Brad Walsh

Don’t Get it Twisted

I haven’t responded to the comments left on yesterday’s post because I don’t really feel like moderating, reinforcing, arguing, any of that. My mom has tried to convince me that there are people in my family who would be on my side, more than I realize. It’s difficult for me to imagine that, based on the things a lot of them have said in front of me, or the things they have chosen to avoid discussing. But I suppose it could be true; I haven’t been very close to them in a long time.

There have been some inventive and inspiring responses to the situation. It sounds funny to say, but I’m grateful for people like Melissa Etheridge, Ellen Degeneres, and many others; people who have the balls that they do. Life could be very comfortable for them. They have the money and the power to separate themselves from the rest of the world, not cause a stir, and just receive checks and live luxurious lives. But they continue put everything they have on the line, risking that this is their final stand that turns the public off to them and jeopardizes their future. Rosie O’Donnell has seen the world turn on her. You speak up just a little too much and everyone decides you don’t deserve it any more. People complain that celebrities should entertain and do nothing more. That they shouldn’t express their political opinions, because who are they? I think they have more of an opportunity than the rest of us to be heard by millions, and that if they think they can and want to make a positive difference with that power of being heard, then they should… even if I don’t agree with what they are saying.

It’s often transparent whether someone’s political pushes are based on wanting to help people, or wanting to secure themselves by handicapping others. I can, for example, appreciate somebody wanting to outlaw abortion because they truly believe that it is the murder of cognizant children. I disagree, but I understand that they are motivated to do what they believe is for human welfare. But the cellophane and easily dismantled excuses that people use to ban gay marriage – including that it is a gateway to more perverse unions – are very clearly based in prejudice and fear, not altruistic morality. They are a thin cover-up for the fact that same-sex marriage just doesn’t feel right to them. But many of the things that just didn’t feel right to the populace that we have since come to accept as primitive and wrong (prejudices against women, people of color, people of religious minorities) should serve as reasons why a simple “gut feeling” of any kind of human inequality is never correct. The human failure here is not in the desire for same-sex marriage, it is in the assertion that there are other humans who do not deserve equal rights.