I and 833,119 other voters opposed it. 4,157,238 other registered voters were silent.

And that’s how roughly 1,300,000 people told the other 8,300,000 or so living in North Carolina who they could marry or have the legal benefits of marriage with.

But this isn’t a post about voter turnout. I understand the reasons why people don’t vote. This [...]]]> As I write this, three days have passed since 1,306,409 North Carolinians voted for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage (some more; it was already illegal here) and eliminating state recognition of any other form of domestic partnership between any couple.

I and 833,119 other voters opposed it. 4,157,238 other registered voters were silent.

And that’s how roughly 1,300,000 people told the other 8,300,000 or so living in North Carolina who they could marry or have the legal benefits of marriage with.

But this isn’t a post about voter turnout. I understand the reasons why people don’t vote. This isn’t a post of mourning or indignation either. I could easily have written a post like that, but I deliberately waited these three days so I could write something more.

Three days of consoling friends and loved ones, and being consoled in turn. Three days of watching those in favor of the amendment celebrate what they had done. Three trips to my mail box (the “Vote Against” sign taken down now), at the end of my long gravel driveway. Three small journeys framed in honeysuckle and bees. Three steps per inhalation, and three per exhalation.

Okay, sometimes four.

Mostly, three days of introspection. Three days trying to understand. Today, as I leaned the stick my father carved me back against the wall, signalling the end of my morning walking meditation, I was ready to write this post.

When the local papers and news stations started declaring the results, the reactions of those supporting the amendment were curious. At the de facto gathering for supporters, they cut and served wedding cake in celebration. The wife of a late legislator that was instrumental in getting the amendment on the ballot wept in joy. Meanwhile, I heard statements like “My marriage feels safer today” unironically.

My initial reaction to all these things was utter disgust and anger. While friends sobbed uncontrollably, added one more stone to the sack of injustices they’ve carried since birth, and hung their head in shame for their home state… while families across the state wondered if they’d have insurance tomorrow, or visitation rights, or new custody battles… there were people actually joyful, as if they had won something for themselves they they hadn’t had before.

I didn’t understand it, and I still do not. But for the first time, I realized that I desperately need to if I’m going to be an agent of progress. Because these were not the reactions of hateful people. These were the reactions of frightened people that truly believed they’d defended themselves in some way.

The most pressing question for anyone that wants to see equal rights for all in their lifetime is this: Why are we feared? This is the root of your oppressors’ actions. Some may very well hate, but even this grows from their fear.

Why do so many people fear same-sex marriage? Why do they fear people who are not strictly heterosexual? I have no good answers. Those proposed by everyone I’ve spoken of this with fall short of completing the picture.

We are told homophobes are largely afraid of their own homosexual urges, but this is a half-answer: Why are they afraid of their own urges, then? And the opposition to equal rights for LGBTQ people is too large to be entirely comprised of closeted people.

“Their Bible tells them to fear us.” Certain early passages of the current Christian Bible call homosexuality wrong, but it equally condemns pork, blended fabrics, shellfish, and numerous other things that few people in modern American are particularly terrified of. This also fails to explain all the non-Christian homophobes. I’ve encountered a surprising many homophobic atheists.

“They’ve been told to fear us by pundits, preachers, etc.” I see the first full kernel of truth in this, but I also worry that it’s too dismissive an answer. Ignorance is fertile soil for the seeds of fear, and by mapping the results of the North Carolina vote by county you will see a very distinct trend. Those counties that opposed or almost opposed the amendment are the both the urban and collegiate centers of the state, the locations with the most diverse and most educated populations. The straight voters in these counties are far more likely to have met, worked with, and befriended LGBTQ people and thus are harder to instill a dread of the “other” in.

I do believe it’s true that much of this fear is being handed down by a comparatively small leadership. You can envision it as a pyramid, with a massive base holding up a group of people keeping them in place through pronouncements of “God’s Word,” manipulated statistics, and logically-unsound arguments. I suspect this is where you will find most of the truly hateful, the self-loathing projectionists, and also a great number of mere opportunists that know a wedge issue when they see it. They manipulate their supporters by implanting fear and count on their ignorance to make it grow.

