Supreme
Court of the United States of America Rules Against Last of the Sodomy
Laws...or
the coming culture war| Christian
Identity Movement (CIM) |
| Fundamentalists American Style |
| Patriarchal Society and the anti-gay backlash |
| Scalia's
Cultural War |
| Anti-Gay
Backlash |
Yeah?
Well...that's a good thing. There's cause for celebration. Let me jump on the bandwagon and write about this ruling, too. It means that the inalienable "right to privacy" while not directly spelled out in the Constitution is protected. There's a difference between the Constitution giving us rights and protecting our rights. It doesn't grant rights. It can't, and we shouldn't want any system of laws to ever give us rights. That implies important powers no state should ever have: the power to give and take away human rights; it also implies that without such laws or a constitution, we have no a priori rights. This is in direct conflict with what the framers of the Constitution had in mind; namely, that we are endowed with inalienable rights—rights that exist prior to any created state.
The Constitution and the first 10 amendments thereof only seek to protect the rights we already possess—even those that have never been formally listed. Don't let anybody ever tell you different.
So, yeah...I'm celebrating along with the rest of the queer population. But my right to love whom I love (either in the privacy of my own home with another consenting adult, or to show affection out in public as the heterosexual people do) was a right I already possessed. The Constitution only guarantees my protection against having that right abridged. I practiced my love for a same--sex partner BEFORE this ruling, and had I been jailed, fined, or labeled a sex-offender as a result, I would have fought back, too.
And I plan to fight back when Bill Frist and his ilk seek to abridge any of my rights by writing an anti-gay amendment into the Constitution. We've already heard talk of a "slippery slope" because of this recent Supreme Court ruling that we're now open to all manner of behavior in the name of the right to privacy. But it's an even more dangerous and "slippery slope" to begin writing amendments to the Constitution that seek to abridge rights.
And
there is a fight coming.
Justice Scalia has already begun beating the war drums with his remark
about "cultural wars." Though I must admit, however, the really neat
thing about this "cultural war" is that we'll soon get to see the white
sheets come off the heads of certain people amongst us. For example, we
can expect some really sleazy, nasty things from the religious right
with foot-in-mouth Falwell leading the way. It's also neat, because it
keeps the issue of gays in society in the forefront of an otherwise
unaware general populous. I can remember growing up in a time when we
and our issues were invisible, and I much prefer this wide-open
cultural warfare to being ignored.
I don't care if some segment of the population hates me on principle. I
don't care if the religious right foams at the mouth with hatred. Let
them—or as Dubya said, "Bring 'em on." Because the more ridiculous and
strident their rhetoric becomes, the more the general population
of fair-minded, ordinary people, with whom we all live and work,
will see what has been obvious to me for a very long time: the religious
right in this country is like the religious zealots around the
world—hate-filled and dangerous. They're the terrorists of the world.
They want the same Taliban-type rule Afghanistan had, or what the
Ayatollahs of Iran wrought on their people. They want a good,
old-fashioned patriarchal society, where the only laws of fairness will
be regulating the diameter of the rod with which they beat their
wives—as it was in the 19th Century, right here in the United States.
They want a return to laws mired in moralistic codes. Their
moral codes. Still hidden from view, but lurking in the twilight where
Reason gives over to fear are the people of the Christian Identity
Movement, just waiting for conditions to be ripe for their appearance
on the scene. If you don't know what the Christian Identity Movement
is, I highly suggest you do a simple Google search: "Christian Identity
Movement."
But
I'm not afraid. I'm betting that the same American Ideals that came
through to us during the founding of our country, those ideals of
equality and freedom will prevail. There are those who have suffered
bashing and loss of life in this "cultural war;" but there are also
those who have been outraged and empowered because of it.
Yep. This is one of those more flaming rants. I don't feel particularly
even-handed on the eve of battle.