Friday, February 10, 2012

Santorum definition

Black leaders on the extremes of the movement
Every movement has a continuum of rebels, from the most militant to the most complacent. For every Frederick Douglass there was an Uncle Tom. The founding of Israel, the Iranian and American revolutions, the ending of apartheid, all had leaders on both extremes. The civil rights movement had Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Junior. While both wanted equality of the race, they went about it using different methods and the followers chose one path, the other, or somewhere in between.
Unfortunately, each of these movements had a lunatic fringe whose efforts, while ostensibly driving toward the same goal, actually worked against it by hardening the majority’s hearts against it. Protesters raping female journalists in Tahrir square, Black Panthers murdering police officers, Zulus shouting ‘Kill the Boer’ and American revolutionaries looting Tory properties are examples of this lunatic fringe.
There is currently a movement in the US to afford marriage rights to the gay population. This movement, like those mentioned above, has its continuum of rebels who use techniques ranging from introducing gay families in prime time TV shows to fighting off the Californian referendum in the higher courts.  
While this battle is being fought in the legislative bodies of the states and attempts are being made to force a Federal decision on it, many elected officials have been asked what their stance is on this issue. Senator Rick Santorum has staked out his claim to stand directly against this movement. That is his right and the place to oppose him is in the ballot box.
This movement has its lunatic fringe as well, hurting the efforts of the mainstream. Unfortunately, this fringe has take the unique step of defining Santorum in the Urban Dictionary as a disgusting by-product of anal sex. They then used social media to force this definition to become one of the top results to a Google search on the senator’s name.
I notice that the right is fighting back and the definition is now no longer the number 1 result.
At first, this seems like a funny practical joke.
But is that the picture gay rights activists want to evoke in the minds of those who are deciding if it is a good idea to afford full marriage rights to this population? Wouldn’t you rather have the majority thinking of a gentle, committed couple who are happily raising children than the picture the above definition puts in our minds, or sex in airport bathrooms or rest areas or any of the other unsavory images of homosexuality?

Mitchell and Cameron with their baby in 'Modern Family'
I think it is time that the leaders of the gay rights movement policed its lunatic fringe, took down the offensive references and engaged their political foes in honest discourse. That is leadership.

6 comments:

  1. Are you really comparing the Santorum definers with rapists and murders??? You are equating free speech with the worst of capital crimes???? So gay people who use their right to free speech are the lunatic fringe? That's absurd! You only like your gay people funny, cute and adorable? Last week you thought Amish beard cutting (assault, possible hate crime) was funny, but a little name-calling is not? Well, I think it's hilarious! And Santorum's recent commercial showing Romney firing brown liquid on others and finally himself makes it even more hilarious!

    You know, in the past some people have not approved of bra-burning feminists, "uppity" black people, or other angry disenfranchised groups. And we know what those people are... discriminatory! People are who are being denied rights have a right to be angry and use their free speech to express themselves in a non-violent way.

    Now are you telling us that Palin's posters with gun sights on Democratic congressional districts were okay speech? Or was that the lunatic fringe?

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  2. Thanks for your perspective, Anonymous. It's nice to converse with someone with a different sense of humor. When I first saw the Santorum definition, I also laughed until I saw that it backfired on its purpose. My sick sense of humor extends to Amish getting their beards cut off though only in the abstract sense. Seeing it happen, I would no doubt move to protect the man being attacked.

    I'm certainly not 'equating free speech with the worst of capital crimes'. I'm saying that those Santorum definers are unintentionally working against the efforts of the movement.

    I missed the Romney commercial. Send me a link please.

    I agree with you that Palin's gun-sight posters worked against their goal in the same way as the above definition.

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  3. http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/santorum-mocks-mitt-rombo-mudslinging-attacks/376366

    You're gonna love it!

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    1. We definitely have a different sense of humor. I wouldn't have made the leap from mud to any other form of brown liquid without you pointing the way.

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  4. Don't pin this on me! Jon Stewart pointed it out on his show last week.

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    1. Ha! I suspected as much and was going to say so this morning but I wanted to check the facts first. Trust Jon Stewart's writers to find the connection. It sounded just like something off his show. Funny!

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