Fighting for those Ad Dollars
Is The Washington Post profiting from the support of anti-gay organizations? The daily newspaper based in our nation's capitol ran a 16 page anti-gay insert on Friday called Both Sides Magazine, which attempted to dissuade African Americans from the associations between gay and civil rights using discounted science from an anti-gay doctor who has even been disowned by the evangelical right.
Among the claims made by the doctor quoted in the insert are "that out of all the mass-murders in the US over the past seventeen years, homosexuals killed at least 68 percent of the victims, 29 percent of homosexuals urinate on their partners and 17 percent ingest human feces.The average life span of a homosexual is 39 years; fewer than 2 percent survive to the age of 65."
How appropriate that the insert's cover features two inanimate stick figure mannequins; groups like this would prefer not to think of us as human.
Posted Nov. 22,2004 at 10:40 AM EST by Andy Towle in Print Media | Permalink
I honestly believe the solution is to get close to these groups... as awful as that sounds! Try to understand their fear. Just as the radical religious right is looking for common ties between other groups/segments of people (in this case, African Americans), we as gay men and women need to do the same. We need to find common ties with people or we will become like faceless manequins.
Now more than ever, we must not only be visible, but accessible. Whether we like it or not, our path to being recognized as equal human beings in American society has fallen back on it's course. How far back it goes is largely up to us. And as much as I hate it, we should be shooting for "civil unions" not marriage. It's the use of that word that is proving such success with the anti-gay movement in this nation.
My 2 cents.
Posted by: Steeee | Nov 22, 2004 11:07:01 AM
I disagree completely with the comments up above by Steee.
Steee spouts the usual gibberish and "Wizard Of Oz" logic. He's looking for other people to "accept" him... blah, blah, blah....
Steee can't even recognize himself as a human being! He seems to "need" a lot from others.
It's wierd how many gay men seem to think that they have a "place" in American society, as it presently stands. Don't they know that they are being lied to?
Unreal.
Posted by: visibleh20 | Nov 22, 2004 12:11:26 PM
Pretty outrageous insert in the Washington Post. What were they thinking?
Civil Unions or Full Marriage is all the same to the Religious Right. They don't want either and will not tolerate either, so for us to give up the fight for full marriage rights and accept Civil Unions isn't going to be any more advantageous for us. I'd rather lose the right to marry than to accept less rights. What kind of a precedence is that going to set? That would be like a black person in the 60s saying, "Well, at least we can get on the bus, who cares if we have to sit in the back." Some black people back then actually did say that.
The religious right declared war on Homosexuality on Nov. 2nd, and this insert is just one of many things happening now to put us in our place and it will esculate to the extremes we can't even imagine today. That is why we can't back down on any rights. Nobody is just going to hand over rights to us...we have to fight for them and know that the battles won't be pretty. We may lose, but we owe it to the following generations of gay and lesbian children to fight prejudice and not to back down.
The Civil Rights Movement in the 60s was ugly. People died in the process of gaining those rights. Now, before I am called a "drama queen", let me remind you that gay teens kill themselves every day because of who they are and can't reconcile their own gender identity with the religious beliefs they are taught in their homes. The Bible itself calls for our deaths, so never underestimate what can happen, even in this country, when religious fanaticism takes a firm hold in the political agenda.
Just yesterday I was assaulted by three young males while walking home from the supermarket, being called "gay and fag" as they followed me for a block. I haven't experienced anything like this in the past 15 years, so I don't think it is a leep for me to presume this incident was somehow due to the recent anti-gay atmosphere in our country.
Posted by: Patrick | Nov 22, 2004 12:37:55 PM
A great discussion!
However, I think my comments were misunderstood.
I absolutely don't mean that we should back down and shoot for "civil unions" now... I just think it would have been harder for the religious/radical right to be as successful as they were in November. On the other hand, the battle either now or later is necessary and needs to happen.
What has caught me off guard is how convincing the radical right is with other groups that wouldn't normally side with their point of view.
My point was that we all need to be present. And perhaps it's naive of me to think I have a place in America society now. But you know what? Good luck convincing me otherwise, because I absolutely insist upon it, and will punch back for it, if necessary.
Posted by: Steee | Nov 22, 2004 1:57:05 PM
I think it is a funny 'coincidence' that the cover image of the Post insert is remarkably similar to the cover of David Sedaris' most recent book, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Perhaps the photo in question is even from the same stock set as the book cover, and I really doubt that was truly a coincidence. Sedaris is an out writer who millions of straight people read too and therefore is in a unique position to sway public opinion.
Posted by: CURT | Nov 22, 2004 5:47:46 PM