As I watched Bruno yesterday, there was one moment in the movie that made me more uncomfortable than the others. Now, when I watched The Hangover, the worst movie I've seen this year (out of 4), the whole first half of the movie made me more uncomfortable than anything in Brüno. But in the latter, anyway, the point that made me more uncomfortable when I watched it was Ron Paul saying about 4 times things like "the guy's queer," "more queer than anything possible" or something like that. It hurt a little to hear that. Plus this was a day where I was irritated for seemingly no reason, probably because the caffeine acted as a depressant or something we don't realize, or because I didn't really want to be in Medford where there's tons of people, I dunno, but yeah I'm a little gotten-to right now. And I don't want to say that it's this. But this is the key that's gonna let me out, with the 下記 (below-written stuff).
Ron Paul is my favorite political figure. There is no one that even comes close to him in my mind. I agree with him on everything, period, relevant to politics. Including the Defense of Marriage Act. Opponents of Paul claim that this support is hypocritical to what he says about states' independence, and is unconstitutional with respect to the fourteenth amendment. That makes no sense. What DOMA protects against is gay couples getting married in a state that recognizes gay marriages and returning to their home state and asking the home state to pay the benefits that straight couples get from their marriage contracts. People argue that this is hypocritical, that the state is refusing to acknowledge the contract. It's not, because the contract is between the couple and the state where it was signed, NOT the state where the couple actually lives. In other words, it's the state that agreed to the contract that has to pay the benefits (and of course I don't see why it should have to if the couple isn't living in the state). It makes no sense and isn't constitutional to force the state that didn't agree to be part of the contract to give up the money.
This is what I call cheap activism, or better worded, dishonest activism. Like it doesn't make mathematical sense for a theorem to be true in all dimensions of a space just from being true when reduced to the case of the first dimension, it doesn't make sense to say that legalizing gay marriage in one state (where it wasn't even properly legalized, through the LEGISLATURE) is the equivalent of legalizing gay marriage in all states. It's totally dishonest for heads of gay rights organizations to claim this, or just uninformed.
Now there is a separate issue with the Massachusetts lawsuit claiming DoMA prevents Massachusetts from giving benefits to gay couples. If that's actually true, then that is something that needs to be fixed. Either that or Massachusetts is being sloppy itself and doesn't understand that it actually can do what it's doing. But if they're federal benefits, well... I've got news for you, but nobody should be getting those benefits: where does it say in the Constitution that the government has the right to award money to groups based on marital status and not to others? And that last thing I said is something Paul would agree with.
Anyway I've digressed a lot.
One of the biggest social issues of 現在 (genzai, the current time) is homosexuality. This was not so much true during the 60s. Yes, we're 40 years after the Stonewall riots, but before those there wasn't much attention that I know of on the issue. Now, in the US at least, homosexuality is one central social issue, with issues on homosexuality being heavily contested, although I'm not sure how seriously debated. This is an important point to souligner (emphasize). Whereas our generation almost takes it for granted the idea that homosexuality is normal. (And note that my statement also only applies generally in northern regions and among people who are more liberal or politically correct or who go to schools where they're expected to conform to people that are liberal or politically correct.) Those who take it for granted will necessarily have a lot of trouble understanding a) people who don't like or understand homosexuality and b) people who can understand the existence of people who don't like or understand homosexuality. I fall into category B and nobody has ever given flack to me on this knowing that I'm gay. I know, however, that such people might exist (and that I might be wrong on the last part).
When I generalized about our generation, what I said's probably not right. I tried to come up with another generalization about our generation, but I really couldn't. Because it's not right to make such generalizations, and in any case, they aren't true. But on the social issue, I think there's a great divide.
What I'm continuing to write is something that's very important for me to understand, given that I'm gay and my parents didn't like what I told them when I came out. We haven't spoken about my being gay for four years, almost, and that's a long time. Since then I've been trying to grow. I know that some things are best thought over before they're said, and I know that my patience on some things hardly ever wears thin. In fact, sometimes it's so thick and sloppy that it trips me over and I can't get out of it. But I think the letting the issue fall silent is a good idea, and best for me. I need some more resolution within myself. And what I'm trying to resolve is the idea that my parents couldn't understand me being attracted to men and not women.
I mean, that's all it is. And I have trouble preventing myself from dodging the issue, I have trouble pinpointing what it is I need to do. But charity begins at home, and home begins at understanding, so I can't really begin to talk to my parents in any charitable or kind spirit about this without some understanding first. Everything starts at me, because this conflict is fundamentally about me. It's not about some lofty ideals and which ones to choose, it's not about the social situations that we each grew up in, it's about the understanding that each one of us has as individuals, and I will not concern myself over their understanding before I get my own straight. Haha, "straight."
