Never give up, Never give in
It's only been a month since Texas passed its marriage amendment.
As I'd gotten used to making education and voter ID calls to Texans in the weeks prior to its passage, I didn't want to stop -- so I didn't. The goal of these things is really to halt the discussion about equal access to civil marriage -- our opponents knowing no less than our organizers that talking about it helps our side (we're the ones with the rational arguments and right on our side, after all), not theirs. It seems foolish to me to cooperate with my own oppression by acquiescing to my enemies' attempts to impose silence upon me.
So every day I have been calling local Texas tourism-related businesses (there are a seeming endless number of them and I've barely made a dent in my list), talking about how Texas just advertised itself as a place where the majority of its people are too stupid to tell the difference between religious and civil marriage and voted to deny equal access to the latter with the intent of closing out the former to same-sex couples with the effect of not changing a thing regarding religious marriage -- the First Amendment still applies and gay people can still marry religiously in those religious sects that married them before the election -- but shut not just same-sex couples out of civil marriage, but themselves to boot!
I've told them that "Come visit Texas, home of the stupidest and most backward people in America" probably isn't all that great a slogan for their convention and tourism industries.
When I get ones that say, "It's not my fault, I voted against it", I ask how hard did they work to educate those who they might've reached who did vote for it -- that, unless they can say something like, "until I bled", it's nice but... I say that their inaction has stuck them with the amendment and, unless they choose not to be Texans and denounce the thing on the way out, they're painted with its nasty brush, fair or not, and their relative inaction has earned them the even harder work of repealing it.
I reminded them that minorities are not responsible for their rights -- majorities hold that power over them, so the duty falls to those in the majority populations to take charge of changing their own -- that I'm willing to help them, give them background data and strategic advice and maybe even a few ground troops but, beyond that, it's up to them.
The conversations with those proud of their accomplishment are another thing altogether. I focus on that their win is the beginning of the fight, not the end of it, and that, if they want to know how ugly and backwards they're going to look to their descendants, they should look long into the mirror that reflects their faces of hate.
I'll have to put up a "Texas, the Great Hate State" website next...
|
As I'd gotten used to making education and voter ID calls to Texans in the weeks prior to its passage, I didn't want to stop -- so I didn't. The goal of these things is really to halt the discussion about equal access to civil marriage -- our opponents knowing no less than our organizers that talking about it helps our side (we're the ones with the rational arguments and right on our side, after all), not theirs. It seems foolish to me to cooperate with my own oppression by acquiescing to my enemies' attempts to impose silence upon me.
So every day I have been calling local Texas tourism-related businesses (there are a seeming endless number of them and I've barely made a dent in my list), talking about how Texas just advertised itself as a place where the majority of its people are too stupid to tell the difference between religious and civil marriage and voted to deny equal access to the latter with the intent of closing out the former to same-sex couples with the effect of not changing a thing regarding religious marriage -- the First Amendment still applies and gay people can still marry religiously in those religious sects that married them before the election -- but shut not just same-sex couples out of civil marriage, but themselves to boot!
I've told them that "Come visit Texas, home of the stupidest and most backward people in America" probably isn't all that great a slogan for their convention and tourism industries.
When I get ones that say, "It's not my fault, I voted against it", I ask how hard did they work to educate those who they might've reached who did vote for it -- that, unless they can say something like, "until I bled", it's nice but... I say that their inaction has stuck them with the amendment and, unless they choose not to be Texans and denounce the thing on the way out, they're painted with its nasty brush, fair or not, and their relative inaction has earned them the even harder work of repealing it.
I reminded them that minorities are not responsible for their rights -- majorities hold that power over them, so the duty falls to those in the majority populations to take charge of changing their own -- that I'm willing to help them, give them background data and strategic advice and maybe even a few ground troops but, beyond that, it's up to them.
The conversations with those proud of their accomplishment are another thing altogether. I focus on that their win is the beginning of the fight, not the end of it, and that, if they want to know how ugly and backwards they're going to look to their descendants, they should look long into the mirror that reflects their faces of hate.
I'll have to put up a "Texas, the Great Hate State" website next...
