Thoughts on Amendment One
I sit down to write this post at a hotel in Waikiki, where I have the extreme privilege to enjoy time with my family in an absurdly gorgeous place. (If you have never been to Hawai’i, it is literally a garden of Eden, just with more tourists.) However, I find the comfort I have had with my family over the past 24 hours of traveling - complete with the always welcomed hassling of TSA agents at BWI - has left a bittersweet flavor on my tongue. There is some inevitable guilt that accompanies social-consciousness when you receive such joy from a family you were born into while others do not have the privilege of a loving family bound originally by genetics. For many, especially individuals in the LGBTQ community, family is chosen and established through a complex social and personal struggle, a reach for identity through others, which is something we all do, as all humans are social animals. The state where I live and work decided this Tuesday to make that struggle for identity, family, and intimacy even more difficult for those who lack the same privilege I possess. For those in the LGBTQ community, the construction of family is critical; it is a shield in a world of open hostility or general indifference.

Savannah Seithel, A UNC-Asheville student, who attended an impromptu rally after news of the amendment’s passing was spread, put this in the most brilliantly simplistic way possible. In a USA Today article she states her dream to one day raise a child, and how she “came to believe [she] could have that dream,” adding, “[b]ut now I believe there is a war on that dream.” A war indeed, and furthermore, it is an existential war. This is not to say that the legal and social implications are not important, but they are obvious and ultimately trivial in comparison to the true scope of the war - thus, a little creativity is required to truly assess what this means.

Put simply, the product of Amendment 1 is not a result of acquisition, but rather of robbery. Those who voted for Amendment 1 gained absolutely nothing beyond their own self-legitimation; however, it was self-legitimation that they desired all along, a fact that should not easily be forgotten, (and there is a very direct and real reason why). Samuel Soper, founder and president of Just Us for All (JUFA), an Asheville-based LGBTQ organization, iterated this thought brilliantly Tuesday: “[T]his amendment is a power trip. This amendment was an extreme act of privilege and unnecessary… Many of us are not the mainstream faces seen in the LGBTQ fight. Many of us are transgender, genderqueer, plain old queer, lesbian, ally, bisexual, gay, and without label. Many of us work service jobs. Many of us are in school. Many of us do not fit cookie cutter image that America demands in order to deem queerness as normal or acceptable.”

What Soper stated should be heeded on two levels: first, it is a recognition of the true nature of the amendment, but more importantly it embraces members of this community that will never be embraced if the politics of Centrism and compromise prevail over life-affirmation, and the actualization of self. This amendment is so discouraging not because people went to the polls due to deliberate manipulation and dishonesty from socially legitimized institutions, but because no one is placing the blame on the responsible parties. But let us not be deceived by political correctness, because it is as selective and fickle as any social sensibility. In the time since the passing of the amendment I have heard/read/seen a number of scapegoats for the amendment, mostly relating to the “ignorance” of North Carolinians. Some remarks have reverted to classism, calling North Carolina a “hick” state, but through this classism there is a general message: homophobia is solely a result of ignorance. I rarely see liberals as especially more arrogant in comparison to their conservative counterparts; but what else would you call this? I understand the anger; and I know we all utter such absurdities out of misplaced emotion; and I certainly have little right to police those emotions, lest they are deemed harmful and lead to harmful actions. However, this insistence on a vague form of ignorance is profoundly ignorant in itself.

Where do these liberals - and excuse me for the stereotyping, but if you will oblige, I have emotions I would like to express uncensored as well, and I speak solely out of observation, not predisposition - believe this ignorance to come from? Is it some kind of wandering ontological force that selectively imbeds itself into the minds of select groups of people? Such an answer is a result of either intellectual laziness, or, more likely, social cowardice. This problem is not ontological, it is institutional. At the risk of sounding like Sinead O’Connor, I believe it is time to fight the real enemy, to reevaluate, and hopefully reinvent, our version of LGBTQ activism - to ditch the politics of compromise.

The day the state legislature decided to put Amendment One on the ballot, I attended a rally in opposition with Samuel Soper, my partner, and a small group associated with JUFA, in which the majority of the speakers at said rally were religious authorities of some kind. Why do we universally believe religious authorities have some special access to God’s position on sexual identity and human rights? Why do we consult these women and men - mostly, sometimes exclusively, men - to speak for communities their respective institutions find detestable. Liberals have a strange tendency to want to endorse religious institutions when it behooves their socio-political desires. Liberals also have a tendency to misquote religious figures and institutions as they see fit. This is a product of emotional solipsism, not genuine conviction. But during this rally I waited in vain for a secular humanist to talk about our common connection as human beings, not based on a (frankly) pathetic religious appeal, but on human dignity, something we all, no matter where you go in this world, desire. I have yet to meet the person who desires deception and nonconsensual belittlement; if you find them, please contact me.

