Pasquinade ([info]pats_quinade) wrote,

With all due respect...

So, in non-Dragon-Age news, Maine.

Okay. I am the stereotypical straight-married guy who has gay friends. I know that a lot of people are hurting right now, and holy god, seeing rights stripped away like that is terrifying. It breaks my heart to see my friends shake their heads and realize that one more state doesn't think that their love matters or doesn't believe that they are really people and citizens. So to all of you, please accept my sympathy and my good wishes.

Now, with that out of the way... Maine. Hi. Hello. Maine, I'm talking to you.

You contemptible bunch of buffoons.

I'm sure somewhere people are talking about the majority speaking. I agree with them. The majority has spoken. The majority of the tiny fraction of people in Maine who voted want to strip away the rights of gay people to marry. The majority was also not hugely in favor of desegregation, either. The plural of voter was often "lynch mob" back in the good ol' days. Segregation wasn't ended with a series of friendly votes in which people realized that they were being lied to by rich bastards and old churches and hate-filled bigots. It was ended when the National Guard showed up on the front steps.

Did you actually think that this was your chance to make gay marriage not happen? Did you look at the whole of human history and actually think that, you ignorant bigots?

This was your chance to accept progress with pride. To show history that you were moving forward.

And you blew it.

I don't think it'll be Obama -- he seems more concerned with healthcare, and I sense that he doesn't want to fight a battle of public opinion on multiple fronts. I don't know who it'll be. But it'll be someone. Someone in power is finally going to state the obvious truth that gay marriage is absolutely necessary, and they're not going to put it up for a vote, because that's not what you do with basic human rights. You don't let six wolves and four sheep vote on what to have for dinner (or in this case, what, fifty-two wolves and forty-eight sheep?).

The National Guard will stand outside the courthouses and force you to grow the hell up, and you will be remembered in history like those sad ugly white people yelling at the black kids coming to class.

And this isn't the fifties. This is the twenty-first century. Your bisexual grandkids will still be able to Google your sorry ass and see that you were a spiteful hateful closeminded bigot. They'll have your lying ads, annotated with footnotes showing how you knew you were lying at the time. They'll have your ugly homophobic comments and your hate-filled fake news reports captured in crystal clarity on whatever magical Internet++ they're using decades from now. And they're going to be ashamed of you.

All you've done -- all you've accomplished with your lies and hate and fearmongering -- is to delay the inevitable. In the next few years, every widow who loses her home because she "wasn't really married" to her life partner, and the life partner's kids have a good lawyer? Every man who dies scared and alone because the man who should have been his husband wasn't allowed to be at his bedside? Every not-spouse who dies because of not-health-coverage, coverage they would have gotten were they married? Every one of those things that happens between now and whenever the National Guard puts a little learnin' on you? That's on you. That's your legacy.

(And unlike a lot of liberals, I'm still a believer. I believe in an afterlife just as much as you do, you Bible-thumping snake-oil salesmen. And I don't envy you when you step up to St. Peter for whatever metaphorical accounting for one's life you have to do.)

Hell and the National Guard. That's what you've got coming. That's all you've got coming.

You pathetic irrelevant throwbacks.

EDIT: After getting a brave anonymous comment from someone who thought using the term "lynch mob" to describe an angry post on the Internet reacting to a situation in which actual literal lynch mobs are a possibility was a good idea and in no way self-Godwinizing, I've disabled anonymous comments. Anyone who wants to come rant at my intolerance for people stripping others of their basic human rights can do so with a username, and years from now, their kids will be able to Google them and see what they said.


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  • 27 comments

[info]unovian

November 4 2009, 21:26:36 UTC 2 years ago

Horray! Well said!

[info]mckennl

November 4 2009, 22:11:47 UTC 2 years ago

thank you for this.

[info]karimariw

November 4 2009, 23:13:40 UTC 2 years ago

Well-said. Why is it that hate can work up so much more action than love? People act like that because they're scared, I guess. But I just honestly DON'T GET what's so frightening.
There are so many actual REAL horrors in the world. That money you raised for your bigoted ANTI campaign? Would've been SO MUCH better spent at a relief agency so some kids get a chance to maybe be healthy and grow up and be ALIVE.
Or if that's too big a stretch, just hush. It has nothing to do with you. It won't hurt you. Just leave it be.

Anonymous

November 4 2009, 23:45:14 UTC 2 years ago

Questions:

If these people are so pathetic and irrelevant, why are you so expending so much anger, hate and effort on them?

Why is it not okay for people to be against homosexuality because of their religious beliefs, but it's perfectly okay for you to be judge them for those same religious beliefs? Prejudice on the basis of religion is no more acceptable than is prejudice on the basis of sexual orientation, you enormous hypocrite.

Gotta love how liberals are all for democracy as long as they win, but when they lose, the people are a lynch mob of bigots. Stay classy, Patrick.

