Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

While GLADD is urging folks to come out to their families at Thanksgiving, Maggie Gallagher of NOM fame (you remember – the gathering storm that brought us some of the best commercial parodies of all time?) offers up some helpful tips on smacking down your gay relatives if they try to talk about their own lives at the dinner table.

Summary: Step 1: Tell them marriage is between a man and a woman for a reason (procreation argument, yadda yadda yadda). Step 2: Refute the charge of bigotry by saying that it’s not bigoted to treat different things differently; it’s just common sense. (I’m sure that argument will go over well). Step 3: Demand mutual toleration of each others’ sincere moral opinions (even though you have the moral high ground), and then state that it’s unkind and intolerant to suggest that you’re a bigot or a hater. Repeat Step 3 incessantly until your gay relative shuts up or until there is pie.

Now I’m sure there is an argument to be made (most likely by Ms. Gallagher herself) that these same steps might apply (with obvious content edits) to gay people talking to their relatives about their own lives – i.e. state the point, refute claims of narrow-mindedness against opponents, and then request mutual tolerance and respect in light of differing opinions. But I would argue that mutual tolerance and respect is not the compromise in this situation. It merely maintains the status quo of discrimination and asks us to be accepting of our own oppression. You don’t get to say, “Can’t you just respect that I believe you are inferior and will legislate to the extent I am able to keep you in a legally-inferior position?” and expect me to say, “Oh, sure, that sounds like a fair compromise.”

Mutual toleration and respect require that individuals be on equal footing. If you want mutual toleration and respect, let us get married and then disagree with it. Don’t funnel money and manpower into passing discriminatory laws to strip us of our civil rights and then expect us to be respectful and tolerant of your “moral” stance.

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