When this old world starts getting you down...

[Dookus]

Yes, we're under attack. But that doesn't mean we're losing - it means we're WINNING. We're witnessing the last gasp of the bigots and the fearmongers.

I'm watching Ellen on Tivo. I'm watching an openly gay woman interviewing the top stars in Hollywood. She has an audience that doesn't give a flying fig who she sleeps with.

Elton John is still one of the top-drawing artists in the world. His Vegas show sells out and he's considered a "mainstream" artist.

Portia de Rossi stars on the Emmy Award winning Best Comedy show, and nobody gives a rats ass about her sexuality.

Compare all this to my childhood - we had a handful of "gay" artists, and their sexuality was veiled. We had Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly and Rip Taylor as gay role-models. And none of them was "out". They were just very flamboyant straight men, as far as we knew.

Things have changed a great deal since my youth. I know it's discouraging when we see the backlash against us - the anti-marriage amendments, the adoption laws - but remember they ARE a backlash against our progress. We will overcome this reactionary bullshit. If we weren't making progress, they wouldn't care.

It was only 20 years ago that the idea of gay marriage even being DISCUSSED nationally was outrageous. We're now having that discussion. Yes, it's a nasty discussion. But as somebody who's been out and proud and active for 25 years, I have to say we're in a place I never could've predicted back then. We're winning, and we're winning because we're right. The final battles will be ugly but there's no doubt in my mind we will prevail, and we will do so a lot earlier than I would've guessed 20 years ago.

I firmly believed that gay marriage was never going to happen in my lifetime. I was wrong. It's happening now, all around the world. It will happen here sooner than we think.

Chin up... we're right, and we'll win.

[The Traveler]

1. I hope you're right

Until the rights of my gay friends and relatives are secured, my own are in jeopardy. That's just the way it works. This is a civil rights matter. The writings of Martin Luther King and Malcom X are most pertinent in these times.

We must never yield.

[Dookus]

2. I agree...

but we are winning the culture. The politicians are sure to follow.

[The Traveler]

3. Which is why they seek to control

the means of cultural expression. I see your point and really do believe in the long run it will work out the way you foresee. But every time I think that I have to remind myself that power is aligning itself to oppose that very natural evolution of culture. After all, if you let me control your sexual behavior, what WON'T you let me control?

That is only one reason why gay rights are just a specialization of human rights, and why acquiesence cannot be an option. But evidence that we can make progress towards improving the human condition is so very important now ... these are dark times, and perhaps my mood has become to dark. I should simply shut up and thank you for pointing to some valid reasons for realistic hope that we will become civilized at some point in the future.

As always, good to "see" ya, Dookus.

[readmoreoften]

4. Weimar Republic/Nazi Germany

Not to dampen the spirits... I know you're just trying to stay positive.

But the Weimar Republic (the progressive German cultural of climate directly before Nazi Germany) was the home of Magnus Hirschfeld, one of the most progressive gay and trans rights activists of the 20th century. He founded the Institute for Sexual Research in 1919 and his work was massively influential.

It was one of the first buildings destroyed by the Nazis immediately after they took power. We all know what happened from there.

The stronger we get, the stronger they will fight us. And these motherfuckers are C.R.A.Z.Y. I need more than television fans forgiving a few movie stars for being lesbians to get me through this. We need to prepare to fight. Because it's coming. And I'm not counting on the middle-american housewives who like Ellen to stand beside me in through this battle.

[Dookus]

7. I understand what you're saying...

but I can't dismiss the importance of middle-class housewives loving an out and proud lesbian. It was unthinkable when I was a child. It's not even noteworthy now.

Yes, we will have to fight the most dedicated reactionaries... but we are winning the culture war. Eventually - and shortly - the voters will follow.

[readmoreoften]

8. My girlfriend's mother and grandmother love Ellen

But they cannot even speak of their own daughter being gay. Her homosexuality is a taboo issue. Her butchness is absolutely dreaded.

My theory on Ellen is that the middle-aged housewives like the fact that she has the decency not to talk about being gay anymore.

We are not winning the culture war. By no means. It's just that the good people of America are finally realizing the horrors that we go through... after many years of hard work done by many brave people.

The intelligent, thoughtful heterosexuals are behind us.
And the right wing is organizing as if their eternity in heaven depended on it... because they think it does.

Don't overestimate people.

[bliss_eternal]

5. It would be helpful if celebrities like Tom Cruise

didn't feel the need to file a lawsuit everytime someone writes that he is gay. As if being thought of as gay were an insult or something undesirable.

But in the meantime, I agree this IS a civil rights issue. Nothing less than this.

