LGBT – Page 13 – Wis[s]e Words

Couple 243

Published on May 19, 2004

Last Monday, gay marriage became legal in the US state of Massachusetts, which immediately led to a run on marriage licences there, in towns like Cambridge. One couple who did so, couple 243, blogged their experience. It is a very emotional, happy piece:

We paid our $15 and walked up the stairs to the exit. People shook our hands on the way out, and as we walked out the front door at 4:15am we were greeted by a small cheering crowd.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” they yelled as we got to the bottom of the nearly-deserted steps. We kissed, posed for a picture and drove home through the nearly deserted streets.

(Brian)

[…]

I have a hard time gauging what my emotions were as we started running up the gauntlet — the avenue that led from the sidewalk on Mass Ave. up to the front doors of City Hall — to find that there were relatively few couples seeking licenses — fewer than the thousand I might have expected — but that there were about three thousand just *watching* — a mass of people singing spontaneously, chanting, waving signs, all with their own little political agendas to defeat bush or proclaim love for gays or just be happy that we were getting what they had rights to — a mass overfilling the lawn in front of City Hall, filling the sidewalk on both sides of Mass Ave, and stretching tendrils up and down several blocks, towards both Harvard and Central. As soon as Brian grabbed my hand and said let’s give it a try, and started running, they all started cheering, clapping, screaming. I did not expect that.

(Aaron

It’s hard to imagine the impact this has in the US when you’re living in a country where gay marriage has been legal for a number of years now. Where it was realised more as the logical end result of the emancipation process rather than as something people had to fight hard for. It must feel so good to finally be able to proclaim your love for each other the way you want to, knowing there are so many who would keep that from you; even if Bush pushes through a constitutional amedament tomorrow making it illegal again, the moment itself can never be taken from you anymore.

Good luck and congratulations to Brian and Aaron; may they and all those other couples who can finally
marry have a long and happy marriage.

It’s that man again

Published on May 12, 2002Leave a comment

Speaking of demonising Pim Fortuyn…

Only the Dutch could have a gay sociologist fascist

The murder is further complicated by the fact that only the Dutch could have a fascist leader who was a gay sociologist. Maybe he was trying to build a liberal, inclusive fascism, dreaming of the day he could announce to his followers “and now, after a hard afternoon’s goose-stepping, let’s relax, massage each other’s shoulders and get rid off all that tension before invading a neighbouring country.”

His sexuality has been cited as one of the reasons that he couldn’t have been a fascist, but the far right seems capable of gliding over these contradictions. If Hitler had been gay, the only difference to history would have been the uniforms, when he’d thrown a strop and yelled, “Brown shirts and jackboots? Have you no sense of colour co-ordination”.

It’s typical that an English comedian did have the guts to take the mickey out of Fortuyn’s death, while our own cabaretiers haven’t dared comment.

“Openly gay”

Published on May 8, 2002Leave a comment

There is one thing about Pim Fortuyn that it seems foreigners, especially USAnians just cannot get their heads around: him being openly gay. And even more, his being gay and nobody caring about it. How could this be?

The fact is, the personal life of politicians is just not an issue. You may know the domestic arrangements of the various ministers, or you may not. If you know them, it’s usually because it came up in a sidebar to an interview, or because their family was also invited to some gala dinner or such. Unlike the US, we just don’t base our assesments of a politician’s suitability on their private life.

Apart from that, there’s also that homosexuality is an entirely normal and accepted fact of life here. Sure, there are people hostile to homosexuality or uncomfortable with it but on average people don’t care about it. Gay people are treated no different from others, the same legal rights as couples, including the right to marry. Being gay doesn’t mean anything here, isn’t a stigmata, doesn’t condemn you to a live of nightclubs, casual sex and having to hide from “normal” people. Few people are homophobic here.

And those who are, usually keep their hostility to themselves as it’s just not tolerated, as it isn’t for any minority. Fortuyn profited from this attitude in his private life, letting him live an “openly gay” lifestyle without reprecussions. In politics this attitude worked against him since for many people, including myself he crossed a line between legitamite criticism of certain opinions of (some) Muslims and condemning all Muslims for the sins of a few.

It’s true that there is a danger that our society will lose its tolerance towards homosexuals under the influence of immigrants and asylum seekers from less open backgrounds. It’s also true that the Morrocan community in the Netherlands is at the moment the least integrated of the big immigrant groups (others being Turks and Surinamers) as well as originally coming from very conservative areas in Morroco (theRif mountains). That does not mean all Muslims are raging homophobes wanting to burn all faggots in one big auto-da-fe, that they are all automatically suspect. Talking about all Muslims as being homophobes, as being backward and an automatic danger to tolerant Dutch society is what made Fortuyn borderline racists, is what made him controversial.