The twisted logic of the anti-gay marriage movement

The Minnesota senate will be debating our gay marriage bill this afternoon; if it passes there, we have a done deal, because our governor Dayton has promised to sign it into law as soon as it hits his desk. This has thrown the Christians into this state in a frenzy (and make no mistake, the opposition is zealously Christian — every argument calls on their god to justify their hatred), and we’re getting email and mailed flyers and phone calls at home all the time. They don’t seem to have very good organization, either. You think they’d learn from the contemptuous sneer and slammed phones they get from me that they should write me off as a lost cause.

But their arguments are just getting weirder and more desperate. Take this from @MnForMarriage:

Yesterday, millions of Minnesotans celebrated the Lord’s day. Today, should the gay “marriage” bill pass, those who believe in the Lord’s design for marriage will become “bigots” under our laws.

Yep, that’s their major argument right now. It’s OK to discriminate against gay people, but suggesting that people who want to deny others their civil rights are “bigots” is unfair and oppressive!

Don’t worry, @MnForMarriage, you’re already bigots, so the law will change nothing in that regard. It’ll just mean you don’t get to practice your bigotry against gay people under the cover of law. But I’m sure you’ll still be the same nasty, hateful, mean-spirited, narrow-minded jebus-shaggers you’ve always been.

Today is the day

Today, the Minnesota legislature is supposed to vote on gay marriage. I know because the pressure has been at fever pitch — I got three phone calls yesterday from advocacy organizations calling to get me to call my representative. I’ve told NOM to take a flying leap, but Minnesotans United, despite the annoying dunning, have my favor.

Apparently, my representative, Jay McNamar, is one of those dumbass undecideds. He’s been waffling over the issue, an uncertainty which doesn’t just leave me cold, it makes me actively dislike him. I’ve called him several times to tell him that this is the civil rights issue of our era, and if he can’t make up his goddamn mind about something as basic as human decency, he’s not on my side. If he votes against it, he’ll never have my vote ever again; if he can muster a little integrity and principle, maybe I’ll reluctantly put a mark next to his name on a ballot next time around.

But the word is that we’ll know today. Don’t disappoint me, Minnesota!

What point would a protest have if it didn’t piss someone off?

Amina-Tyler

This well-written article in The Atlantic remarks on a familiar tactic. It’s about the Femen, the topless jihad, and Amina, and the complaints an annoying number of stodgy critics have made. You know the ones: the people who demand that all arguments be respectful, and insist that there are proper channels for debate, and protests that actually rile the establishment are inappropriate.

With its topless jihad and Femen leader Inna Shevchenko’s subsequent incendiary blog post on the event, Femen was both defending one of its own and upholding a right to freedom of expression (to say nothing of life and liberty) flagrantly violated by Amina’s own family and by an angry, largely Muslim, community from which threats against Amina and Shevchenko continue to emanate. It’s worth pointing out that Femen’s critics, several of whom professed concern for Amina’s well-being, did not speak out in Amina’s defense before the jihad, but only post-factum and in passing, all the while pummeling the group standing up for her with stale, politically correct shibboleths and demands to stay out of what they perceived to be their own business.

We saw this in all the battles over accommodationism: there’s always someone on your side who offended that you have chosen to battle antagonistically or unconventionally against oppression and foolishness. I think their favorite word must be “hush” — don’t upset the status quo, even if it’s the status quo you’re trying to upset. And most importantly, they insist that you have to follow their tactics, and they get to tell everyone how to engage, even if their history is one of largely sitting on their thumbs and getting chummy with the enemy.

Guess what is often at the root of that reluctance to actually confront? Yeah, it’s the same old boogeyman everytime, conservative traditionalism in the guise of religion.

There is a problem, however. The media has long fostered the view that religion should be de facto exempt from the logical scrutiny applied to other subjects. I am not disputing the right to practice the religion of one’s choice, but rather the prevailing cultural rectitude that puts faith beyond the pale of commonsense review, and (in Amina’s case), characterizes as “Islamophobic” criticism of the criminal mistreatment of a young woman for daring to buck her society’s norms, or of Femen for attacking the forced wearing of the hijab.

We’re seeing a lot of that lately, but it’s been going on for a long, long time. Point out that transubstantiation is ridiculous, and that Catholics don’t get to tell you to honor a cracker, and Bill Donohue raves that you’re an anti-Catholic bigot; stand aghast at ultra-orthodox Jews spitting on little girls for “immodesty” and you’re an anti-semite; critize the deeply rooted misogyny in Islam, a misogyny that harms men and women in the faith, and you’re declared an Islamophobe.

Just because it’s cloaked in the self-declared mystery of religion doesn’t mean it’s exampt from scrutiny and rejection.

A monstrous regiment of Schlaflys

This sounds so damn familiar.

The problem with feminism, I think the principal problem, is the cultivation of an attitude of victimization. Feminism tries to make women believe they are victims of an oppressive, male-dominated, patriarchal society. They wake up in the morning with a chip on their shoulder.

Oh, right. I’ve heard it a thousand times from all the critics of Freethoughtblogs…a thousand Phyllis Schlafly clones. Every MRA. Every man and woman who thinks women have a place — on a pedestal, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, where ever — and they ought to stay there, where they belong.

You don’t have pockets?

