Election Results: Maine Loses, Washington State Wins

... that everyone was given the opportunity to decide something for a minority of people, and this something in no way could have been discriminatory for the majority.

This is one of those cases when democracy simply doesn't work, because the results are unfair.

If you are a sheep and two wolves decide to eat you for dinner, pointing out that the democratic process allowed them to vote and the majority voted in favor of some mutton for dinner, would you think that it's fair?

I think the average person does not realize that having their rights in law and having them when they need to exercise them are two different things that even the majority cannot control when they deny others their human rights. There are countless examples. For instance, if a straight person who voted against human rights is in the hospital dying and they want their spouse called to come to their room by the gay or gay-friendly nurse, it is the gay or gay-friendly nurse who ultimately decides in those moments whether the rights of someone who violated the human rights of so many others are worth anything; in those final moments, having a "hetero" only marriage law does not grant the heterosexual anything, because you need the person you harmed to uphold and carry out your human rights, otherwise they are as meaningless to you, even as a heterosexual majority member, in that inescapable moment as if they were written in the sand of an approaching tide. I think many nations have come undone because majorities do not think before they oppress.

Since it is important to acknowledge U.S. history in having any discussion, I'd like to simply point out that for better or worse, it took a Civil War to actually get Equal Protection under Law into the U.S. Constitution. And without equal protection, no minority group in the USA would have any claim to any substantial rights. Even the groups that oppose human rights like the Mormons and right-wing Christians wouldn't have any real rights without equal protection in the constitution since these groups can be outvoted by larger groups. Also, it took World War II to repel and stop attacks on Americans. Pearl Harbor was fought on American soil, that's in the US, and then the fight extended beyond our borders to stop existing and impending mass human rights violations.

Then, of course, there is the Revolutionary War which gave birth to the nation. That was in the US and created an entire country where human rights could be violated a couple centuries later in the 21st century. How ironic and sad, so many states in a country founded on liberty and justice could not spare any for its own citizens.

First of all, I've never been to the USA, all I know is from books, news outlets, TV & movies. But of course I know that the real picture is probably somewhat better than in Brokeback Mountain and in general still worse than even in Queer as Folk (but maybe it's just me being cautiously pessimistic). I live in provincial Russia, here being gay is just unbelievably horrible, and gay people are being treated as pedophile with no exceptions. So, maybe in comparison the US seems just a little bit more welcoming. Gay-bashing exists everywhere (no question there), along with many other unpleasant activities, exercised by narrow-minded people.

By "We're not fighting for out lives" I literally meant that: we're not being killed off during the open season on gays. Today you suggest violence to show how seriously we want all those rights. Tomorrow you'll suggest terrorism? Someone already mentioned here that violence leads to even more violence. That's what we must not allow.

Yes, all those rights you mentioned are very important, and we all want them... NOW... and we all know that those rights would give us the most important things in life people have: family, love, happiness, equality, openness, acceptance. No doubt they are important! No doubt we want them NOW, because life goes in a blink and there just might not be enough time for us to do everything we've planned.

“Give me liberty or give me death”. Nice one! You know, I don't mind to die for what I stand for. But I mind to kill or torture someone else to get what I want. There is a big difference.

So, what kind of violence do you suggest? Straight-bashing? Or you're just talking self-defense? If latter, than I must admit I won't let myself be beaten, I would be self-defending, and if it means violence, well, so be it. But starting violence, or soliciting violence — that's a different story.

No wonder there are business places unwelcoming for gay people. And we gotta fight with those bigots! We gotta report these things, to GLAAD maybe, to news-makers, so they could run stories in papers & on local TV-stations or even nation-wide, and that's why we need anti-discrimination legislation which would specifically mention equality for people of every sexual orientation there is — to say that law forbids you to act that way. As for police officers... that's a disgrace for police departments and these things also should be reported and responsible parties should be punished accordingly! When we do nothing, when we just turn around and walk away — they win, we lose. But when we complain and make a big deal out of it, maybe it goes public and becomes a big deal for many people, and the more things like this uncover, the more attention we draw to the existing problem of the real discrimination, the more public figures and legislatures realize that anti-discrimination laws are important & inevitable.

And wait a minute! I never said that things are "not that bad." I said they're "not as bad" as they probably were with African-American people 50-60 years ago (I mean, we hardly know the whole truth, most likely it was much worse than we think). Don't twist my arm. And yet, violence is not something that helped black people to gain equality! It's common sense! It's understanding that we all are equal. All Americans had to do was to change the traditional thinking of African-American people as slaves who should be enslaved for their own good. And that's not so easy. Just like now it's not so easy to change people's minds about homosexuality.

I am sorry if you got the impression that I approve what African-American people had to do to protect their natural rights. It was a long time ago, and maybe then it was the only way for them to indicate how important it was for them and their descendants. I do not approve it, but I do not deny the past: what happened — happened. On the contrary, I'm trying to say that we shouldn't repeat mistakes and look behind, justifying our violent actions just because they took place in the past.

Well, you just don't get me. I don't think that we're fighting for "special rights" and that we're asking too much! All I'm trying to say is "No on violence" (actual violence with beating the crap out of other people), whereas all the other ways of fighting are legit.

Do you really think that if you scare the crap out of people, you'll get your rights and will live happily ever after? People are not gonna suddenly start respecting you just because you browbeat them into it. Especially if you browbeat them into it. They're gonna hate you even more than before.

I believe we still can show people that there's nothing to hate us for and nothing to be afraid of us.

And yet, decisions about civil rights should not be made by voters. I don't recall any elections that gave African-American people their civil rights... They were just given, if I'm not mistaken (at least I've read somewhere that there were some kind of elections and results showed that the majority of people were against giving equal rights to African-American people, just like with Prop. 8 in California a year ago and Question 1 in Maine yesterday).

Apparently, I write too much, so I don't even know if anyone would read this, so whatever :)

Obviously, homophobic people don't like gays for a reason, which might be:

• showing off their homosexuality (holding hands, hugging, kissing, fondling on public, etc., well... PDA)
• dressing accordingly (vivid colors, "unmanly" accessories, sometimes woman clothes, etc.)

(Of course, these are stereotypes that I just transfer here without analyzing specificity & occurrence frequency.)

On the other hand, there have been reports of studies that showed that most of the people can successfully determine if some male person is gay, just by looking on their face alone (something about increased facial muscle tension).

So, it's not about "the tell." It's about business, really. People don't generally want to become famous for their homophobia, especially if their potential client could be lenient about homosexuality and intolerant about homophobia (though not being gay at the same time). So, these businessmen figure that they shouldn't make their own views public, but if they encounter gay clients, they may deny them of service.

I gather, latent homophobia is the most common type of it. So, no wonder that there are no signs like there were about African-Americans decades ago. And it is a good sign, really. It means these people actually have something to be afraid of when acting homophobic, it means people understand they can be criticized and it is not a universal opinion that lets you act the way you want.