Gay is the New Black
Nearly fifty years ago, on May 17, 1954, the US Supreme Court ruled in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, unanimously declaring that racial segregation violated the 14th amendment of the US Constitution. Fifty years later, we’re only finally getting around to applying the same kind of logic to homosexuals and same-sex marriage.
Though it was Trudeau who stated in 1967 that “the state has no place has in the bedrooms of the nation”, it appears that most people took him literally, limiting the equality of homosexuals to the bedroom – at least until last week. Last week, an Ontario court ruled that the definition of marriage should be changed. A parliamentary committee recommended, in a nail-bitingly close 9-8 vote, that Ottawa not challenge the ruling. Yet this ruling, and the government’s decision not to appeal, has caused much hand-wringing.
Looking back on the Brown v. Board of Education, fifty years of time has given us the perspective to realize the wisdom of the ruling, and perhaps laugh a little at ourselves. What the heck were we thinking, segregating schools? We always seem to find something to build into a monster, something new to demonize. If it’s not minorities, it’s Commies. If not the Commies, then it’s the terrorists. Humanity has an amazing ability to turn nothing into something to worry about.
Let’s re-examine the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom for a sec, shall we? Picking, at random, section 15, subsection 1:
“Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”
It’s pretty simple: what part of “every individual is equal before and under the law” don’t people understand? Does the Charter need to speak slower and e-nun-ci-ate?
Seriously, what’s the problem with gay marriages? Oh my god, two people want to commit to each other in a loving relationship that falls within the legal framework of the land! Those magnificent bastards! Next thing you know, they’ll be buying houses together! Renovating! Wanting to adopt children so that they can raise them in a loving, tolerant home! We’ve got to stop this before it’s too late!
Yes, gay is the new black. Just as with segregation, we’ll undoubtedly be looking back fifty years hence, shaking our heads and wondering again what the heck we were thinking. However, I hope it’ll happen sooner than that.
Meanwhile, some people are still holding out, fighting to ban children’s books, books that promote tolerance of same-sex relationships, from schools in Surrey. You know Surrey, right? The largest expatriate Sikh population outside India. Excuse me if I find it ironic that a community composed largely of visible minorities, one which is struggling even today to battle derogatory stereotypes and racism, is acting against another minority group. Wouldn’t want to promote tolerance, now would we? After all, that’s not what Canada is all about at all!
Sheesh.
Perhaps you should pass this onto Ralph Klein who (rarely one to say anything intelligent) opened his mouth and stated for the record… “If there is any move to sanctify and legalize same-sex marriages, we will use the notwithstanding clause, period. End of story.” Hmmm, maybe Ralph is afraid gay marriages could somehow eat into Alberta’s massive oil-driven surplus and ruin the province’s econonmy? Wait a minute… could they use the ‘notwithstanding clause’ against redheaded MBA students too? Could redheads be the new gay?
Ah, Ralph Klein. We have to forgive him – he can’t be held responsible for the things he says while he’s either drunk or wallowing in oil and gas derived kick-backs. Such comments are the predictable side-effect of being Alberta’s answer to both Gordon “I’ve only had one drink tonite occifer!” Campbell and George “remember not to destroy the oil wells” Bush. Sigh.
As for the notwithstanding clause, I don’t believe I’m illegal. That I know of. That may change.
And, no, red-headed MBAs won’t be the new gay. I believe the correct order will be: gay is the new black, terrorism is the new gay, then red-headed MBAs are the new terrorism. That sounds about right. 😉
Brendon, I am so glad you now have comments — sometimes, the comments that you make are better/funnier than your original postings.
Fight the power, you crazy RBGT MBA student!
Whoops, I stand corrected: it appears we still haven’t solved that whole racial injustice problem, based on the recently hung jury in the Los Angeles police brutality trial.
Unless you’re a black sodomite, your anal-ogy is out of line. Blacks are black and whites are white because God made us that way. Gays are people of any race who CHOOSE to live a life of sexual perversity and immorality. You have been drawn into sin and deception and are dragging others with you by promoting your glorious inhibitions.
Wow. That’s a whole lot of intolerance coming from someone who’s clearly from a religion whose central tenet can be boiled down to “can’t we all just get along?”
First, let’s make something clear: I’m neither black, nor gay (to quote Seinfeld: “not that there’s anything wrong with that”).
Second: I am Catholic, though since I left home my devotion to this religion has fallen into the “Christmas and Easter” category of Catholic.
