Friday, May 29, 2009
Blabbermouths
African-American homophobia is a fact. Oprah's done shows on it. I've witnessed it. So no surprise that the National Organization for Marriage is targeting New York Black people in a radio spot I heard today on WCBS-AM. The voices, an older couple, are distinctly African-American. The message is that "gay marriage" will somehow impede or change the couple's heterosexual marriage & they "don't believe" in it. Of course, it's implied that churches will be forced to host single-sex weddings.
The ad is ironic. Change "gay marriage" to "equal rights" or even "integration," adjust the script, use actors with white Southern voices, & the appeal to tradtional prejudice is basically the same. Difference is, equal marriage rights have no effect on married heterosexuals, very little effect on cultural institutions, & none whatsoever on churches that do not approve. You're allowed to keep your bigotry, up to a point. Even without gay marriage, you'd be required to rent an apartment to domestic partners, same as you couldn't refuse on the basis of race. But you aren't forced to haveblack homosexual friends, & you could still disown a son or daughter for loving someone of a different color, different religion, same gender.
***
The Sotomayor nomination screws Repugs. They can't control their blabbermouths. I live in a predominantly working & middle class Hispanic neighborhood - they own the majority of the one & two-family houses. I don't look around here & think, "I'm surrounded by liberals." Many of these Hispanics - from all over Latin America - are Democrats by default. Elizabeth has two Democratic parties. Hispanics are represented on city council, Board of Ed, & state assembly. They are an ambitious, politically active community. There's no Hispanic child in this town, however poor, who lacks for good models. They're all around, from successful tradespeople & shopkeepers to doctors & lawyers, women & men.
The new grammar school around corner is named for Dr. Antonia Pantoja, a great Puerto Rican educator, activist, & reformer who received the Medal of Freedom from President Clinton. It seems to have been fairly common knowledge that Dr. Pantoja was a lesbian. She wasn't "out," but her obituaries all note that she was survived by her partner, Dr. Wilhemina Perry. Dr. Pantoja was born in 1922 & she was discreet, like those social worker friends of Eleanor Roosevelt.
A community that celebrates & honors Dr. Pantoja & sends their children to another newer public school named for Ronald Reagan will not suffer the fools tearing down Judge Sotomayor. There's plenty to look at in her background - especially the close relationship of a privileged Ivy League lawyer with New York's Democratic power structure. But her expressions of ethnic pride, however she's worded them, are understandable.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
The ad is ironic. Change "gay marriage" to "equal rights" or even "integration," adjust the script, use actors with white Southern voices, & the appeal to tradtional prejudice is basically the same. Difference is, equal marriage rights have no effect on married heterosexuals, very little effect on cultural institutions, & none whatsoever on churches that do not approve. You're allowed to keep your bigotry, up to a point. Even without gay marriage, you'd be required to rent an apartment to domestic partners, same as you couldn't refuse on the basis of race. But you aren't forced to have
***
The Sotomayor nomination screws Repugs. They can't control their blabbermouths. I live in a predominantly working & middle class Hispanic neighborhood - they own the majority of the one & two-family houses. I don't look around here & think, "I'm surrounded by liberals." Many of these Hispanics - from all over Latin America - are Democrats by default. Elizabeth has two Democratic parties. Hispanics are represented on city council, Board of Ed, & state assembly. They are an ambitious, politically active community. There's no Hispanic child in this town, however poor, who lacks for good models. They're all around, from successful tradespeople & shopkeepers to doctors & lawyers, women & men.
The new grammar school around corner is named for Dr. Antonia Pantoja, a great Puerto Rican educator, activist, & reformer who received the Medal of Freedom from President Clinton. It seems to have been fairly common knowledge that Dr. Pantoja was a lesbian. She wasn't "out," but her obituaries all note that she was survived by her partner, Dr. Wilhemina Perry. Dr. Pantoja was born in 1922 & she was discreet, like those social worker friends of Eleanor Roosevelt.
A community that celebrates & honors Dr. Pantoja & sends their children to another newer public school named for Ronald Reagan will not suffer the fools tearing down Judge Sotomayor. There's plenty to look at in her background - especially the close relationship of a privileged Ivy League lawyer with New York's Democratic power structure. But her expressions of ethnic pride, however she's worded them, are understandable.
