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Nov. 4th, 2004 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7This, again, started as a comment in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kittyc1978's journal, to limminel. limminel had said that she is so upset at this election's result that she wants to leave the country, because "I want a place where I don't have to be afraid anymore, and where I don't have to feel that pain in my soul every time I tell someone who I am, and what I am."
So, my answer, which was again too long to post. (I do go on, don't I?)
I'm not sure you'll ever find that place, though. Really.
The thing at stake here is that a particular subculture of American culture (it's only a myth that there is some overriding American culture: there isn't, and I have more in common with people I met in Norway than I do with fellow-countrymen) is currently predominating, politically, but...
There are subcultures like it all over the world.
Canada, for example, has a clause in their constitution that allows them to pass unconstitutional laws. Because losing subsections of their culture couldn't stand to be predominated by the majority. (That's better than here, you may say, and I'd consider agreeing with you; having absolutely no represenation in your government because by less than 5% you are a minority SUCKS-- and yet, when the consensus among your fellow-countrymen can be overridden by a minority of crazies, that's depressing.)
I spent two years in a homosexual relationship, after having spent four years at a very liberal private girls' school (we had an on-campus "gay/straight alliance" club). Unfortunately, I had graduated from that school and had moved to Britain. I was threatened with all kinds of crap, from expulsion to being sent home to all kinds of things, which I would never have encountered back in my old school in the States. So it strongly depends on your individual context: on the whole, Britain is legislatively more tolerant of homosexuals, and yet I underwent terrors there that I never would have in my particular part of the US.
Everywhere you go, it is extremely difficult to find acceptance if you are at all different.
It is particularly bad in the US right now to be anything but a member of the loose coalition of subcultures who have all banded together and put their support behind the Republicans. Because those of us who didn't have no say in government now. And that particular group is fond of legislating their own particular brand of morality, even though it actively conflicts with that of the rest of us. They do not accept the legitimacy of other subcultures, and that is a problem.
But these things go in cycles. At one point, we thought we would never overcome the larger half of the country that shouted down desegregation; the Equal Rights Amendment to the NY State constitution saying gender bias should be illegal was voted down (my mother still has the t-shirt); this situation is simply the lowest low point in an extremely long time. Some of us (me included) find the country unrecognizable at this juncture, but there it is. We have always been a loose aggregation of wildly differing subcultures, with widely varying values and ideals. The ones who are cool with that dominate sometimes; and at the moment we are suffereing from a particularly vehement backlash of the ones who ARE NOT COOL WITH THAT and probably never will be.
I will say, there remains hope. Alan Keyes, who said homosexuals (explicitly including Mary Cheney) were 'selfish hedonists', was defeated in a LANDSLIDE, by Obama, who has said that he himself isn't exactly thrilled at the thought of homosexuality but firmly believes it isn't the government's business to be thrilled or not. Now that, I could live with. At least one inhuman conservative reptile was put in his place by COMMON SENSE. There is hope for more.
In short, I don't see a whole lot of hope in this country at the moment, but I don't think that there is a fundamental difference between this country and any of the other ones. There will be conservatives who find you loathsome and desire to force-feed you their values through legislation if necessary, anywhere you go. In Germany the right wing shaves their heads and talks about how great the Third Reich was, and kicks in the faces of homosexuals and Jews in the streets; in England the right wing sets a different age of consent for homosexuals than for heterosexuals, and kicks in gay men's faces in the street in Glasgow.
I just heard back from my friend in London, who is disgusted because it doesn't matter who she votes for now-- it will be an indirect vote for Bush, because any leader of the UK is going to be a Bush supporter, they simply are, because Britain is so committed to its alliance with the US. My cousin in Norway said the same thing-- his Prime Minister is "such a pudle" [by which he meant "poodle"], eager to kowtow to Bush.
You can't escape him, really. The world is too small a place. It strikes me, after all is said and done, that it is better to remain here where perhaps, someday, if it gets bad enough, you may have some say, rather than moving abroad and realizing that you can now only watch events that will affect you almost as profoundly as before.
So, there: my two cents.
kittyc1978's journal, to limminel. limminel had said that she is so upset at this election's result that she wants to leave the country, because "I want a place where I don't have to be afraid anymore, and where I don't have to feel that pain in my soul every time I tell someone who I am, and what I am."So, my answer, which was again too long to post. (I do go on, don't I?)
