America prides itself on our "Liberties", and yet it seems we don't know the actual meaning of the word.
I'm not 239 years old so I can't just shout "FACT" and expect all of the interwebs to believe me (those are the rules, right?) However, I feel comfortable suggesting that America's Founding Fathers chose their words very carefully when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.
"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."
Translation: It's pretty friggin obvious, but we'll say it anyway. Everyone is created equal. Period. We all have the same rights including, but not limited to; living the life we want to live as happily as possible.
UNALIENABLE: Absolute. Inherent. Permanent. As in, you can't just go around making laws that take away rights from other people. We are guaranteed these rights... fooor-evvvv-errrrr.
LIBERTY: The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.
How is it even remotely possible that there are states in which not all people have the same rights? I want to look all those voting against gay marriage square in the eyes and ask this one question:
"Why are you allowed to get married, and I am not allowed to get married?"
There isn't one single answer that wins you that argument EVER! I don't want to hear about the Founding Fathers and their slaves or Jim Crow Laws. I don't want to hear about Japanese Internment Camps. Why? Because people seem to think that our country's past admitted fuck-ups somehow justify our present and future fuck ups! And instead of LEARNING from those mistakes we use them to rationalize how we can get away with doing it again! That's moronic on every level.
We ALLOW these things to transpire and be explained away with some kinda-sorta rational thought process and then associate them with words and phrases that will get people to back the idea. That's called "being a manipulative douche". Everyone gets their panties in a bind over "Freedom of (insert the thing you love most here... religion, bear arms, speech etc)". So whenever these elected a-holes want to convince you that they're doing what is in everyone's best interest, they just label it Freedom of Something. And we buy it. Hook, line and sinker.
This isn't an attack on religion or religious freedom. You have the UNALIENABLE RIGHT to practice your religion. Go to Church or Temple or Mosque... talk about Jesus or Moses or Allah. You have every right to knock on my door and tell me how you don't think I should get blood transfusions or celebrate my birthday because Jehovah, and I'm not allowed to punch you in your preachy mouth because that's against the law. FOR EVERYONE. But when you open a business, you have to follow business laws, just like everyone else. Because in THIS country, "separate but equal" doesn't fly anymore.
Let me give you some dates that might put things into perspective.
Plessy v. Ferguson confirmed "separate but equal" in... 1896. That was ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN YEARS AGO! 29 years before the invention of the television.
Brown v. Board of Education began the change in... 1954. That's right, it took 58 years to correct THAT mistake. And yet still, that was SIXTY. ONE. YEARS. AGO!
You can read all about it HERE if ya like.
In a nutshell, who I sleep with has no effect on you, your business or your rights as a human being. Why on God's GREEN EARTH anyone thinks what I do in the dark (or during the day, if I'm feelin' froggy) has anything to do with you, is beyond ridiculous. When I go to your restaurant, I'm going to talk, eat, laugh, drink... pay my check and go home. Just like everyone else. When I go to your shop to buy flowers, whether I give them to my soon-to-be-bride or my mom or leave them on my step-fathers gravestone truly ought to be irrelevant to you. I'm not going to march a Pride Parade into your shop, stick a flag pole in your floor, waving a rainbow and claim this store for the gays!
We are paving the way for another "separate but equal" with gay restaurants and gay bakeries and gay clothing stores, which the not-bigoted breeders will frequent because we have a knack for cooking, baking and fashion. Obviously. It's wrong, and you can't justify it with catch-phrases and historical context that helps you sleep better at night.
So when you fight for children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school, understand that it also contains the phrase, "...with liberty and justice for all". It's not just a Metallica album. While you're waving your American Flag, proudly declaring that ours is a country that stands for Freedom, understand that in the next breath you're voting to purposely take away some people's liberties. It's this hypocrisy that makes you sound like an ignorant, self-centered, mindless jerkoff.
You should probably work on that.
I agree it's all nonsense, but you gotta remember too, the people that wrote the constitution are the same people that added the specific word "MEN", because they, too, were pretty discriminatory. But fortunately society has moved forward, even if it's a fight the whole way. In 30 years our generation will be looked upon at bigots for being such asses towards this stuff like our parents generation was for the whole race issue. I just wonder what stupid thing the next generation will discriminate against...
ReplyDeleteMost of "Men" is capitalized to mean Man, as in Mankind, as opposed to man and woman, a gender specification. Yes they were definitely patriarchal, that's well documented. But we certainly have moved on from that (ish) and it seems silly that we can't do it with all things.
DeleteYeah, but in terms of the original constitution, "men" refers to white men. Blacks weren't even allowed to vote in most of the northern states even when the Civil War ended, and women had to wait even longer. And they had to fight every inch of the way to get their rights. I think my key point got lost somewhere anyway though, that fortunately society keeps marching on, and this stuff will eventually win over the bigots that keep trying to keep people from living their lives the way they choose because they disagree with the lifestyle. Just have to keep fighting.
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