Enough is Too Much
March 7, 2008 by mrschili
I’m not going to apologize for wearing you out about this.
Take a second to take that in. One person dead - and violently so - every eight days since this year began.
These were people, with faces and families and friends and lives; that is, until someone decided that they didn’t deserve to live simply because of who they were.
A lot of the people I care about are GLBTQ. If you’re one of them, please, please be careful. Please.
Thank you, Tom, for this link, and for continuing to do this hard, sad work.
You, my dear, should NEVER EVER APOLOGIZE. Not once. Not ever. EVER ever ever. In fact, just keep on shouting. Eventually, we have to believe, it will work.
*steps off soapbox*
Nice reminder Mrs. Chili.
Every time we travel outside of our cozy home state (and the other small states around us) I worry about our safety. There has never been a problem but we’ve gotten some “attitude and looks” in some places. We are careful and try to not be obvious but we are who we are and that’s not going to change.
Thanks for the link to Tom and from there to the Truth Wins Out site. You can just keep speaking up as often as you can. You do make a difference for all of us.
mrschili,
No need to apologize for asking that all human beings be treated with dignity and respect. Should be a fundamental right for all, huh?
Dr. B
Thank you Mrs. Chili.
As an older gay man, help from non-gay people has always come as a welcomed surprise.
For me, your help really warms my heart and shines a bright light on hope.
None of us knows what the world has lost due to the smallness of some people. One of these victims might have been the key to world peace or some great discovery to cure the ills of man. We will never know.
I only know we can not remain silent.
What can I add. My latest post discusses this issue.
I think we need to also look at the language we use. I don’t like the agressive words. “Fight out loud”, the “war on drugs”. Stuff like that. I just don’t like the message it sends…
Auntie, I’m not crazy about “fighting words,” either, but I think they’re appropriate. The Civil Rights movement required the use of strong, unapologetic language; Martin Luther King advocated non-violence, but he employed some pretty pointed rhetoric.
I’m not sure that conciliatory - in action or language - is what we should be aiming for right now. My contention is that the treatment of GLBTQ folks is patently unconstitutional - illegal - and we (both GLBTQ folks and any straight people with a sense of ethics and social justice) need to stand up and DEMAND that GLBTQ people be afforded the rights they’re guaranteed as citizens of this country. It’s fairly obvious, from the current conditions, that no one’s going to hand anyone anything without some kind of fight…
You can’t really tell, but there are two links in my comment above - I linked to MLK’s Dream speech at “pointed rhetoric” and to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution at “patently unconstitutional.” Go check them out…
mrschili–Private conduct may be, at times, in violation of the “spirit” of the Constitution, but the Constitution basically governs what government can and cannot do, not individuals. As I said in a comment on my blog, I’ll address some legal issues in a post.
mrschili: I posted about the LAW, and while it may seem I fishbellied on it, I needed to say that stuff so anyone, meaning you, who wants to have a discussion with me about legal matters will know “where my head is at.”
Later.
Any type of discrimination is just obscene.
I’m swiping this video to use with the Civil Rights Team at my school. Along with a couple of articles from People Magazine (of all places) that deal with the same topic.