I wish more minorities that have been discriminated against (women, people of color, the disabled, etc.) rallied around this issue. A denial of any group of humans rights is a denial to us ALL.

[Tux]

6. I'm not gay

but the issue of gay marriage is too close to the "Jewish Problem" of Nazi Germany. We have to fight ignorance at all times.

When things seem hopeless, things can get better. This quote from Return of the King always makes me smile.

"I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"

[readmoreoften]

9. thanks for the support , tux

welcome!

[foreigncorrespondent]

10. Welcome back, Dook!

I dunno, my friend! I recently watched this documentary on TV about the religious right and their move into politics, and you know what? That documentary really put the wind up me.

This documentary went on about Falwell et al, but especially the Christian Coalition and the strangle hold on politics these bastards have.

I sat on the couch and watched these so called Christians spreading their kind of "morality" in all parts of the 3rd world. How they have such a huge following in Guatemala, everything. Then I listened to how they are now teaching lawyers etc to aim for the SCOTUS with of course their teachings of "morality" to bring along with them.

It was really scary, Dook! I just don't know how we can win this war against out very rights unless we as a community can come together and begin fighting these assholes head on.

They are just so formed and the gay community at large really isn't. There are those of us out there that do not give a fart in a jar about their rights. Just so long as they can go out and pick up their nightly you know what at the local bar.

We need to begin teaching out own just how important it is, that we begin not living up to the stereotype the religious right has put on us. And that isn't about to happen!

You know here in Australia, I by law cannot marry Sapph, since it was a bipartisan effort last year to change Australia's marriage laws. On top of that, if Sapph and I end up settling here, and want to adopt, we cannot adopt a child from overseas. And recently Howard has been talking about not showing any TV shows that have any form of gayness on until the wee hours of the morning. There goes The Simpson's, Ellen, The L Word, etc, etc, etc!

They really are winning the battle Dook, because the gay community just can't bloody well organize itself properly!

[Dookus]

11. Hey Foreign!

Welcome back yourself!

I disagree with your conclusion. I think we're seeing the far-right backlash to our success. Yes, it's disappointing that we're taking some beatings onissues like gay marriage, but that's because gay marriage is actually becoming a reality around the world, and will be allowed here pretty soon. The fact it's even being discussed as a legitimate issue is something I could not have foreseen 20 years ago.

If you look at the poll numbers on the issue, it's simply a matter of time. Every year an increasing number of Americans support the idea, and the ones who oppose it most strongly are old and will slough off soon enough.

I think we've already won the culture. We're now fighting the last of the reactionaries and their numbers will decrease with each passing year.

[foreigncorrespondent]

12. Then...

...let us agree to disagree, my friend! :)

[dsc]

13. The one big problem is the federal courts

Federal courts can and do force popular will to be thwarted. I can easily see gays making cultural and even legislative gains on the national level only to see federal courts carve out rights to discriminate against us.

[Dookus]

14. Yes

and we are likely to see some wrong decision before we see some good ones.

But I remember Bowers v. Hardwick, and I never thought it would be overturned in my lifetime. But this, the most consertive court we've had in many decades, overturned it.

I'm just encouraging people to look at the big picture. The advances made in the last 20 years have beyond my wildest imagination. We're getting there. Yes, there's strong opposition - but we are winning.

[foreigncorrespondent]

15. Dook...

...Australia was always far more progressive on the rights for LGBTIQ people than the U.S. yet look what happened to us. After the advancements we had made like domestic partnership rights is some states, legal age limit for sex equal to that of our heterosexual counterparts, yet we still managed to have a homophobic government on a bipartisan level destroy all chances of same sex marriage in this country, probably for my life time. Ya wanna know why that happened? Because the fundamentalist has gotten a strong hold here.

You wanna know how they work? They arrange these huge meet ups which only include men. They do this simply because they realize if they can attract men to their lifestyle then sure enough the wives of those men and the kids of those men will join their lifestyle as well.

They accuse us of wanting to convert people. Yet it is exactly what they accuse us of doing, which we aren't doing, that they themselves are doing. We can't compete with that kind of hatred and bigotry being spread around.

Just look at these schools that Falwell and Robertson own. They have stated not once, but numerous times they intend to fill the SCOTUS with people who received an education from their own schools. That way they get the laws to follow their bigoted beliefs of the bible and damn everyone else.

The repukes are enjoying stealing elections now, so don't think they will stop in '06 or '08 because they won't.

You now have a government that is totally controlled by the right wing, and four years with the boy king in office.

I am sorry Dook, but four years is a long time, and I fear the dreaded FMA will make progress. And the FMA is just the beginning!