I'm not sure you'll ever find that place, though. Really.
The thing at stake here is that a particular subculture of American culture (it's only a myth that there is some overriding American culture: there isn't, and I have more in common with people I met in Norway than I do with fellow-countrymen) is currently predominating, politically, but...
There are subcultures like it all over the world.
Canada, for example, has a clause in their constitution that allows them to pass unconstitutional laws. Because losing subsections of their culture couldn't stand to be predominated by the majority. (That's better than here, you may say, and I'd consider agreeing with you; having absolutely no represenation in your government because by less than 5% you are a minority SUCKS-- and yet, when the consensus among your fellow-countrymen can be overridden by a minority of crazies, that's depressing.)
I spent two years in a homosexual relationship, after having spent four years at a very liberal private girls' school (we had an on-campus "gay/straight alliance" club). Unfortunately, I had graduated from that school and had moved to Britain. I was threatened with all kinds of crap, from expulsion to being sent home to all kinds of things, which I would never have encountered back in my old school in the States. So it strongly depends on your individual context: on the whole, Britain is legislatively more tolerant of homosexuals, and yet I underwent terrors there that I never would have in my particular part of the US.
Everywhere you go, it is extremely difficult to find acceptance if you are at all different.
It is particularly bad in the US right now to be anything but a member of the loose coalition of subcultures who have all banded together and put their support behind the Republicans. Because those of us who didn't have no say in government now. And that particular group is fond of legislating their own particular brand of morality, even though it actively conflicts with that of the rest of us. They do not accept the legitimacy of other subcultures, and that is a problem.
But these things go in cycles. At one point, we thought we would never overcome the larger half of the country that shouted down desegregation; the Equal Rights Amendment to the NY State constitution saying gender bias should be illegal was voted down (my mother still has the t-shirt); this situation is simply the lowest low point in an extremely long time. Some of us (me included) find the country unrecognizable at this juncture, but there it is. We have always been a loose aggregation of wildly differing subcultures, with widely varying values and ideals. The ones who are cool with that dominate sometimes; and at the moment we are suffereing from a particularly vehement backlash of the ones who ARE NOT COOL WITH THAT and probably never will be.
I will say, there remains hope. Alan Keyes, who said homosexuals (explicitly including Mary Cheney) were 'selfish hedonists', was defeated in a LANDSLIDE, by Obama, who has said that he himself isn't exactly thrilled at the thought of homosexuality but firmly believes it isn't the government's business to be thrilled or not. Now that, I could live with. At least one inhuman conservative reptile was put in his place by COMMON SENSE. There is hope for more.
In short, I don't see a whole lot of hope in this country at the moment, but I don't think that there is a fundamental difference between this country and any of the other ones. There will be conservatives who find you loathsome and desire to force-feed you their values through legislation if necessary, anywhere you go. In Germany the right wing shaves their heads and talks about how great the Third Reich was, and kicks in the faces of homosexuals and Jews in the streets; in England the right wing sets a different age of consent for homosexuals than for heterosexuals, and kicks in gay men's faces in the street in Glasgow.
I just heard back from my friend in London, who is disgusted because it doesn't matter who she votes for now-- it will be an indirect vote for Bush, because any leader of the UK is going to be a Bush supporter, they simply are, because Britain is so committed to its alliance with the US. My cousin in Norway said the same thing-- his Prime Minister is "such a pudle" [by which he meant "poodle"], eager to kowtow to Bush.
You can't escape him, really. The world is too small a place. It strikes me, after all is said and done, that it is better to remain here where perhaps, someday, if it gets bad enough, you may have some say, rather than moving abroad and realizing that you can now only watch events that will affect you almost as profoundly as before.
So, there: my two cents.
this is from kat
Date: 2004-11-05 09:58 pm (UTC)Remember, Sarah got expelled a year later for having once been in a relationship with me. And I was suspended (my dad talked them out of expelling me, don't know how).
And in the meantime, Mrs. Hunter called our friends in as soon as she found out we were gay and threatened them and told them to stop talking to us.
That's just the beginning...I thought you knew about it all, but it occurs to me now that I probably never mentioned it when we were hanging out senior year.
So, I gotta say that while the UK was horrible about it, it might not have been any better here.