[info]pats_quinade

November 4 2009, 23:53:22 UTC 2 years ago

If you want to talk, take off the white hood. I'd like to know the name of the person who equates an angry post about people losing their rights to a lynch mob with no apparent grasp of irony.

[info]ranatalus

2 years ago

[info]evilbearhunter

November 5 2009, 00:48:20 UTC 2 years ago

Hi, I don't know you at all, but someone linked me here and this is a great post. Thanks for saying it.

[info]pats_quinade

November 5 2009, 03:03:41 UTC 2 years ago

Thank you very much. I was feeling helpless today, and I really wanted to say SOMETHING. This was what came out.

[info]andieflynn

November 5 2009, 02:13:01 UTC 2 years ago

This is great. THANK YOU. Mind if link to this?

[info]pats_quinade

November 5 2009, 03:04:35 UTC 2 years ago

Please feel free -- and thank you for asking! :)

[info]confusednazgul

November 5 2009, 02:19:46 UTC 2 years ago

Amen. As sad as I am about what happened in Maine, at least Washington state seems to be going in the right direction by approving (again) the "everything but marriage" referendum. Or at least, it's leaning towards being approved - most voting is done by mail here, so it'll be a while until all the votes are in, but it's looking good. That's progress.

Sometimes I wonder what it was like to live before and during the Civil Rights Movement, and I suspect that in fifty years young people will be wondering the same thing about this period in time...

[info]houseboatonstyx

November 5 2009, 02:32:03 UTC 2 years ago

Bravo.

Strong language and images deserved and well done.

[info]varianor

November 5 2009, 03:30:28 UTC 2 years ago

Here's an odd thought. Perhaps - as unpleasant and narrow-minded a decision such as this is - it is a necessary evil in the lurching progress toward true equality? Without the atrocities that led to equal rights for African-Americans, would those rights have happened this soonh? Of course, one can't wish any of this upon any person (and I personally don't wish any of the awful things of the past or present upon anyoneffered). However, it may move awareness forward simply because of the extremely bigoted position enacted? Which is itself a sad commentary upon humanity.

[info]jhonen_red

November 5 2009, 07:03:41 UTC 2 years ago

We could find old blatantly racist news reports and play them and shake our fists... but generally we don't. Sure, their grandkids will be ashamed of them, the same way we're ashamed of our grandparents for their own prejudices. But I don't see today's grandparents displaying the sort of chagrin you might find so validating. They seem to me to feel a sense of resignation and grudging acceptance of a new and unfamiliar world. And I think that's where we're likely headed, again. The people who so radically disagree with you aren't going to finally realize the absurdity and sheer inhumanity of their position -- not most of them, anyway -- no matter how triumphant that might make you feel.

And there are a lot of them. You say things like "tiny fraction" and "irrelevant", but there are an awful lot of people who hold such views. Maybe not half the country, really, but... maybe a third? A quarter? Still a staggering number. These are the people we live with.

In conclusion, humans depress me. I keep hoping I can find a framework that will make their actions make sense at a gut level, and there must be one -- I can find the edges of it, abstractly -- but it's just too foreign for me to really get it.

[info]sinful_caesar

November 14 2009, 01:56:28 UTC 2 years ago

As a lesbian who's life is affected by the lack of rights in the US, thank you for this. I have tears in my eyes, reading this.

I hope you dont mind if I spread this around?

[info]pats_quinade

November 14 2009, 05:21:46 UTC 2 years ago

Please feel free. And thanks.

I'm sorry you have to wait for your basic human rights. Hopefully you won't have to wait too much longer.

[info]jessicaness

November 14 2009, 23:41:58 UTC 2 years ago

AMEN. I have been saying this for ages. It pisses me off that in this day and age, our justice system could be so archaic as to deny what has been described as a civil right (during the Loving vs. Virgina interracial marriage case in the 60’s) to people based on personal attributes of any kind.

It is LEGAL. DISCRIMINATION.

[info]whiterabbit_xx

November 15 2009, 17:46:06 UTC 2 years ago

Thank you very much for this. I don't know who you are, nor have I ever seen your LJ before, but this showed up in my google reader and it made my day.
I think it is because of people like you who refuse to stay silent while the government continues to define how a person should live that things will eventually change.

...I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

[info]andyisarockstar

November 16 2009, 04:55:57 UTC 2 years ago

thank you

this is so well said, sir. it's powerful. i wish that the real majority, the thinking, feeling majority who realized that god only promotes love- not hate and judgement- were the same group that voted... i don't know that they exist... but i hope so. also i'm liberal and believe in god- we exist too!

[info]maidenbedlam

November 17 2009, 03:26:35 UTC 2 years ago

Lovely. Thank you for writing this.

[info]jamskinner

November 17 2009, 16:24:12 UTC 2 years ago

First I will apologize in advance for my terrible writing.

Patrick, you need to look at it from others point of view. Just labeling them bigots is just doing to them what you claim they are doing to others. We all have different views and are entitled to them. As much as I may disagree with a person, attacking there character does not strenghthen my argument. In saying this I am sure some of them are bigots, but others are not.

