Support gay rights, not censorship in the News Channel 8 Gay Pride controversy
June 30, 2009 at 2:49 pm by Catherine Robinson
By Catherine Durkin Robinson
PoHo contributor
As we remember Stonewall and the beginning of the modern gay rights movement, the progressive community is understandably frustrated with the pace of our administration in bringing about real change.
They have a point.
Enough already with the military’s ridiculous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
And it’s about time we legalize gay marriage.
Yet after the stunning parades this weekend and the first official recognition of the movement by a sitting working US President, I’m filled with more hope than ever before.
Which is why I didn’t allow my blood pressure to rise when WFLA/News Channel 8 aired an “it would be disturbing if it weren’t so silly” documentary infomercial Saturday night about wicked gays trying to silence Christians. I urged my fellow libs to take deep breaths and see this program for what it was — a spoiled brat stomping his feet and holding his breath in the hopes of getting attention and that last piece of cake.
“Their world is ending, Mary,” I said with a giggle. “It’s falling down around them and they can’t do a thing to stop it. Let’s not be so reactionary. Pass the Sangria and shut the fuck up. I want to hear what these freakshows have to say so I can make fun of them later.”
My calls for calm were roundly ignored. Equality Florida and St. Pete Pride urged boycotts and asked supporters to write letters, send emails, and make phone calls (oh my) designed to make it all go away.
And yet the show went off without a hitch.
Either News Channel 8 wasn’t impressed or paradegoers were too busy using their mouths and hands for other pursuits.
It was, after all, a Saturday night.
But a few of my gays started screaming and using the c-word.
And that’s when I put my motherfucking foot down.
We should be extremely concerned when we start behaving like the tyrannical fundies we rail against. And the whole, “Would it be all right to allow Holocaust deniers to broadcast a program on Rosh Hashanah?” smacks of intellectual desperation.
Come on, we can do better than succumb to a lazy metaphor.
Let’s get angry about the lies the radical right spews under their crosses and from behind their Bibles. Absolutely, let’s laugh among ourselves about how funny it is that their movement is dying and true equality is within reach. Let’s counter illogical arguments with reasoned debate and religious mumbo-jumbo with good old-fashioned wisdom.
If we try to shut them up, their rallying cry becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who needs that? Haters are like roaches, running for cover when the light of knowledge and truth shines upon them.
I prefer they stay in the light. It’s easier to aim the bug spray.
And besides, Mary, that’s how we’ll win.
Catherine Durkin Robinson is a “feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field.