Third: The “choice” to be gay is the subject of much debate, and recent scientific studies suggest that homosexuality has at least a partial basis in biology. Of course, the religious right refutes these studies as flawed and an attempt by the masterminds behind the Homosexual Agenda to advance their cause. To be fair, conclusive evidence of a link has not been found, but that doesn’t mean that such a link doesn’t exist.
Fourth: Religion can be wrong. In 1543, Copernicus advanced the notion that the Earth revolved around the Sun – an idea with which then Pope Paul III disagreed. A mere 383 years later, the Church decided Copernicus was right and forgave him. Ditto Galileo, whom the Church had publically flogged until, in 1663, he recanted his belief. Funny – it doesn’t seem to me that either Galileo or Copernicus were the ones who required forgiveness.
Religion has been wrong in the past, and it’ll be wrong again – unless, of course, that really IS Apollo in his chariot, wheeling across the sky. Some of the greatest atrocities have been committed in the name of religion upon application of faulty or nonexistent logic.
Fanatical devotees of religion seem to delight in the persecution of groups of people whose behaviour has absolutely no impact or potential for impact on their lives. It continues even today, with the Vatican banning condoms, while millions in Africa suffer the effects of malnutrition due to overpopulation, or AIDS due to unprotected sex.
To put it mildly, chill out dude. Make like Bill and Ted: be excellent to each other, and…party on, dude!
You and Chretien can both rest easy by proclaiming that you’re Catholic when you should really be ashamed of your thoughts and actions.
I will agree with you in that religion isn’t perfect, nor is mankind. We’ve been given the free will to sin…or not. People representing the church have made many grave errors. However, that’s not God making errors but people…flawed human beings. The very humans whose immoral actions you support and seemingly promote.
No reasonable person would argue that people have desires, moral and immoral, ethical and non-ethical. This is the apple tree dude! You can choose to eath the fruit and act on your feelings or reject them and live morally. You can follow what you KNOW is right, planted in your soul since conception, or you can crawl into a hole and sodomize your neighbour. You can walk away from temptation or follow your unnatural urges and rape, rob, kill, molest a child or flaunt your immorality while prancing half naked in a pride parade. All of this is sick and disgusting and deep down you know it, but you choose to live life to the fullest today, to hell with tomorrow.
Sorry Dude, the intolerant are those that want to shut up those willing to follow God. They’re the ones that killed the prophets, the ones that killed Christ. They didn’t want to listen then and they don’t want to listen now.
And you know what else?
If I’m wrong at the end of the day, I’d rather be wrong but have lived a moral life, a life where I didn’t spread a social disease because of my uncontrolled lust, a life that didn’t hurt someone physically or emotionally, a life that didn’t encourage others to join in my indecent life.
Thanks for the forum Dude. See you in Church.
He he he! Who is writing this? This must be a joke?
My husband? A gay sodomite? What has he not been telling me? Seeing as I spend nearly all my waking hours either in his presence or in contact with him, where does he find the time?
Human interpretation of the bible written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek results in imperfect translations. In the old testament, when Ham, son of Noah, commits the sin of seeing his father naked, Noah damns Ham’s son Canaan and all his sons to be a servants. That is today’s translation, however it is wrong. What it actually said in the ancient text, properly translated, was that they were all to be “slaves”. You will find people, still to this day, use this as so called proof that it is okay in the eyes of God to own other human beings as if they were mules. Oh, by the way, Ham was supposedly the black sheep of the family – literally, he was black. For more information on this topic please see: http://www.religioustolerance.org/sla_bibl3.htm
I would like to think that human beings have matured in their thoughts and ideas over the past 3,000 years.
Also, since the Bible is written by imperfect men, men had breathed into this text their own biases, fears and imperfections. And seeing as Christians are no longer bound by Leviticus, as the law is complete and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, I challenge anyone who reads this to translate the original Aramaic or Greek text of the New Testament where today pervert, male prostitute, sodomy, sodomite and sodomize appear. You will see that the modern connotation of these words are false interpretations of the original works. And you will see that the passages that today are used to damn homosexuals to eternal hellfire do not hold water.
For some reason, I’m having a flashback to Reverend Lovejoy from the Simpsons:
That aside, let’s start at the beginning:
I find this quote interesting – a few centuries ago the church used the bible to argue that slavery was OK, as pointed out by my wife. Since that time, the Church has changed its views. As we have already agreed, imperfect men within the Church were the reason such flawed interpretations of the Bible were perpetuated among the masses. If we agree on that, then how can you be sure that your views on homosexuality, predominantly shaped by the Church in a similar fashion, aren’t equally flawed? Isn’t it possible that you’re being misled in this interpretation by a Church that is advancing its own agenda, just as the Church misled its followers before?