But we must be careful not to write off the people that voted for this amendment as merely “stupid.” Ignorance and lack of education are largely issues of financial privilege and age. Even general ability to learn is influenced by economic conditions: The environment that you were carried and born into can have a major impact on brain development for a lifetime. We must count ourselves lucky and even privileged to know what we know and live a life free of the fear that infects the people voting against us. Most of all we must recall they are not sheep. They are people, and when we forget that we abandon all hope of convincing them of our cause.

I’m not sure even this is the full answer, but it is enough to let us begin the even harder step. I’ve tried to avoid conflict language so far, which is difficult for me. I’ve not talked about the “fight for equal rights” or couched this in terms of a battle. That’s because we have to stop fighting the people that fear us. It is an incredibly difficult thing to do, but we must transform our anger at injustice and the people that perpetuate it into something more powerful, because that anger is not going to change minds. To torture a metaphor, if ignorance is soil and fear the seed, our anger and rage are water and sunlight. In the end, we will harvest only hatred.

The only way we are going to get equal rights in our lifetime, without simply waiting for enough generations to die to give us a majority, is to turn our anger into compassion for the people that fear us so we can ease that fear. Our suffering is ultimately their suffering, and we cannot end one without ending the other.

We must do the difficult, painful, and even dangerous work of reaching out. If ignorance is the cause of their fear, we must transform it into understanding. If it’s their interpretation of religious texts, we must support our religious allies that minister a different interpretation. We must stop complaining about “red states,” “flyover country,” and the like and recognize there is beauty within these places and even in their cultures, and the more we mock and deride the wider me make our divisions.

I have never been very good at changing minds, because I have been angry my whole life. I am trying to change. Likewise, many of us have been hurt so greatly in this so called “culture war,” that it will seem impossible to stop trying to hurt back. I don’t expect my opinion here to be very popular, actually. In talking about it with friends and family, I rarely get past talking about the pro-amendment celebrations before the conversation is derailed by expressions of outrage. When I ask “Why do they fear us?” the question is easily dismissed with pat answers. I’m not finding it an easy shift in thinking, myself.

We are all flames: Eventually there will be nothing left of me but ashes. Until I go out, better to be a beacon and a comfort for those lost in the dark and the cold, than this lightless flame that gives no heat and leaves only burned up pieces of myself.

The above video, featuring some of my favorite people and places in my home city of Greensboro, NC, sums it up nicely. Please, if you live in North Carolina and haven’t already, be sure to vote no on Amendment 1 on May 8. You can skip the rest of the ballot if you like, but this one thing is vital. More after the jump.

Amendment 1 would add a new definition of what counts as a legally recognized union to the state constitution. Same-sex marriage is already illegal in NC, but this would [...]]]>

The above video, featuring some of my favorite people and places in my home city of Greensboro, NC, sums it up nicely. Please, if you live in North Carolina and haven’t already, be sure to vote no on Amendment 1 on May 8. You can skip the rest of the ballot if you like, but this one thing is vital. More after the jump.

Amendment 1 would add a new definition of what counts as a legally recognized union to the state constitution. Same-sex marriage is already illegal in NC, but this would go beyond that: Because of the way it’s worded, it invalidates any recognized union between anyone, gay or straight, that isn’t marriage.

Proponents have admitted it will force cities like Greensboro, which extend health insurance and other benefits to the partners of employees and their children, to revoke those benefits. That will, without exaggeration, result in children losing insurance coverage. That’s not an emotional ploy–it is a very real side effect of this amendment passing. Proponents claim that cities and employers will be able to remedy this by writing laws that circumvent the amendment (which makes you wonder why they want it on the books in the first place), but this is ignoring legal precedent set in Michigan, where courts invalidated such attempts.

And it gets worse: In other states that passed a similar law or amendment, defense attorneys in domestic violence cases used it to try and circumvent domestic violence laws when the victim and the accused were not married. Unlike the previous example, proponents are quick to point to legal precedent this time and note that courts eventually ruled this defense invalid. But that takes time. Why potentially endanger victims in the meantime, just to make something already illegal even more illegal?

