Saturday, May 29, 2004
Ugh, it's just nasty
I'm beginning to think that Louisiana actually is the fiery afterlife promised to gays by so many Bible Belt preachers. They just can't catch a break here and now some state senators are even trying to insert homophobic language into property tax laws:
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/052904/new_leggay001.shtml
A few days a go I went to check out a protest outside the downtown post office. There were about 20 people, some who had come as families, urging Sen. Mary Landrieu to support the federal marriage amendment. This would not be so weird, except I only found one person from Baton Rouge. Everyone else had come from out of town, some of them had driven two hours.
I wasn't thrilled to sit out in the putrid, soupy summer air to talk to these wackos, but there were some great quotes that came out of it.
I talked to a guy running U.S. congress in a district in New Orleans who thinks gay marriage "brings chaos out of the order that's been going on for 5,000 years." He used this unfortunate for his response to a question about civil unions: "They are a back door attempt to delegitimize marriage."
I really loved this rationale for the detriment of gay marriage on society: "Sweden allows gay marriage and the number of children born out of wedlock has risen." You would think the one thing gays could not be responsible for is out-of-wedlock births, or any other births for that matter.
The most disturbing part of the rally came when I interviewed a couple of teenagers holding a big "Save Marriage" sign. "People say we are hating people, but we're not hating them, we just don't want them redefining our constitution," a 17-year-old girl said. But, wait, I said, aren't you here to support a constitutional amendment?
"Oh yeah, I guess that's right."
Beautiful as that was, I think the underlying sentiment of the rally was summed up by that girl's 15-year-old friend when explaining why she was trying to get gay marriage banned:
"It's not right, ugh, it's just nasty."
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/052904/new_leggay001.shtml
A few days a go I went to check out a protest outside the downtown post office. There were about 20 people, some who had come as families, urging Sen. Mary Landrieu to support the federal marriage amendment. This would not be so weird, except I only found one person from Baton Rouge. Everyone else had come from out of town, some of them had driven two hours.
I wasn't thrilled to sit out in the putrid, soupy summer air to talk to these wackos, but there were some great quotes that came out of it.
I talked to a guy running U.S. congress in a district in New Orleans who thinks gay marriage "brings chaos out of the order that's been going on for 5,000 years." He used this unfortunate for his response to a question about civil unions: "They are a back door attempt to delegitimize marriage."
I really loved this rationale for the detriment of gay marriage on society: "Sweden allows gay marriage and the number of children born out of wedlock has risen." You would think the one thing gays could not be responsible for is out-of-wedlock births, or any other births for that matter.
The most disturbing part of the rally came when I interviewed a couple of teenagers holding a big "Save Marriage" sign. "People say we are hating people, but we're not hating them, we just don't want them redefining our constitution," a 17-year-old girl said. But, wait, I said, aren't you here to support a constitutional amendment?
"Oh yeah, I guess that's right."
Beautiful as that was, I think the underlying sentiment of the rally was summed up by that girl's 15-year-old friend when explaining why she was trying to get gay marriage banned:
"It's not right, ugh, it's just nasty."
