...from a political rant i'm writing...
Feb. 20th, 2004 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yesthattomHowever Geoge Lakoff's article still stands: calling it Freedom To Marry appeals to the people who's mind we're trying to change. It steals the thunder away from the right, just as calling "abortion rights" "Pro-Choice" re-framed the issue in a way that let us win because we were playing on our terms not theirs.
And slightly related to this...
We need to attack them as strongly as they attack us. The NJ "all roads to justice" concept works so well for DP because it confused the radical right... they aren't used to us working on more than one issue at a time. They couldn't say, "Oh, we'd be ok with X but not Y" (and look like they wanted a compromise) because we wanted X *and* Y. As a result they had to be truthful and say, "we're a bunch of hatemongers that don't want either". We're usually timid and polite and do one thing at a time. By doing 2 issues at once, we united "both sides" of the GLBT community, and beat back the right. Hats off to the people that pushed the "all roads to justice" strategy. Even though we're fighting two causes, it didn't double the work to be done.
While we fight against a DOMO constitutional amendment, we should also be trying to pass the "Freedom To Marry" constitutional amendment. At the same time, we should introduce legislation to put Martin Luther King Jr's face on the $20 bill, pay full slavery Reparations, de-accredit single-religion private schools, increase federal public education funding by 10x, mandatory condom distribution in grade school, anti-homophobia education K-12, change Ronald Reagan Airport to LBJ Airport, zero funding for "physical education" in public schools, removal of tax breaks for right-wing TV televangelists, and (as a non-legislative action) stop calling portable toilets "johns" and call them "Reagans" instead.
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Date: 2004-02-20 06:12 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 06:59 pm (UTC)Condom distribution is a vital part of providing sexual education. I firmly believe that. But it *will* encourage the sexually precocious to have sex (I speak from knowing my own brain at age 10 or 11; I *would* have made far more of an effort to have sex if I'd been being told it was ok, and condom distribution WOULD have told me society thought it was ok - I would NOT have, at age 10, interpreted it as 'society doesn't like this but it trying to prevent you from screwing up more').
A far more open set of sexual mores, in which we teach children about love and self-esteem and affection, and teens about sex and contraception and parenting and more self-esteem is needed before throwing condoms to children as if they were the throngs at a Pride parade is effective.
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Date: 2004-02-20 08:43 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 10:28 pm (UTC)Of course, I’ve also known people whose experiences with sex at a very young age were awful and traumatic. But the people I know that about are all people who were abused by adults or older children. I don’t doubt that consensual sex with another consenting child of about the same age, as equals, can certainly be very traumatic for some people and cause problems in later life, but none of the people I’ve known who’ve been in that situation have had that experience (that I know of).
And of course, even consensual sex can be very traumatic and disturbing for adults, too.
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Date: 2004-02-21 12:22 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 08:22 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-21 11:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-21 01:12 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-21 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-21 09:19 am (UTC)The reasons I don't think reparations for slavery can work are that we have missed our opportunity by about three generations, it places a burden of proof on potential beneficiaries to show an ancestry that has in many cases been irretrievably lost, as well as another burden of proof on the government to determine which people and corporations exist today that benefitted from slavery and are today in a position to pay such reparations. I lived among poor rural people who are the ancestors of slaves, sharecroppers, and slaveowners; who's to say who among them is deserving of reparations and who should be paying into the fund?
On the other hand, it hasn't proven impractical to fund faith based initiatives, just dangerous to a secular state. It didn't start with Dubya; Salvation Army has been performing the duties of parole offices since the Clinton administration. I don't even oppose faith based social services being underwritten by the government, as long as there are secular alternatives and all religious groups have equal access to funds.
I fell asleep thinking of your idea, and thought I rather like the idea of shaking up the economy by giving every poor person (cutoff to be determined, but somewhere between poverty level and around 35K a year) a largish gift of about $10K. Like Dubya's "tax relief," except it would only go to poor people, and it would be directly financed by an increased tax on rich corporations. A reparations package to offset some of the burden of a heartless capitalist regime, if you will. An amount like that would have enough power not just to enable families to buy consumables, but to pool resources and start businesses, buy homes, and return to school.
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Date: 2004-02-23 08:14 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-23 09:05 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-25 11:21 am (UTC)