and from the other side....

[topaz]

and from the other side...., originally uploaded by qwrrty.

A woman in the VoteOnMarriage.org camp was holding up this sign this afternoon outside the Massachusetts Statehouse. I found it hysterical and fascinating all at once.

What's the best part? I can't decide! The incoherent references to "pederast homosexuals" and "adult-child sexual liaisons"? The comparisons between "gay-lesbian-bi clubs" and "Hitler Youth groups"? Or just the whole suggestion that the U.S. in 2007 is somehow comparable to "Nazi Germany"?

I think what I liked the most about this, and some of the other distasteful signs on the other side, is that it served to remind us of the real motives of the protestors. Make no mistake: this wasn't just an abstract conflict of constitutional principle. Oh, I'm sure that for some people that was an important issue -- but I daresay that most of the people who turned out were not constitutional scholars. For most of them, by far, the motivations were clearly and starkly motivated by hate. (See also.)

I was tempted to go over and suggest that her sign would be more accurate if you crossed out "Today" and wrote "Catholic Church." It was probably just as well I didn't.

Edit: According to the caption on an AP photograph run in the Boston Metro, this woman was subsequently arrested for slapping a gay rights supporter during an argument. Thanks to beah for noticing this and bringing it to my attention.

Comments

[nooks.livejournal.com]

Wow. That comes awful close to being as bad as or maybe even worse than "God Hates Fags", always a slogan remarkable for its incredibly high hate-per-word ratio.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Isn't it remarkable? Maybe what I find so fascinating is the combination of a deeply irrational message wrapped in such a frantic effort to make it seem sensible and reasonable. It's like even the writer knew at some level that there was something seriously wrong with the concept, and was hoping that just putting it into a logical format -- with tables and checklists and things -- would make it all suddenly make sense. The poor dear.

[beowabbit]

I also found it interesting how crummy her sign is — it looks like an elementary-school project that got a D- out of pity. It makes me wonder whether there’s a correlation between clear ethical thinking and clear communication skills — that, or whether perhaps hatred hinders design ability.

(To be fair, I wonder whether it was an on-the-spot response to something she saw on the other side, or something like that. That would help explain how crude it was.)

[vespid-interest.livejournal.com]

I feel a little sorry for her, the way she's holding the sign makes me think part of her also knows there's something seriously wrong with it. It's an odd combination of something I admire (standing up for something you believe in) and something I depolore (forcing her morality on people, faith without reason, and general idiocy.)
I'd rather that she looked angry and hate-filled.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

It's also fascinating to me just how deeply ingrained in the american lay-protestant right is the bizarro-earth narrative of Nazi Germany being primarily dedicated to the oppression of Christians and heterosexuals.

[primal-pastry.livejournal.com]

I laughed so hard at that I nigh wet myself! I've never heard of such a thing!

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Would that it were a joke.

http://www.christiancadre.org/topics/hitler.php

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

We need to find out who that person is... and start leaving interesting signs on her lawn in the dead of night.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

That's called "sinking to their level", hon.

[jacflash.livejournal.com]

Naah, banning her from the Commonwealth would be sinking to her level.

[davidglasser.livejournal.com]

Hmm, were many of the protesters Catholics? The impression I got (at least from the other ones in the pass line inside that I talked to) was that most of them were evangelicals.

[davidglasser.livejournal.com]

(like, to the degree that this one woman couldn't fathom the concept that the Episcopal priest I was hanging out with could believe in Jesus without having had one exact instant in his life that he was born again)

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

Heh! That's great.

No, I don't particularly think many of the folks in the anti-marriage crowd here were Catholics. My "Catholic Church" reference was just that it is a religious institution and is far more appropriate to most of her points than either the U.S. today or Nazi Germany. :-)

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

Dear lady: Given that it seems easy to get an impeachment hearing for an extramarital blowjob and hard to get one for wiretapping, torturing foreign nationals, or compromising civil liberties, I cannot tell you just how much I wish President Bush was a pederast homosexual. Love, me.

[keyne.livejournal.com]

It's a good thing I wasn't drinking coffee yet when I read this :-)

[mizarchivist]

Should we point out that butt-piracy happens between men and women?! And that they like it? And sometimes the girl wears the dick? Ok. No. We shouldn't. I don't think it'd help. Great. Now I've got the "Do you take it in the ass" song running through my head and it's my own fault!

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that even if they could hear that message without their heads exploding, that they would conclude that people like that don't deserve to get married either. *nod*

Picture of normality

[mizarchivist]

yeah, but! I'm in a heterosexual marriage! I'm living the lifestyle they wanted me to live! Ok, if they knew, you're right. Their heads would e'splode. Then I'd be tarred and feathered, probably, which is NMK.

[wotw]

As I told you before---two commonalities between today and
Nazi Germany I could dismiss as coincidence, but three is an
incontrovertible pattern. This sign has totally changed my point
of view.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

This sign has totally changed my point of view.

Me, too. I'm on the floor looking up at the ceiling. (I fell over laughing.)

[isotopeblue.livejournal.com]

For most of them, by far, the motivations were clearly and starkly motivated by hate.

It's not all hate, and I think you know that. For one person it's fear. Another some deeply personal hurt. Huge amounts of ignorance and lack of personal experience. Lots of reflexive striking back at a world rapidly moving out of many people's comfort zone. Hell, out of the zone where they can survive, be meaningful, matter.

Anxious attempts to hold onto belief systems that are at core inconsistent. Boredom. Grasping for that transient feeling of belonging, of mattering, that comes from acting in mass, no matter how unsure one is of that action. Hoping to score with the person who drew the sign for you. Murky combinations of all the above and a lot more.

Yes there's hatred, irrational hopeless hatred that will pass only when the individual passes from history. But there's a lot else going on, and we weaken ourselves not to acknowledge it.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

It's a fair point. Hate and fear are tightly intertwined, so much so that a good case could be made that all expressions of hate have their roots somewhere in fear. I don't think it's inconsistent to say that a pure expression of hate has its underpinnings in some kind of fear.

But I do agree that we owe it to ourselves, and each other, to understand what leads someone to act the way they do. I argue this all the time when someone brings out the old "terrorists just hate America" chestnut, it's only fair that I should have to wear those shoes myself. :-)

As an aside, I find it both saddening and amusing to find that the woman in this picture was later that afternoon arrested for slapping someone else during an argument: http://www.metrobostonnews.com/us/article/2007/06/15/03/3910-72/index.xml