OK, OK, OK…I’m oblivious, but I never realized this before, or thought about the consequences: a lot of women’s clothes don’t have pockets. That would be an intolerable state of affairs for me. Don’t most boys grow up like me with a bunch of pockets that they’re constantly stuffing things into? Candy bars, interesting rocks, pocket knives, frogs, earthworms…until they grow up and replace the cool stuff with boring junk like keys and loose change and wallets. Even now I like a suit jacket with a couple of outside pockets and four in the lining, and I usually come home from a trip with all six stuffed with something or other.

I actually appraise my apparel for the number of pockets it has in it. If I’m wearing a shirt that doesn’t have a breast pocket (which I consider an abomination and a crime against utility already), I pick a coat that has an extra pocket to compensate.

Ladies, doesn’t it warp your brain to have grown up without built in stashing places to nurture your natural acquisitiveness? I’m going to have to have a conversation with my wife about this. I’ve noticed that every time we leave the house together, she always ask me if I have my keys, and I always thought it weird. Of course I have my keys! I always keep my keys right there in my pocket, and the only way I’d leave the house without them is if I forgot to put my pants on.

But now it’s sinking in. She’d only have her keys if she brought her purse with her. Hmmm. Teeny-tiny light bulb flickers and begins to glow dimly in my cranium…

pocketses

For the doubters: this is a view of the inside lining of my suit coat, opened in classic flasher’s pose. The top pocket is big enough to stuff my whole hand in; it’s got a bunch of colored pens in there right now, but at meetings I’ll usually fold the program in half and put it in there, or when I’m traveling I’ll put my itinerary there. The bottom pocket is smaller, but still large enough for my cell phone and a bunch of business cards. And the right side lining has the same arrangement! Little do people realize as I stride through meetings that I’m like Batman, with all kinds of useful things tucked away in my clothing.

The mysterious Tatsuya Ishida

oppressed

He’s an invisible webcomic artist — here’s one of the rare interviews with the guy, and a review of his work. I’ve been following him for many years, and one of the interesting things you can see as he matured is that he’s gone from drawing pimp ninjas and geisha sluts to developing a very feminist sensibility.

Look at his latest, for instance — no words at all, but he still gets across regret at what patriarchal culture has done.

There’s been a striking transformation going on. I’d really like to hear in his own words what’s going on through his head…but his art seems to be doing a fine job of communicating.

Is this some kind of test for creeps?

I watched this ad for a new service unbelievingly. Who at Virgin America thought this was a good idea?

Maybe it’s a kind of psychological test — a kind of video gom jabbar. If you’re watching it and thinking that this is a wonderful idea for all involved — the men get to be generous and charming, the women get free alcohol and compliments — then you’re an animal. If you watch it and are appalled at the attempt to use access to unwilling, trapped women as an enticement to use his commercial airline, you pass the humanity test.

If you don’t see it yet, read this account of a woman who was harrassed on a flight without Richard Branson’s facilitation. Are you getting a little closer to humanity yet?

If not, one more thought. Watch the video. Imagine yourself buying a ticket to get access to hot chicks on the flight. Imagine all the hot chicks watching this same video, and immediately rebooking their flights to a different airline. Imagine boarding the flight to discover it’s entirely occupied by leering lechers who are peering around the cabin looking for the available women.

I know I don’t want to be on that flight. I’m not going to be on that flight. Virgin America won’t be getting my business.

Maybe the right phrase is “revolutionary feminist”

The most “radical feminist” feminist I read religiously has got to be Twisty Faster, at I Blame the Patriarchy. She’s a ferociously passionate writer, and simply brilliant in her insights. So when we had the recent hatin’ and shriekin’ from #radfem2013, I had to wonder (maybe that’s the wrong word; I had high expectations) what Twisty would be saying on the issue. And have no fear, she’s all over it.

So, on a transwoman who was denied admission to Smith College, she writes:

So Wong can’t just declare herself to be whatever it is she is. Woman, they say, is denoted completely arbitrarily by lacking a dick. Not by any of the other factors that might just as easily be employed to differentiate members of the sex class from members of the regular class. Factors such as hormones or chromosomes or giggly head-tilts or — heaven forfend! — personal preference. The genitalia are the only thing anyone gives a fig about.

The carpet must match the drapes. One must be consistent, down below, with what one advertises up top. A girl can’t have a dick. The entire fabric of the universe, in fact, depends entirely on girls entirely not having dicks. No dicks, not of any kind.

That’s right; as is usual in all matters pertaining to everything, nothing matters but pure, unadulterated pussy. So Wong needs a doctor’s note stating that she’s had vaginoplasty. She must become legally penetrable. She has to get a fuckhole installed. That’s because the Global Accords define “woman” as “that which can be fucked.”

On the subject of radfems declaring transwomen as not fit for their movement, she’s got lots to say. Here’s the overview.

There are three aspects of this trans “debate” that particularly chap the spinster hide. One is that it is even considered a debate. Is there anything more demeaning than a bunch of people with higher status than you sitting around debating the degree to which they find you human? I don’t think so.

Go read the rest for her three aspects, but I have to mention her Four Ds:

Oppression is oppression. Race, ethnicity, religion, pigmentation, sex, gender, health, education, class, caste, age, weight, ableness, mental health, physical health, marital status, employment status, diet, IQ, internet access — any combination of these or a thousand other arbitrary markers may be used by the powerful to justify oppression, but the net result is always the same: discrimination, disenfranchisement, degradation, dehumanization. It’s the Four Ds! The Four Ds make all oppressed persons identical enough.

On almost every marker she lists, I’m one of the powerful…which means I have to be particularly careful not to turn my privileges into oppression.