eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 12:28pm on 2004-02-24

"I think that now, what I need to do is to write a letter to Shrub explaining that if anything, I think that SF's bumper crop of newly-married same-sex couples has renewed my faith in what marriage can be, and has done more in a few short days to remove my cynicism about marriage as an institution (as a heteropatriarchal property exchange, as an occasion of virtually mandatory conspicuous consumption, as a reinscription of sexist/classist values, etc.) than anything else ever has. In fact, I feel far more inclined to actually marry my (nominally heterosexual) partner of 7 years *now* than I ever have in the past, because I feel like what I want my marriage to be and the values I hold dear in my partnership have had a bit of a public renaissance, a bit of long-awaited democratization, and a whole lot of very overdue ethical detoxification." -- [livejournal.com profile] misia, 2004-02-20

There are 7 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 
posted by [identity profile] silmaril.livejournal.com at 10:29am on 2004-02-24
I think it's pretty much time for that letter, and for similar letters to senators, and to editors, because... well, what's it that they say about something hitting a fan? It's just happened.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 01:49pm on 2004-02-24
*nod* Expected; still disturbing.

We need to get the media to call Bush on his rhetoric though:

"Activist judges" who are merely doing their jobs -- interpreting the law, the US Constitution, and state constitutions. (Yeah, the judges Bush is complaining about happened to decide things in the direction I agree with, but that's not why I'm not calling them "activist"; they're not overstepping their place, nor are the reaching beyond the issues of the cases brought before them, as far as I can tell, and they're deciding things on constitutional grounds.)

"Defense" of marriage; even though I've heard people say their marriage doesn't need defending, I haven't heard the media ask Bush, "What do you mean by 'defend', per se?" -- he's not defending marriage, he's reserving marriage. What he's defending isn't marriage, neither individual marriages nor the institution, but rather privilege reserving marriage to a subgroup, or the religious viewpoint on marriage.

The problem is that I haven't heard evening news reporters challenging Bush's framing of the language in those terms (though I've missed several nights of news lately -- somebody cheer me up and tell me I'm wrong?). "Defense of marriage" has such a positive tone to it, but someone needs to nail him down in a press-conference question and show that the language has nothing to do with what he's trying to do.

Oh yeah, and we all need to be writing to out congresscritters and educating our neighbours.
 
posted by [identity profile] silmaril.livejournal.com at 01:54pm on 2004-02-24
I think your penultimate paragraph partly answered a question I've asked in my comment on this entry by John Scalzi---and as I feared, the answer was negative. Grmph? Bah.

Will I see you tonight?

 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 02:06pm on 2004-02-24
#blink# Didn't notice that was you the first time I read it (small credits at the end of comments are easy to overlook; same-size type at the top of comments, LJ-style, make me much more aware of who's speaking ... I suppose some people will consider that a good thing and others a bad thing). I may need to borrow your imagery on that, BTW.

As to whether enough voters will hear ... I wish I knew. I worry. The message seems to [expletive]ing obvious to me, but hey, I'm sitting here in LJ preach-to-the-choir land, aren't I? I worry.

I plan to be at 3LF tonight, but I feel really crappy right now and am about to go crash, so it depends on when I wake up.
 
posted by [identity profile] miklinar.livejournal.com at 01:22pm on 2004-02-24
I commend to your attention [livejournal.com profile] rivka's take on Biblical references and same-sex pairings.
 
posted by [identity profile] dglenn.livejournal.com at 01:38pm on 2004-02-24
And to the blog entry by Real Live Preacher that [livejournal.com profile] rivka pointed at, and the separate essay RLP linked to from the blog. All three worth reading.
 
posted by [identity profile] miklinar.livejournal.com at 01:45pm on 2004-02-24
Let's not forget the comment that cited Uncle Walter, bless his heart.

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