lens. State officiated marriages are offered in a purely secular capacity and in order to assuage some concern of the religious among us, religions can still opt to be highly discriminatory towards those it does not wish to serve or acknowledge. Its just that they cannot entirely control the argument and act as arbiters of social norms for everyone.

I sometimes wonder if all the animus towards gay marriage from christian conservatives does not stem from this fact; the idea that a real or perceived loss of control about being able to be the preeminent decider of who and what unions are valid, and the ability to control the terms through which a couple weds- not to mention the monetary/economic aspects of the ceremonies associated. Perhaps its a more Marxian dynamic than some would be willing to admit in that the ability to control the lines where the in-group and the out-group are divided, and further to dictate the terms upon which a member of the group can change status is being eroded in this particular case...Though it is highly doubtful anyone who has ever wielded any sort of power will abdicate such without a fight.

Its a great, beautiful thing that has been wrestled from the hands of the rigid this day, on the week of NY Pride, no less. To love is a gift, and marriage...as far as traditions go, has aspects worthy of adhering to as its at least generally a social good. Encouraging more people to conform to standards that we as a society have long held are important, the pinnacle to which any relationship is to be measured against, seems perfectly understandable. Not allowing "conventional wisdom" to hinder people from taking care of their families and loved ones merely because someone else takes exception to whom you happen to love flies in the face of the freedoms that make America's vast potential for humanitarian good somewhat more muted.

_________________________

Now for something incrementally less exuberant. Matt Pond PA is one of my all time favorite bands, I've always been enamored of the way they meld rock and orchestral sensibilities to get some sweet, lovely layered melody. Midlake is one of my more favorite folksy discoveries of the last year, and "Head Home" is perhaps one of my favorite songs of theirs. (though it seems its hard to choose). Music to read by. Be excellent to each other and have a wonderful (pride) weekend.

Lovings and Marriage.

Joe. My. God.: 44 Years Later: <i>Loving Vs. Virginia</i>

Without question, this is one of the most important legal cases in United States history. Every semester this is brought up in class when discussing race, or social change, or marital equality and each and every time younger students sit agape- amazed that something like interracial marriage was illegal in their parents lifetimes and not some ancient, distant age where pilgrims wore funny hats. 44 years ago these two good and noble people drew a line in the sand and simply by loving and contesting an archaic law taught us how utterly wrong conventional wisdom can be.

While its refreshing that youth culture seems to be disconnected over the recentness of the changes that grant persons to marry of whatever "race" they choose (I hope to marry a human someday, myself) I always find it a tad alarming that most people in a class of freshmen aged students are so oblivious to the fact that less than a generation ago this was a big deal, that segregation was not only social thought, but legally binding institutional discrimination.

I've heard it said a great deal lately, from thoughtful young trailblazers in their own right, that we'll collectively look back at same sex marriage, Proposition 8 and its subsequent banning and conservative pushbacks as wrongheaded and horrific, the same way many look at Loving v. the Supreme Court of Virginia. As a horrible dinosaur from another age. A reminder of how awful and alien the past can be, and in its own way, how recent and transformative the power of love can be. Its because of the Lovings that I'm convinced the right to marry the human of your choosing is worth changing the world for.

Chose Your Own Adventure.

Mass Effect 3 to Offer Same-Sex Relationships - Xbox 360 News at IGN

I think it says scores about where we are in society regarding acceptance and tolerance, when the narrative choices of a video game provide increasing sexual diversity. Bioware has always been ahead of the curve in this regard with their role playing games and the "chose your own adventure" sort of potentiality. The result has been senarios where the interactions and the bonds one forges with the characters around them are deepened.

The most interesting part? While this would have been big news to gay fanboys and nerd dudes of a queer persuasion only once upon a time, now we live in a world where this story is front page news on more mainstream video game sites. And while not everyone is going to be in the market for same-sex romancing of alien species... it certainly says a lot that we're beginning to live in worlds that envision such parings as possible, viable and worthy of inclusion. Brave new universe indeed.