I had an interesting conversation with my dad last night. He illustrated that most American ideology that is considered moderate is the result of liberal people’s own conservative PREJUDICES bringing them toward center-right.
We were talking about Obama and healthcare and how he wants Obama to do more, he’s not feisty enough, etc. So then we got into liberals, conservatives, and moderates, and the conversation turned toward gay marriage. We had a rather spirited debate on this on Christmas Day, concluding with him repeating “Meg, the shit ain’t right!!” before I just gave up. This time, his reasoning for opposition to gay marriage was “It goes against God’s will.”
**SIDE EYE OF THE CENTURY**
(¬_¬)
Now for those of you who don’t know my dad, he was raised Catholic in the Bronx, and attended Catholic school his entire childhood. In 24 years of life I have only seen this negro go inside a church for funerals and weddings. But now going against “God’s will” is his (and Sarah Palin’s) most convenient reason to deny someone a Constitutional right.
I knew this was complete BS and that his own extensive personal prejudices as a black Baby Boomer from New York were the real motives behind his political stance. It also was not hard to prove this via 10 minutes or less of conversation. I now present to you the deconstruction of his argument, which can also be used to deconstruct any other bigoted argument against gay marriage:
1. It’s in the Bible.
• First off, what book and verse? **SILENCE IS GOLDEN** You’re referring to Leviticuts 18:22 – “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Don’t hide behind God as the reasoning for things you just don’t like or just don’t agree with. Leviticus 11:11 and 11:12 says: “Whatever has no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination to you… and they shall be abhorrent to you; you may not eat of their flesh, and their carcasses you shall detest.” So I guess if you’ve ever eaten shrimp or crab, you’re going against the Bible, too. That’s called being a hypocrite. Feel free to follow the Bible , it’s a good book, although since the laws of Leviticus only apply to male Hebrew priests, you’re only violating the Bible if you’re a gay, male, Hebrew priest. If you’re not a gay, male, Hebrew priest, you should probably take a hint from Dave Chappelle and “Shut.The.F*ck.Up.”
2. If you were to be gay, the family name and lineage would disappear.
• Gay or straight, if I’m not married, I’m not going to have kids anyway. Also, I’m a female, so I would take my husband’s name, and so would our children. If either of my brothers were gay, they could do artificial insemination with their sperm and a surrogate and the family name AND lineage would continue.
3. Marriage is a sacred tradition of love between a man and woman, and has always been that way.
• Marriage is an ancient pagan tradition of OWNERSHIP of a virgin woman. That is why brides are chaste, wear white, and why their father gives them away to the husband at the altar, transferring ownership of the woman from one male to another. Gay marriage in America grants important legal rights to spouses and to deny same-sex marriage is to deny someone a right guaranteed to them in the US Constitution.
4. Gay parents produce gay kids and if everyone were gay, the human race would die out.
• Actually, upwards of 95% of gay people were produced by 2 straight people having sex. Maybe there’s something wrong with the heteros. Anyone with common sense can see that everyone isn’t gay. Not even the majority of people are gay. The biggest threat to the human race is actually our own ignorance and violent nature, resulting in the imminent threats of nuclear holocaust and global warming. A dinosaur-extinction level event in the form of an asteroid is a more likely cause of our species’ demise than gay marriage.
5. Pedophiles and sexual deviants are mostly gays.
• Actually, no, those are mostly straight people. Scientific sociological studies have proven time and again that homosexuality is not a learned or “contagious” behavior.
6. It’s a choice.
It’s not. The only choice that homosexual people make is to not live their lives as a humongous lie and to be true to the feelings in their hearts and minds, just as heterosexual people do. Why would anyone choose the hardest path in life? That’s like a white person in rural Alabama choosing to become a Muslim, tanning every day, and opening a mosque. In the words of Paul Mooney, “what a waste of white skin!”
After all this, the truth finally came out as “Look, it’s disgusting and not right”. There we go, finally some honesty! I’d much prefer people were honest about their prejudices than hide behind false reasoning. Prejudices are not cool, but everyone has them. It’s a result of growing up in a country were 90% of the images you process on a daily basis are manufactured for you, and therefore it is unavoidable to escape their influence on your ways of thinking. A widely-held theory of marketing and psychology says people want their opinions to be perceived as socially desirable by everyone else. Everyone may not want the rest of the world to AGREE with them, but most people are not okay with being known as bigots, racists, or prejudiced, although those all would be accurate titles. Hopefully you can use the aforementioned tactics as a way to evoke honesty in people, and possibly even change their views.
Peace Outside.
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