There are other negative side effects to this amendment, which is so poorly worded and conceived that it may as well be written in crayon. Frankly, I shouldn’t even have to go into them, because the purpose of the thing is rooted in the worst aspects of the human spirit to begin with. Constitutions are not designed nor intended to limit rights, especially not the rights of minorities. The only Federal amendment to pass that limited rights of citizens was Prohibition, and it was a complete failure that had to be undone. Thus will be the fate of this state amendment and all like it:  In fact, the state GOP has said as much. Why wreak so much havoc on the lives of our citizens in the meantime?

You may think I’m preaching to the choir here, and maybe I am. But it’s vital that you vote against this, because polls show we have a very real chance of defeating it. In fact, most citizens, even those opposed to gay marriage, turn against this amendment once the legal ramifications are explained to them. Only the most worthless of human beings would do otherwise.

We need your vote. We need your friends’ votes, and your family’s. It’s rare that an electoral choice can so immediately and obviously hurt citizens, but this is it. This isn’t a matter of voting for one rich man or the other one. A vote for Amendment 1 helps no one and hurts many, and I mean directly makes their lives worse. Not voting at all makes you just as morally culpable as a vote for, equivalent to watching a crime and doing nothing.

A vote against Amendment 1 has the potential to stop it. It has the actual power to prevent another person’s life from becoming worse. At the very least, when all is said and done, voting against puts you on the right side of history. Because someday, someone who wasn’t alive now and never had the chance to stand against so powerful a wrong is going to ask you what you did to stop it.

On receiving my AM edition of The Daily Planet,  I was greeted with an A1, above-the-fold headline proclaiming that – with excessive displays of force and beneath the twin shrouds of night and a media blackout – your police force had “evicted” the Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zucotti Park. In fact, the Planet corespondents themselves had been arrested in the process and had filed the story from a jail cell!

Bravo, sir! My hat is off!

I confess, I didn’t think you had it in you after backing down in the face of national opposition once before. [...]]]>

Lex heard the news today. Oh boy.

Kind Sir,

On receiving my AM edition of The Daily Planet,  I was greeted with an A1, above-the-fold headline proclaiming that – with excessive displays of force and beneath the twin shrouds of night and a media blackout – your police force had “evicted” the Occupy Wall Street protestors from Zucotti Park. In fact, the Planet corespondents themselves had been arrested in the process and had filed the story from a jail cell!

Bravo, sir! My hat is off!

I confess, I didn’t think you had it in you after backing down in the face of national opposition once before. I was quite shocked when those hippy-huggers in Oakland wrested the title of “Most Lawless Law Enforcement” from your own NYPD. In fact, I may as well disclose that – since this movement you allowed to exist beneath your very nose directly lead to the “Occupy Metropolis” protesters currently chanting around my building under the protection of a certain be-caped socialist – I had begun to plan your assassination and replacement with a robot Bloomberg under my own control.

But that’s water under the bridge! I’ve already ordered the Bloombot put back into storage with the Obambot and other Politobots I turned out not to need.

It’s impossible to overstate how much you redeemed yourself in my eyes, Mr. Mayor. The beating, the pepper spray, the sonic cannons… superb! And your daring and aplomb in handling the “free” press was splendid. I’m told one of your officers even ripped the press badge right off Ms. Lane’s suit-jacket before macing her noisome visage and hauling her away! Her partner, one Mr. Clark, reports being told “you aren’t press tonight” before being knocked unconscious with a well aimed sonic blast! I’m still at a loss as to why or how the two were in your city when I know I saw them at the scene of my latest robot rampage just yesterday, but I’m certainly glad they arrived in time to fall under your iron fist!

Did you make sure to type the evil laughter? When I dictate a letter, always be sure to include the evil laughter! Remind me why I haven’t had you killed and replaced with a robot? I did? Well, remind me when we’re finished to have the Secretarabot programmers killed and replaced with Secretarabot Programabots.

Ahem. Resume dictation.

But the master stroke, sir, was the destruction of the library. Oh, I can hear the wailing and the gnashing of a hundred jobless hippy teeth as five thousand of their precious books were tossed into the back of a garbage truck! That will teach the little pinkos to share information for free! The destruction of books is a powerful symbol of tyranny, as you were no doubt aware when – I am certain – you gave specific orders that the library be crushed before the night was out, on pain of slow death.

