If you aren't familiar with the music of Marilyn Manson, this blog title is from his song The Fight Song.
Nothing suffocates you more than
the passion of everyday human events
and isolation is the oxygen mask
you make your children breath in to survive
and I'm not a slave to a god that doesn't exist
and I'm not a slave to a world that doesn't give a shit
and when we were good, you just close your eyes
...so now we are bad...we'll scar your mind
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT
Yesterday, when once again in our country, bigotry lifted it's dirty and evil self out of the gutters, this song came to mind. Why religion feels the need to deprive members of our country of their civil rights, is completely out of my understanding. I am talking about the voters in Maine voting down their equality in marriage law. Once again robbing members of our country of their rights.
What saddens me is that every time a civil rights question rises to the top of our country, it is always the houses of God, abet ran by fallible men, who resist the change. They worked hard to protect the status quo of denying African Americans of their basic rights. And before that, they fought in their houses of worship against freeing the slaves. Yes, there have been a few notable exceptions in our countries history. Henry Ward Beecher fought long and hard to end slavery.
Do members of these churches not understand, that every time you deprive someone of their rights, we are further down the slippery slope away from what our country was supposed to be based on? Freedom and equality, well, freedom for some, and equality only for those we choose, should be our new tag line as a country.
In the sixties when the war on race was raging across this country, the heat of the need of the deprived, blossomed into a firestorm of violence, which has yet to completely heal. Violence is never the answer! Years of being deprived, years of being told to wait by their leaders, years of wanting what is only natural, can only lead down two paths. The path of violence. The path of apathy.
The path of violence has left long lasting scars from those bleak days of the sixties. Scars I am not sure will ever be completely healed, not scabbed over, but healed. And apathy I am not sure can ever be rectified. Do we want our younger LBGTQ members of our society to give up before they even begin?
Why am I so very passionate about this subject? I can sum it up in two small words, civil rights.
Either everyone in our country has the same rights, or none of us do. If we don't speak out for each other, who will? In the darkest days in Germany before WWII, churches stood behind the nazi party, supported the nazi party, preached from the pulpit the hatred of the nazis. Karl Marx considered religion to be the opiate of the masses. And in Germany, the opiate did it's work, it kept the church going masses quiet, believing in their pastors. After using the churches to encourage their members to toe the party line, the nazis came for them. Do you all remember this famous poem from history class?
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
by Martin Niemoller
Who will be next to lose their civil rights? It is already everyone that reads my blog.... who is next?
Nicely written. I enjoyed our chat last night and highly aggree with everything you wrote in this post.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I did just want to voice my opinion of one of your earlier posts concerning the legal documents that frame our nation.
While I wholeheardely agree with what you are saying about intentions of the framers and what not, I do dissagree that the Declaration of Independence (Doi) is to be considered a legal document when it was in its entirety only a formal letter from a group of rebels to a overbearing monarchy.
At that time we were not a nation, and it does not do well for argument, IN MY OPINION, to use it as a factual legal document.
But as i said, whether the document is used in the argument or not, I still aggree with what you stated..
Lots of love,
Ryan
I agree with what you say and I applaud you for your impassioned plea for equality. Many people are still resistant to change, and you can bet intolerance and injustice will bear their ugly heads again and again anytime marriage law is brought up. It's frustrating, but I have hope we'll get there eventually. When it happens, it'll be because of passionate individuals like yourself who have firm convictions and fight to carry them out.
ReplyDeleteHaving spent part of my life working for gay rights in the UK of course I right with you not just on your argument but on the need to keep on saying it loud and clear if enough people in the US (let alone the enormous number of other countries around the world who are even worse!)to take notice and to change things.
ReplyDeleteWe used to sing a hymn at my junior school 'Fight the Good Fight' and if anyone wants something to get their teeth into it's help us organise and motivate you American guys to drag your country out of the Dark Ages.