"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." ~Camus
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A little background about myself so when you read this you can understand where I am coming from. I am 26 years old, white, male, straight, and Jewish. I am from California, born and raised in the southern part of the state; now I am ashamed to say that.
I feel two things right now over what is happening with prop 8. Unease, and anger. I'd like to explain why I feel this way.
I don't know who voted for or against prop 8. I don't know how it breaks down in terms of groups of people who voted for it. How did whites vote for it? Blacks? Latinos? Men? Women? How about Jews? Jews should understand this issue very clearly and be ashamed if they in any way voted for prop 8 and thus a vote to suppress the rights of a minority. Why should they understand this? Because at one point we were in the same shoes.
We were the ones that people were saying were "different". We were treated as second class citizens. We had horrific acts of violence carried out against us. We were the minority that was told, "We'll let you live, but we won't treat you as our equals." We were the ones who had stereotypes thrown at us, told we would destroy and ruin the fabric of society. We were told we were sinners and that the hate directed at us was defensible because it said so in the bible. We were the ones who lived uneasily because we didn't know if the words and the hate would translate into actions against us, against our families, and against the ones we love.
In fact, almost anybody in the course of history who was part of a minority has had to experience this kind of treatment. You would think we would learn from history.
So I am uneasy because I fear where this institutionalized separation and discrimination will lead. I fear what will happen now that the majority has forced this inequality and discrimination onto the gay community. And I'm not even a part of this community myself.
Why am I angry? Over the memorial day weekend, I heard the same message over and over again; we are honoring those who died for us protecting the freedoms which we enjoy today.
These words are poison after what has unfolded in California. What they should really say is:
We are honoring those who died for us protecting the freedoms which we enjoy today, unless you are homosexual.
This infuriates me. For years we have been told our soldiers are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan so that we can be free here in the United States. I guess that doesn't include the homosexual community, the homosexual minority.
Is freedom defined in this country as only including the majority?
Is freedom defined in this country as only including who you agree with?
Is freedom defined in this country as only including those who are the same as us?
We've tried that before in the history of the United States, and time after time we have seen that it doesn't work. You would think we would learn from history.
So I'm angry that this is what we've come to. Standing on the side in the Midwest and watching these events unfold. Standing on the side as a minority and watching others who have been in the minority before, whether its race or religious beliefs, find it acceptable to oppress those who are in the same position that they were once in. And I'm angry that we speak of freedom in this country, that we speak of invading other nations to spread these so called freedoms, and yet we can't seem to be able to do the right thing right here.
At the very beginning of this diary I gave some of my background so you could "understand where I'm coming from". Empathy is often described as having the ability to understand where another person is coming from; to be able to "put oneself in another person's shoes".
I think if there was a little more empathy to go around, we'd be in a lot better place than we are now.