That "gay rights" meme

[emmagrant01]

I saw a few people reposting that "gay rights" meme on my flist yesterday and I have to say I didn't feel remotely compelled to repost it in my LJ. It seemed like a chain letter to me, you know the sort you get in email from an old college friend (whose only emails to you are those sorts of things) containing a rewritten version of some urban legend along with a plea to immediately forward it to every person you know? I usually respond to those by hitting reply-all and providing a link to the appropriate entry on Snopes.

This meme looked to be much the same sort of emo blackmail (ZOMG if u dont post this ur a homof0be!1!!), so I ignored it. And then upstart_crow made a very eloquent post stating just why this sort of meme makes her uncomfortable.

gmth also makes some suggestions for things you could do if you're really concerned about "gay rights".

And several people have pointed me to wemyss's hilarious take on the issue.

So yeah, what they said.

No offense intended to people who reposted it. This is about me hating chain letters. I don't begrudge people who like them. Unless they keep sending them to me...

Comments

[tigerblak.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I should have taken the last line out. But I put it there to state my opinion on gay rights and if no one read it at all that was fine because I was only stating that I supported the idea.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Crow's post linked above makes some interesting points about the wording of that meme being so vague as to make the sentiment of it fairly meaningless. What do you think about that?

[tigerblak.livejournal.com]

Well why I think her post is great and definately says a lot more than my cut and paste job ever could for queer rights...I don't think that its fair to just tar and feather the people who did repost it to their journal with the same brush. What if, for example you are supportive of gay rights, but not in the know about, all of the other rights that she mentions, but you want to show your support in some small way. She mentions and you do too about other ways you can show your support for the cause, but what if you can't donate, or don't know where to start...or what if this was your way of making a promise to start.

There could be hundreds of different reasons that people reposted the meme. I know that for me it was about showing how much I agreed with the need for rights for all. And honestly, while it says gay rights, I'm more of the line of rights for anyone who has been stepped upon because they aren't heterosexual.

I'm sorry that I'm not as eloquent, but I didn't post it because I wanted others to copy it from me. I posted it because I supported the idea that no one has the right to discriminate against another because of who they choose to have sex with.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I was mostly just curious about what someone who had reposted the meme (with the best intentions at heart) would think about what she wrote there, so thanks for responding!

I found the quote about two men holding hands that was in the meme to be a nice statement, but I guess what turned me off was the chain lettery tone of the rest of it. It wasn't until I read Crow's thoughts that I started to think more deeply about the meaning behind the words of that meme. I thought her strongest point was that the term "gay rights" doesn't actually have a lot of meaning because it means so many different things to different people, on all sides of the issue. So when someone says they're supporting gay rights, there's a sense in which they haven't actually taken a strong stand at all, because they've left it to the listener to decide what that even means. To a right wing nut, it brings up all sorts of negative connotations that may actually make that person stop listening to you.

And that's really true, when you think about it. How you choose to frame an issue has a big impact on the message that gets heard. When I talk about issues related to gay rights, I usually say "equal rights" because I find the label "gay" too limiting. It doesn't necessarily include everyone I regard as needing access to equal rights, which I find problematic. It's also a term that's used by the Christian right in an ironic way, and when you say "gay rights" to one of those folks, it automatically dredges up all of the negative imagery they've associated with the term. I guess I've found it more useful to talk about people as human beings first and to describe their circumstances in a way that makes their circumstances seem horribly unfair -- and only when it's clear the person is sympathetic does a word like "gay" or "lesbian" or "transgendered" come up.

And then it's fun to watch them struggle with that. Heh.