A burning book is actually on the Luthor family crest, did you know that? It sends the message “There are things you know, and things you don’t know, and things you know you don’t know, and things you don’t know you don’t know. Pick the forth option or I’ll kill you with robots.”

Oh, my Twitterbot informs me you’re ignoring a restraining order, like in that song by those Confederate Hens or whatever. The ones that turned out to be lesbian pinko Stevie Nicks fans. You continue to outdo yourself!

I do have a few points of constructive criticism, of course. Where would we super-villains be if we were not generous both in praise and in guidance?

1. While you did bloody and arrest a member of your city council, no one was actually killed! You missed a chance to annihilate the backbone of the movement by, say, setting off a bomb and claiming OWS did it. Even those lovely sonic cannons were apparently non-lethal. I’ve just ordered a few crates of shoulder-mounted Lexcorp “DeathTone XL” Audiovibratory Rays delivered to all your main precincts. My way of saying “thanks” for macing Lois Lane (I’m watching cameraphone footage of that on a loop!)
2. Why not burn the library right there, on the spot, where everyone can see? Surely your SWAT units were equipped with white phosphorus grenades, no? If you haven’t read Fahrenheit 451 I will be glad to lend you a copy – I keep a vast collection of dystopian novels for when I need a good laugh.
3. Not. One. Dead. Kitten.
4. Robots! Where, my good man, are the damned robots? I was very nearly able to pleasure myself to footage on the humor-site Alternet, but every time I was about to climax I realized there was not a single robot to be seen! Unless… are your police officers robots? Of course they must be – that would explain how you get them to do such monstrous things without mutiny. Well played, sir!

Despite these few minor quibbles, I must reiterate how masterful a work of villainy your handling of the Occupy Wall Street eviction was. I have officially nominated you for membership in the Legion of Doom. Please arrange with my Secretarabot a good time to fly you out to the Hall of Doom, where Solomon Grundy has agreed to sponsor you during the 30-day Trial Membership of Doom provided you give him the name of a good tailor – he has difficulty acquiring suit pants that fit.

Yours in Cronyism,

Lex Luthor
President, CEO, and Dictator-for-Life
Lexcorp Holdings, Inc.

Okay, Secratarabot, you can stop taking dictation and climb into the Artificial Intelligence Disposal Furnace. Oh, but before you do, arrange for a drum of raspberry LuthorAid to be brought to my private chambers. I will be indulging in pleasures of the flesh with the AynRandybots while they quote from John Galt’s monologue, and will require much hydration.

Are you still typing? Please tell me you pressed “send” before I said that. Well don’t press it no

I can sum up the majority of coverage of Occupy Wall Street in three words: Condescending and dismissive. The closing graph from a New York Times piece on the protests could have been any snide, apathetic smarter-than-thou commenting on [...]]]>

Photo from WeAreThe99Percent.tumblr.com

Unless you get all your news from cable TV and mainstream newspapers, you’re probably aware of the Occupy Wall Street protests continuing to unfold in NYC, so I won’t recap what it is or what’s happened so far. Instead, I want to talk about a trend in coverage of it, and in the popular perspective on protests and activism in general.

I can sum up the majority of coverage of Occupy Wall Street in three words: Condescending and dismissive. The closing graph from a New York Times piece on the protests could have been any snide, apathetic smarter-than-thou commenting on any modern group of activists:

One day, a trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Adam Sarzen, a decade or so older than many of the protesters, came to Zuccotti Park seemingly just to shake his head. “Look at these kids, sitting here with their Apple computers,” he said. “Apple, one of the biggest monopolies in the world. It trades at $400 a share. Do they even know that?”

They may not know the exact market value of a share, but I’m sure plenty of them know that Apple is one of the villains in the scheme of things. They probably also know that the phones they use all contain rare minerals mined by human rights abusers, the markers they write their signs with were manufactured in a plant that releases hazardous waste into the environment and the McDonalds that’s letting them use it’s wifi and restrooms is part of a franchise guilty of too many unpunished crimes to name here. The question is this: What do you expect them to do about it? What are you doing about it, Adam?