My own view is against gay marriage. At the same time I don't look down on someone because they are gay. I have known several gay people(including a roomate during college).
My views of gay marriage stem from a religious upbringing. These views may be viewed as outdated or narrowminded or whatever, but they do not come from intollerence. I don't put much weight into moral relativism that seems to be pushed so much today. Some things are relative, but I believe there are some immutable truths.
Now in saying I am against gay marriage I can also say I am not vehemtly against instituting a similar legal union for those that are gay. I would not be a proponent of such a system, but I would also not push against it.

I am not a legal expert, but I don't see anything in the declaration of independence or the constitution listing marriage as a right(gay or otherwise).

P.S. I am not from Maine, but I lived there for several years.

[info]kinkysmart

December 9 2009, 20:53:55 UTC 2 years ago

Hi.

You should probably acquaint yourself with the definition of 'bigotry', because this is what your beliefs are. Bigots are not just people who lynch, or harass, or do not hire - it is intolerance of people with differing beliefs than your own. You belief is that a gay person has less rights than you. You hedge this with a 'separate but equal' clause, but it's no excuse. You are probably not violent, you seem calm and thoughtful, but the core of all old religions is bigotry: "I'm right and you're (mormon, muslim, gay, athiest) wrong."

There is no scientific difference between saying a gay can't marry and a black can't marry. It's just that all the parts of the bible that talks about blacks as sub-human has been glossed over and skipped... or do we need to talk about biblical justification for slavery?

I am happy that you are not violent, and you aren't a bad writer. I would like to finally call your attention to the Declaration of Independance, second paragraph:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

1) "All men", no asterisk, no footnote, no room to interpret if they liked girls or not. Sorry it didn't say all people, but if we keep this argument to gay men, then the Declaration states that if you have the right, then so does he (period).
2) The founding of this country was based on the idea that you can freely pursue your happiness, and that no other man may impose upon it, if you do not impose upon him first. You may not find your happiness in marriage - many do not - but that man is Free with a Capital F to pursue this. And until that pursuit interferes with your life in a quantifiable manner, you should not stop him. This is what it means to be a Patriot.

I highly recommend that you do not Ever Again quote the founding documents in an argument against gay marriage. It will only make you look like you haven't actually read them, and just depend on the Glen Beck condensed version.

Be well, and find peace with your fellow man.

- T.

[info]henry808

November 18 2009, 21:14:24 UTC 2 years ago

no.

--They’ll have your ugly homophobic comments and your hate-filled fake news reports captured in crystal clarity--

And it won't matter. You know why? 'cause of the pathetic punishment: --they’re going to be ashamed of you--

booohooo! Oh the shame! The shameful shame of shame! I don't think it's because we can't google them is why we don't prosecute old timers for their racism. I don't think it's because we don't know what they've done is why we don't do anything. We know very well what they all did but it's been so long that the effect is no longer as strong and so no one cares. That, plus no child grows up under a bigot and not at least have some idea of why the prejudice is there, and not have friends who have bigoted parents too. The prejudice is not going to be so incredibly alien and unnatural that grand kids will punish grandmas. You are forlornly begging for some utopian fantasy condition where the zeitgeist of the future will directly be able to face the zeitgeist of the past. Why would majority-approved bigotry all of a sudden be held accountable later on? We've almost never done that with anything. Because we all had grandparents in lynch mobs. What will we be ashamed of and shun, the entire human race? It is a progress, there's nothing to fight, you can only wave your fist at Time, at both the past for being slow and the future for not being fast enough.

[info]gothicpotato

November 22 2009, 17:50:14 UTC 2 years ago

There's so much right with what you said. Thank you.

This is being linked around a lot on tumblr, which is how I found it. I thought I should leave a comment.

[info]kinkysmart

December 9 2009, 21:11:27 UTC 2 years ago

I like how you write and I like the sentiment here. I think it's important to talk about *why* this is an issue for voters.

It's insubstantial - gays getting married has no real effect on any non-gay life, yet it's a huge monster division. This is manufactured to keep the Republican Party in (some) power. Before I sound too 'left-wacko', hear me out.

People (en masse) vote out of only two motivations: prosperity or fear. If all the conservative were voting based on their wallet, based on the economics of this country, then only a tiny fraction of the highest income brackets would still elect Republicans - so maybe a few House Reps from Manhatten? It would crush the party.

In order to retain some power, they must direct their constituents to vote on Fear, not their lack of prosperity. Get the middle, and especially the lower income groups, to vote on their worst fears, and reinforce those fears through media manipulation and control of local education.

I mean, would anyone vote republican if there weren't fear of gay infection / socialism / flag-burning / interracial marriage? If it was just on your wallet, your job, your home, would any of them still be loyal? Fear is powerful as motive.

Good luck out there.

[info]audreykerr

December 19 2009, 13:54:29 UTC 2 years ago

I don't get how people are against gay marriage. I just, don't logically see how their mind comes to the conclusion that it is wrong..
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