Dawn, Toronto’s Gaybourhood, 7 November 2008
Regular readers here (and visitor to my Flickr account) may notice, above, a not-so-subtle addition to my occasional series of cloud photographs. In the foreground you’ll see some buildings. They’re apartment blocks in the heart of Toronto’s gaybourhood. I used to live in one of them, and the tall one is affectionately (but anachronistically) known as “Vaseline Towers.”
There’s a reason for this not-so-subtle addition and the reason, too, is not-so-subtle. The historic and joyous election of Barack Obama south of our border heralds a new age of optimism and equality in America but coincident with this monumental event was the entrenchment in California and three other states of discriminatory legislation against lesbians and gay men.
This setback has emboldened the bullying forces of bigotry and hatred, and when the religious right should be sitting in a corner, licking their wounds and figuring out how they can drag themselves into the 20th century, they’ve turned their attention to victims which they perceive as weaker.
Hardly surprising for bullies, right?
You sick, stupid, moronic faggots get a life. We will burn your f–ing clubs and AIDS riden places of prostitution to the ground.
The above is a charming comment left at blogbuddy Joe.My.God‘s site by the charming Tom Sherman of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. It’s entirely expected that bullies like Sherman need to vent. But they’re doing so in our virtual space. And they threaten, no matter how impotently, to invade our physical space.
But we’re not weaker. We are smarter. We are stronger. We are becoming galvanized in ways I have not seen since ACT-UP meetings of 20 years ago. America may not have the constitutional advantage we had in Canada to secure and protect our rights, but every time American queer equality is tested we are closer to victory.
And we will win.
Act up, fight back. (More later…)
4 comments
I am so disturbed by that comment. Comments like that make me ill.
I’m also disturbed (less so, but still) by another comment, here – http://www.haloscan.com/comments/joemygod/4404683111469345424/#1115421
As a Catholic, I look forward to getting married in a Catholic church. How right is it to protest at a wedding where the bride and groom (the people who you are most hurting) could be fully supportive of your cause? Isn’t that just spreading the hate? This comment (and many other comments there) are encouraging violence against Christians.
As an American, as long as marriage is a state-sanctioned institution (aka you don’t have to be Catholic or Mormon or anything to get a MARRIAGE certificate), I feel that blocking marriage between two consenting adults, regardless of sexual preference, is absurd. If you’re trying to protect the sanctity of marriage, why don’t you fight to allow only those who get married in the church to be called “Married”? Everyone else can be domestic partners (because, you know, that’s totally. the. same. right?).
I know I’m not in the majority with my position… and I know there’s so much more to it, but …
I think it’s right to protest this. I don’t think it’s right to hurt others in the process. Don’t let the bigotry beget bigotry.
I’ll be writing more on this later, Kelly Anne, and I’m sorry, but your link doesn’t seem to lead anywhere for me; perhaps Joe.My.God. deleted it? In any case, if it was an intemperate comment from a member of the underclass suggesting retribution against the overclass, I hope you’ll consider it as an unfortunate remark made from a place of hurt and betrayal.
I think it’s necessary for members of the majority to let the disenfranchised blow off some steam when they’ve been wronged. For example, I’ll button my lip when women suggest violent retribution against male rapists — within reason, and within a reasonable time period. But I’ll be speaking at length on this shortly.
[...] (note – I posted this as a comment in bstewart23’s blog) [...]
bstewart23, I love your comments and your blog.
Vaseline towers – I love it. Doesn’t every large city have one (or more) of those?
What post of JMG’s engendered that comment? I can’t find it. Good for Joe for publishing Tom Sherman’s address, etc. Bash back!