The Abrahamic religions, at least in concerns to their founding institutional structures and canonical literature, are remarkably clear on homosexuality. In the Book of Genesis, there is a character named Lot, who, in order to spare the two angels he is harboring in his home from being raped by a curiously angry mob, he offers his own daughters to be raped instead. Keep in mind, these angels were visiting Lot because he was the most righteous man in the city. Yet, the most righteous man in town, in order to prevent homosexual contact - because, for some reason the angels were male-sexed - thought the rape of his own daughters to be a preferable option. The Qur’an emphasizes the disgust for homosexuality in this story significantly more so than the Book of Genesis, but the implication is still there. You do not have to quote Leviticus to understand the Bible’s hatred of same-sex intimacy. It is obvious, glaringly obvious.

The typical theological retort to this argument is Jesus’ silence on the issue of homosexuality and his supposed tolerance for marginalized members of society. These logicians have apparently never read the Gospel according to Mark. If you have, you will recall Jesus as, for lack of a better word, an asshole who constantly belittles his closest companions and expresses scorn for all those around him. Mark 9: 14-29, a story about the healing of an epileptic boy, is a great example. He is also incredibly prejudice against non-Jews, and generally ignores them unless convinced otherwise, which happens only once in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 15: 21-28). Matthew and Luke do not redeem Jesus adequately from Mark’s depiction, but granted, he is not as big of prick in those two tellings. Still, all three promote anti-materialism, anti-feminism, (Mark 10: 1-12 is a decent example), and anti-humanism. Bertrand Russell once wrote that Christianity robs us of our altruistic desires, of the things that draw us outside of ourselves, namely, family and country (herd/group loyalty if you prefer). Yet, we allow the institution of Christianity lead the LGBTQ community blindly into a compromise with institutions that historically have a very monolithic position on the subjects that most concern said community.

I would have no quarrel with LGBTQ activists allying themselves with “tolerate” Christians if it was done solely out of self-interest; self-interest should not be confused with selfishness, as the fight against marginalization for immense relegated populations is rarely, if ever, a selfish endeavor for the individual. However, it is done for reasons I simply cannot understand fully or sympathize. If I could offer my own interpretation, I can only conclude that this is done out of the desire to appear “normal,” another attempt at creating the depiction of a “model minority”; however, this time, the term is not meant in reference to ethnicity. This leads me back to Soper’s quote: “Many of us do not fit cookie cutter image that America demands in order to deem queerness as normal or acceptable.” And they should not have to! If I may further my interpretation, I find this is an appeal to Centrism, which dictates that a middle ground on socio-political issues is somehow always preferable, as there is a misguided belief that compromise is somehow a utilitarian principle in all situations. This argument dismantles itself, so I need not linger on it.

I am calling for an abandonment of faith as a source for human dignity and a partner to actualization of any kind. I am calling for radicalism, for a queer Malcolm X to immerge. I am calling for irreligiosity where it is undoubtedly appropriate in concerns to the institution of Christianity, which is directly to blame for the spreading of misinformation to the masses who voted to pass this self-righteous amendment. If you are an apologists for this hostility, then please, enlighten me: tell me where the hoards of secular-humanists who voted for this amendment are located. Tell me where they congregate and how they convince each other to subscribe to Bronze Age dogma. I am not calling for an abuse or harassment of Christians. There is a difference between an institution and the people subjected to it. Many Christians are humanists, and should be celebrated as such, but their institution is not. It never has been; you cannot be a humanist and an anti-materialist (as a rule and facet of Christian dogma) at the same time. They are antithetical.

Finally, I want to reiterate one question, and one question only. Where do you think this “ignorance,” hostility, and marginalization to non-heteronormative sex, sexuality, and intimacy originate from? In an earlier post, I wrote about Ockham’s Razor, a logical tool that serves to evaluate competing hypotheses. Ask yourself this question, and try not to rely on ontological assumptions of ignorance; use Ockham’s Razor liberally, and see what you find. I cannot think of a nobler cause than self-actualization through the construction of family and the feeling of love. I cannot think of a nobler cause than to demand recognition for this search. I have the privilege of a loving biological family; many do not. Truly, honestly, ask yourself why.

2 weeks ago  /  2 notes  /  Source: sarenhachoice