sparkindarkness | Activism, anger and shouting (Reply)

Today we can look across the Atlantic and see some beautiful examples of activism. Dan Choi, James Pietrangelo and Robin McGehee have been arrested for a DADT protest at the White House (Dan Choi and James Pietrangelo remain in prison without bail) and other brave people have staged a sit in over ENDA at Nancy Pelosi’s offices in DC and San Francisco

And, of course, there is some hand wringing and hyperventilating and even a clutching of pearls. This isn’t polite, this isn’t respectful, ZOMG he was in UNIFORM how terribly disrespectful to the military establishment (which, y‘know, is TOTALLY owed respect from GBLT people, right?

It seems we need to remember something – rights are not given, they‘re demanded. People shouldn‘t have to ask freaking politely to be treated as people. When pointing out that you are treated like a second class citizen it is done with a scream, not in a whisper following a polite cough if

They’re angry. Why aren’t you? Because there’s damn good reason for it. GBLT rights in the US on a federal level have stalled rather badly and there seems to be little or no movement from the people in charge to get it moving again. Virginia is removing the GBLT protections it had, leaving people very much in the lurch. Putting gay rights on the ballot box nigh inevitably results in a whole bunch of straight people screaming “that’s for REAL people, silly homos” and receives zero support from the powers that be.

Guess what? While you’re being polite and quiet and calm and asking “please sir, can we have some rights?” the haters are still screaming.

The Catholic church has had so many child rape scandals now that it barely even counts as NEWS any more! But despite systematically protecting and covering up child rapists across the globe, they’re still presuming to MORALLY judge us and speak against US?! They present US as a threat to families while shuffling around child abusers to protect them from justice!

In the laughable DADT hearings (and the mere fact there are HEARINGS is repellent – seriously you need yet ANOTHER study to see if gays are as good as straights? How is this even remotely ok?) the arsehole ex-general Sheehan blames the presence of openly gay soldiers in the Dutch military for the massacre of Srebrenica. You get that? GAYS cause massacres. Why wasn’t this man just removed from the hearing?

Dr. Rowan Williams, the bigot in charge of the Anglican church finds it highly regrettable that a Lesbian has been made a bishop in the US. Of course, this is the same man who didn’t crack his damn TEETH about the Uganda kill-gays law. Yet, still, the man uis viewed as some kind of moral authority.

It has now come out that GBLT people matter so little that we can be excluded from clinical trials, especially about family, partnership or sex issues. No scientific reason, just keep the GBLTs out – of course, discrimination against GBLTs is perfectly legal in many places (and certainly not a priority to overturn – the straight powers that be have more important worries) and why treat us like people when you don’t have to?

The American healthcare bill looks like it’s going to be passed through reconciliation. And the GBLT provisions? Stripped. An easy sacrifice to make by straight legislators.

DADT is a sick, ridiculous game to force soldiers to play – and Jene Newsome played that game. She wasn’t asked. She never told. She quietly lived with her partner – and then the police found her marriage certificate and, in what could only be considered an act of spite, outed her to the military. She has now been discharged.

Who do you think is listened to? The GBLTs at the back waiting their turn to be considered people because the straight people have “more important” things to get on with – or the loud, frothing haters who are vehemently and furiously fighting and shouting against everything GBLT people have every step of the way? What do you thinks going to happen – more pandering to the loud haters, more discrimination which is the NORM – or them listening to you quietly asking to be treated as people?

If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention. And maybe Dan Choi, James Pietrangelo, Robin McGeehee and the brave people in the sit-ins are right are right. Maybe it’s past time for GBLT voices to be louder than the haters. Maybe it’s time to stop asking and start demanding. Maybe it’s time to display the anger – the real and justified anger – that the GBLT community seems to have lost along the way.

We have a right to our anger, we have bloody good reasons to be angry and maybe the powers that be need reminding of that.