There are no entirely ethical alternatives to Apple. I’m sure if those “kids” had been using Dells or HPs or Toshibas people like Sarzen would consider it equally damning. What, then, should they do? Organize their protests via smoke signal? Write with burned sticks? Dig a hole in the park to shit in?

The truth is that we are all privileged to some degree. If we look at what Wall Street got away with in 2008 and believe it is unjust, we have every right to protest it. Even if we’re white. Even if we’re male. Even if we’re the most privileged trust-funder on planet Earth and our Pops was one of the bastards that got away with it. Having privilege doesn’t make you the “bad guy.” It’s if you recognize it, and how you do or do not use it, that counts.

Likewise, we all have to use the tools available to us. Progressive activists are not against computers; we’re against unethical practices in the manufacture, selling and business of them. But we need them to organize, to edit video, to get our message out when the press isn’t listening. If those “kids” didn’t have their laptops, phones, cameras and camcorders would they be able to get videos like this out to the public? Yes, Apple is one of the most unethical corporations out there. But the Occupy Wall Street activists are not hypocrites for using their products. They’re merely using the tools at hand. There is no such thing as living up to one’s ideas 100% unless your ideas are cheap and destructive. The best we can do is to do the best we can. What Adam Sarzen is effectively saying is this: “How dare these kids not allow liberal guilt to render them completely ineffective?”

It’s a common tactic to dismiss protestors as too young, too privileged, too disorganized, too unfocused. I’ve marched in enough rallies, waved enough signs, and been mocked by enough passersby to know the world can’t be changed by demonstration alone. But it’s a start. It’s doing something.

The Goldman Sachs of the world all but destroyed the US economy in 2008. No one responsible was punished – in fact they’re been rewarded with bonuses, severance packages and tax cuts. Our government, headed by a president that promised change, has done nothing. This should piss you off. It pissed off the people participating in Occupy Wall Street, and they’ve taken to the street in protest. They’re doing something.

What are you doing?

After using underhanded tactics over the weekend to sneak discussion into today’s session, the House and Senate of my home state put SB 514, now known as Amendment One, on the May ballot. Amendment One is the latest attempt to add a amendment codifying hatred to a state constitution, by redefining marriage as a heterosexuals-only right. Because if history has proven anything, it’s that allowing the majority the power to take rights away from a minority always results in the best decision.

Similar amendments have already been added to the constitutions of [...]]]>

After using underhanded tactics over the weekend to sneak discussion into today’s session, the House and Senate of my home state put SB 514, now known as Amendment One, on the May ballot. Amendment One is the latest attempt to add a amendment codifying hatred to a state constitution, by redefining marriage as a heterosexuals-only right. Because if history has proven anything, it’s that allowing the majority the power to take rights away from a minority always results in the best decision.

Similar amendments have already been added to the constitutions of 30 states. Here, in this Southern state, let’s break bigotry’s back.

To many, it’s going to seem like a lost cause. This is North Carolina, a once-Confederate state that gave us Jesse Helms and Billy Graham. But it’s also the state that gave us the sit-in movement. It’s a state that turned blue in the 2008 presidential election, where the governor is almost always a Democrat. If we can beat it anywhere, we can beat it here.

Others will argue that fighting is pointless, because it won’t change anything – gay marriage is already illegal in North Carolina. That’s true, but this is about the future – a constitutional amendment will add yet another stumbling block on the road to equality, one more thing we’ll have to challenge and overthrow down the road. And if we can beat it, it will be a huge slap in the face for a movement that’s not used to losing. It will send a huge message – North Carolina is one state that’s determined not to stagnant in the mires of fear and hatred.

It’s going to hinge on awareness. This is a state with a huge college system and three major urban centers. We’ve got the votes, we’ve just need to mobilize them. In the coming months, I’ll do my part. I’ll auction art, post downloadable flyers for you to print and put out… anything I can think of. I’ll raise funds for Equality NC, to support their efforts to raise public awareness of the true costs of codifying hatred.

Many of you reading this don’t live in NC, but you can still help with your donations. Remember, if we turn the tide here it will send a powerful message. A majority of Americans support gay marriage and the hateful minority have relied on deceit and apathy to gain 30 victories. Now that they’ve weaseled it onto the ballot, they think they’ve already won.

Prove them wrong.