Are you suggesting the views you and your religious conviction represent don’t hurt people? How’s this for hurt: families following your views happily throw their own son or daughter out of their houses when they find out they’re gay. Don’t you think this experience constitutes hurting people?
What bothers me most is how absolutely you state your position, as if to say “These are the rules. Period.” Fine, let’s argue on those grounds:
Question: by whose definition of a moral life? Of course, in this statement you’re assuming the Catholic definition of a “moral life” is the correct definition. If you choose a non-Catholic definition, you’ve been a very bad boy. Been eating pork? Whoops! That’s bad, according to the Jews. Been eating beef? That’s bad, according to the Hindus. Not been praying several times a day? Let’s just say that Allah’s not going to be too happy.
I’m not saying you’re not entitled to your views – after all, if I was really as intolerant as you suggest I would have simply deleted your comment. I’m just saying you need to open your mind to the possibility that the rules of your religion need not be as black-and-white as you present them. Religion needs to be more than a set of hard-and-fast rules that people follow blindly – people need to think through those rules. Are they logical? Do they make sense? Does the religion espouse contradictory beliefs, and if so, how do you deal with those contradictions?
Thanks for the rally Brendon, it was interesting.
Just to recap my position:
The Bible isn’t flawed, mankind is. http://www.equip.org/free/DA310.htm
Misinterpreting “slave” as “servant” doesn’t amount to a severe change in the message. Now, despite how mankind wants to interpret this, it’s pretty hard to misconstrue these passages as condoning homosexuality.
Romans 1:26-28
“For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done.”
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
“Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers–none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Like those who try to justify their immoral, indecent behaviour, you keep pointing to flawed “Human†actions to convict the Church. Yes, people representing the Church have done great atrocities (killing Christ is one of them). Mankind continues this ugly path. Wrong is wrong!
The point is, we can correct our path or not.
Parents rejecting their child…not God’s error but mans
Blacks enslaved and mistreated…not God’s error, not a Biblical flaw, but mans.
Religion needs to be more than a set of hard-and-fast rules that people follow blindly – people need to think through those rules. Are they logical? Do they make sense? Does the religion espouse contradictory beliefs, and if so, how do you deal with those contradictions?
Rules are needed to avoid chaos. Break them and you enjoy the consequences. HIV, STD, decayed human values, prison, death etc.
Blindly? Hardly. Open your eyes to the sickness that is engulfing our world!
Killing babies – fortunately we weren’t murdered in our mothers wombs
Pedophilia/incest – this is the next group that will lobby for equality
Homosexuality – enough said
Pornography – you’d probably call this art
Bestiality – this will make a nice couple at the altar
Pre-marital sex – you wouldn’t buy a car without test-driving it would you?
Extramarital sex – this is starting to sound like an old biblical story
Do they make sense? Not if they go against our unnatural agenda and limit our fun!
Espouse contradictory beliefs? Yes, and now you have God given “free will†to choose right from wrong. And you Do know right from wrong. Religious or not, believer or not, every human being has the laws of morality and decency encoded in them from conception. We immediately know when we are going against God’s law. We have just gotten very good at ignoring that little voice inside. But remember this, when the time comes that your circumstances change suddenly for the worse, when the pain becomes unbearable, when you have nowhere to turn…you WILL cry out to your creator.
Since this is your tangled web site I’ll move on now having said my peace. You will have the last word as they did way back (John’s head didn’t get a chance to reply).
They didn’t want to listen then…
All this because you wanted to compare blacks with the same brush as homosexuals.
What you talkin’ about Willis?!
You rely on the Bible for defense of your viewpoint which, at first glance, is logical. After all, it’s the word of God, right?
Or is it?
Consider: how many hands have that Bible passed through? Besides translation errors, each revision of the Bible has exposed it to the opportunity for tampering by those in power at the time. The Church was a source of great power, a way to control the people – you don’t think that those in power influenced, or even outright changed, its content in their time?
After two millennia, it’s doubtful that any of the Bible’s content is untainted – not exactly the place I’d be looking to justify a perspective on God, truth be told. So where to look?
Perhaps that “little voice inside” holds the answers – but where does that voice come from? It’s not the voice of God, it’s your conscience – a conscience formed not at conception but over years of childhood experiences. These experiences shaped your belief system, your discern between “right” and “wrong”. But who predominantly shaped those beliefs? Why, men of course! Imperfect men, with their own beliefs and biases, who probably also believed in the absoluteness of the Bible.
Therefore, your belief system is self-reinforcing. No amount of logic will move you, which is fine, it’s your right to hold those beliefs. Just as it is my right to hold mine.