Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Okay, now maybe this is a crazy conspiracy theory, but here goes- I saw Milk yesterday, and it was great. All the stuff about the opposition to Prop 6 in the 80s make me want to go out and get active, fighting for gay rights. Now, if you were making a movie with a political message, it seems likely that you would have a political agenda. And if you care so passionately about such an issues as to make such a heartfelt and moving film, you would want it to affect people, to move them to action. So, you would think that you would want this movie released, say, before a similarly polarizing vote would take place in the very same state as Prop 6, right? Why on earth would you wait until immediately after such a historical vote took place to release your movie? This seems especially mysterious to me considering that the movie was reported to be finished a long time ago. I remember, back in October, reading a piece guessing that the already finished Milk was being delayed in its release due to its lack of quality. And yet, now it's released, and everyone loves it. So I don't think that was the reason. Honestly, it seems to me that there was some fishy business holding back the movie's release. If I were an investigative journalist with more tools in my control, I would find out what was going on there. Who didn't want people to see Milk before the Prop 8 vote???

Sunday, December 07, 2008

This times op-ed about prop 8 and blacks also makes me mad. I haven't heard as much of this lately, but it was the really big thing the day after the election, pundits talking about how it was the black voters in California who were responsible for passing Prop 8. And like, yeah I know that was a part of it. I see the numbers they're using, and it does look like black people were largely in support of Prop 8. But this is where we get to people using statistics to argue whatever the hell they want, which is just about my biggest pet peeve.
I remember on the day after the election, a panel of people on CNN were discussing this phenomenon. And of the four, one woman was like, "Yes I know that black voters seemed to have been a part of this support for prop 8, but I don't think that's the most important statistic to be looking at". She said, "If you divide it by an age demographic, the proposition was overwhelmingly supported by the older generation, while younger voters were not in support of an amendment. So we can at least take something positive from that, that when this younger generation is the primary voting group, things will be different."
I totally agree with that. We know that minority groups tend to be more conservative, and so it is not surprising that they wouldn't support gay marriage. It really feels to me that when people play up that statistical angle, they are trying to fight two minority groups against each other. I feel like someone's trying to make me a part of a chicken fight, so that the general white populace can be like "oh my, look at how these two groups hate each other, that's too bad that black people prevented gay people from having the right to get married." We don't need to focus any anger or hatred at the black community, they've got plenty problems of their own to worry about.
If I did want to be angry and hateful, I would direct it toward the Mormons, who devoted such an enormous amount of money to supporting the proposition, despite the fact that they are also a minority group with marriage preferences outside of the norm, and so you might think that they might feel a little sympathy, or at least support the idea "live and let live." And if I really wanted to get angry, it would be at all the ignorant people who bought their jargon, for instance fearing that teaching gay marriage would become a requirement in kindergarten, thus making people's children gay. Really people, let's get some goddamn education out there so we don't have members of our populace with fears like that.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

i am so sick of gawker's attitude that the gay community's support for No on Prop 8 came too little too late. don't they get that the whole tragedy of it is that all of these people were out there fighting their hardest to get Obama elected? it's not that people were lazy or something. the gay community is among the most active and passionate group out there. the problem is that, just like obama knows, you can't talk too much about gay stuff if you want to win a national election. so while there was a lot of energy for No on Prop 8, the majority went to getting the evil Republicans out of office. i find gawker's attitude really offensive and anti-gay. oh well, at least no one gives a shit what they say.