Here's what I've grown to get. One, I am masculine and will always act like it even if people see me otherwise. Two, the definition of gay is "attracted to men" and that's the only one I'll accept. Three, I value the values of my father and mother, more concretely my father's because it's much easier to understand what they are, and more intricately my mother's because they are also useful and artistically fruitful. Man, what am I even talking about? Three, I love my parents. I don't see why this should have to conflict with that, and they love me, I know. I've had a really good life with my parents and I don't think anything should interfere with that. I need to know why they don't understand me. In mathematical and musical terms, I need to prove the title of a song by the Fresh Prince.
Ron Paul has helped me do that, a lot.
Let's keep in mind how old he is. He's 73. That's really old. Wow, something just gave me a really warm feeling in my feet.
It's understanding that I can be loved even if I'm not understood. It brings a slight, undetectable tear and an invisible change of emotion to my face.
What you say. My explanation:
If you look at Ron's comments on homosexuality on Youtube, it's clear that he has reasoned (remember Al Gore's book title An Assault on Reason? No such assault here) out the position that homosexuality isn't wrong. But there's obviously a conflict here, between reason and belief. And it's fundamentally a conflict for him, not for us, not for the political sphere. That's something we all have to understand. Here's his conflict as I see it:
He obviously goes to a church that isn't very liberal, and has trouble with a liberal interpretation of the Bible. He stated that he and his family left the Episcopal Church because it was getting too liberal. If you have trouble with this, well, that's all good, but it's a separate issue from the political sphere and has done nothing malverse (did I make up that word? is it French?) to his political positions. That's something I respect beyond respect. I digressed again, argh. The conflict is this: one between what he's figured out via reason and what he's learned and been taught through all these years, what religion has taught him, what society has taught him, what the South has taught him, what EVERYTHING he was used to has taught to him. Voltaire wrote something called a Traité sur la tolérance (Treatise on Tolerance) and he was extremely tolerant to pretty much everyone... except homosexuals. But I have the utmost respect for Voltaire, as an artist (writers are artists, see Gérard de Nerval who was a journalist who badly wanted to be as free of an artist as the writers around him but was always constrained by his own inclinations towards precision and conservation of old details derived from his journalist mentality) and as a human being who made his mark on the progress of the world.
The fundamental truth here is you can't apply the same expectations that you would to friends your age as you would to your parents, your grandparents, an old man in Lubbock, Texas, or Voltaire. My dad always told me this - you can't expect the same things out of older generations that you could of present ones. Jefferson was a slave owner but I still have the utmost respect for him for the good things he did. Finally, hearing Ron Paul loudly state how Bruno was "queer" four times hurt, it really did, and he's probably instinctively homophobic, but he really doesn't want to be. I know that by things he's said before. And his way of solving the gay marriage rights issue is the only one I will accept for gay marriage to progress as it should in our society. Otherwise, with all this business of the courts legislating as they aren't supposed to and trying to get a federal amendment recognizing gay marriage (that part's not feasible anyway), expect a backlash like that after Reconstruction or after Prohibition that'll turn back everything the gay rights movement has tried so hard to fight for. And we've already had that backlash! When Massachusetts legalized gay marriage through the courts, conservatives got scared that similar things could happen in each of their states and got amendments passed against gay marriage that'll take years and years to unroll.
One thing that draws me to Ron Paul is that he seems like a better expressed version of my father. Yeah, I see a lot of my dad in him. And what hurt the most about my attraction to men being rejected was that my dad didn't understand, for some reason I knew not to expect such from my mom. But from my dad that was the ugliest of ugly surprises. Now I understand it. The thing left is for me to understand it instinctively.
For my dad it's possibly too late for that. He's 63. Ron Paul's 73; for him it's definitely too late. But if I can get my veins to believe it, my blood, get my heart to understand what I know my brain will always run around like girls running around a mulberry bush singing ring-around-the-rosie acting as though it doesn't understand it when it does but is just frustrated about my heart... if, only if, I can get that to happen, I think I might be really beyond happy. Is that my nirvana?
It's one, at least. There isn't just one, though, and I don't think of my future in absolutes. That's another thing I've learned to start inputting into my heart, like a new chip on a good motherboard. Should've figured that out in Japan, but I didn't, and I went to Paris. Should've figured this all out all along, but I haven't, and it's been four years since I last talked this over. I guess the time is now, whenever "now" is.
We'll see what comes up. But for now, one step is resolved.
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