Stop Supporting Religious Prejudice

 

I hope by the time this appears, everyone in the LGBT community will have taken deep, cleansing breaths and realized that the blame for the success of California's Proposition 8 does not belong to the African-American community.

      I hope they've paid attention to the black leaders who continue fighting to end all discrimination against LGBT people, such as Rev. Kenneth Samuel, Chair of the People for the American Way Foundation's African American Ministers Leadership League, or Rev. Gerald Johnson, the Individual Rights and Advocacy Vice-Chair of California's NAACP.

      I hope they realize that criticism of a community that's also been discriminated against is an easy fallback on prejudice that scapegoats a whole community while empowering right-wing enemies of LGBT people. White people and Republicans were two of the groups that actually voted for Prop. 8 at higher rates than African Americans.

Jackhammerin'

            This week I found the greatest new toy! It's an ELECTRIC jackhammer. Who knew? They rent these things along with multitudes of other wonderful devices. I know, you're asking why I would possibly require one of these, but I did have the need for a jackhammer.

            It started out with what my love called an "unsightly" basketball goal mounted on a pole next to our driveway. Bri has wanted it taken down for about six years. She would point out the cracking paint and the rusted pole with gaping holes in it. Personally, I thought it was useable, but a few days ago I decided to really make her happy and take it down. Okay, I might have been threatened and accused of procrastination, but I'm all about her happiness.

While many have been celebrating the dawn of a new era in the United States of America, given the recent elections, those of us in the LGBT community still have the impression that we are, as of yet, left in the margins. Is the LGBT community mere marginalia on the pages of American and world history? Where do we go from here? What, exactly would be just and fair for the LGBT community in America and abroad? Is there even a value to a so-called justice, or is their an ethical and moral dilemma over which we must combat?

            Without getting too bogged down in the intricacies of hefty philosophical debate, I would argue that yes, we, in the LGBT community, do have a necessity for justice and fairness, and we do, also, have ethical and moral dilemmas to combat, BUT NOT from a theological perspective at all, as many fundamentalist Christians would have us believe.

            It has been almost 40 years since the riots at Stonewall, and many have thought it time for a new Stonewall to occur. But is it?