“Gay Marriage” and “Pro-Life”
Same-sex Marriage is not gay marriage. It's marriage. You don't have to be gay to avail yourself of a same-sex marriage. Just like I can avail myself of the institution of marriage right now, so long as the one I'm marrying has an inny to my out-y.
Pro-Life is not Pro Life: it's Pro-pagation of the Faith. I should know, I remember the agency's relationship the Diocese of Scranton. Every Diocese makes obeisance to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. After all, it's the sales & marketing arm of the Catholic Church and no amount of truth (or “Truth”) is enough to keep membership up. It's like KQED and Public Television: it's free and it's awesome, but you still have to have membership drives—and some of the funds raised by the membership drive go to fund the next membership drive, etc., etc.
On the other hand, I never thought the word “gay” would be said so frequently and so relatively blithely by everyone. Still, it's a demonizing word when used to build the phrase “gay marriage”. It's ironic, too, because as the Rightwingers attempt to separate marriage from gay marriage, their real argument is that people will confuse them as the same thing and therefore the notion of marriage will mean nothing.
You know, it'd be like Baptists saying that Catholics aren't Christians because if you let the Catholics call themselves Christian then Christianity will be diluted by welcoming everyone to Jesus.
And look! A timely timing for me. Today the Catholics issued a set of guidelines on how to handle the homos. They're (we're) supposed to be welcomed, but we're not to have sex or, god forbid, fall in love. We're only supposed to 'come out' to a 'small group of people'—I have a feeling that they didn't explicitly set a number on what constitutes 'small group'. And if we 'openly embrace' the 'homosexual lifestyle' (what is this, the 1970s?), then we are not permitted to hold 'leadership positions' in the Church. Does that mean that only bottoms of the non-pushy variety are allowed to be as out and proud and stylishly-lived as they wish and still be held close to Jesus' muscular bosom?
So get it right, folks. It's same-sex marriage. If you're straight, you can have one. The gays aren't interested in abridging straight's rights. You'd be able to marry within or without your own gender, just like everyone else. As an added bonus, your race will be rendered equally moot with respect to your choices!
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Good point.
I'm sorry but by telling Bob you're gay, and by choosing to update your living room to this years hot colors, you've obviously crossed the line. You've embraced the "lifestyle" and come out to 1 too many people. Please go sit in the back pew. Oh, and no more wearing designer shoes to the services, it's Florsheim wingtips or extra penance.
One of the points I find most interesting is contextual nature of wrong-wing word usage, and how it differs based on the discussion. As you mentioned, they don't call it same-sex marriage because Gay is scandalous and gross and reminds them of who God says they're supposed to hate. Oh, they're Gay alright, and they're sick and they're attacking our marriages!
But if/when you read their publications, they don't use the word Gay to refer to gay people. It's either homosexual or "gay." "Gay," not gay. Scary quotes. It means "so-called," "supposedly," "if that is your real name," and "not actually gay."
So we're gay part of the time and not actually gay part of the time, depending on whether we're attacking their fragile marriages or simply being. We're gay if we're a threat, but we're not really gay if you can imply we're miserable or just faking.
It makes me wonder why they don't put homosexual in quotes, too. I mean, we don't really exist, right? In fact, methinks if we weren't in a full frontal assault on their brittle little marriages, they might stop talking about us altogether.
Actually I think "Homosexual Lifestyle" is defined as "buying meth from a prostitute before and after you have sex with him", though that may just be the Evangelical definition. The Catholic one may read "Non-acceptance of your marginalized life manifest in destructive self-loathing and boy fondling." Potato potahto I guess. At least the prostitute got paid. Oh wait... Ok, so at least the prostitute wasn't scarred for life. Oh wait...
'Pro-life' folks aren't really pro-life, they're pro-fetus. If they were really pro-life, they'd be against abortion AND death sentences. If they were pro-life, they'd lobby for mandatory helmet laws in all 50 states. If they were pro-life, they'd be trying to get clean water to people in third-world nations. That stuff's too much work, though. They'd rather lobby for the fetus, because THE FETUS FEELS PAIN. Apparently, fetal pain is more intense than the pains of hunger, disease, starvation, and a lethal injection.
I like Josh's point about 'gay' versus gay. When I hear people who want to deny my rights talk about homosexuals, it seems they're usually speaking in italics, as if we were a notion and not a fact. I had an English lit teacher in high school who taught us that 'the rough male kiss of blankets' in Rubert Brooke's poem 'The Great Lover' should not in any way be construed as an indication that Rupert Brooke had, in fact, kissed men. Except that he had, and it was a fact, plain and simple. I have a heritage, although I was taught otherwise. It's ancient and, as such, predates the terms 'homosexual' AND 'gay'. This should be reason enough, I think, for my government to acknowledge my love for my man.