oh my god
A series of open letters:
Dear certain national marriage-equality activists:
Sit down. You wrote us off months ago, decided we were a foregone conclusion and you weren't wasting your attention or money or boots on the ground on us. You abandoned us for other places, where you thought you'd have a better chance of winning, while people in this state worked their asses off on a 90-percent grassroots effort to defeat that amendment. And now you want to run around clutching your smelling salts? We don't need your sympathy now.
In the end, what we remember is not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends, to quote a wise man.
P.S. I'm actually trying very very hard not to be suspicious that this is precisely what you wanted to happen all along. Outrage is so handy.
Dear certain liberals outside of my state:
Shut. Up. You are not helping me. I am already tired of hearing about what horrible bigoted toothless redneck sheep-fucking hillbillies my state is made up of. It would be great if you would spare any attention for all the people in this state who were horrified by this precisely calibrated, targeted political hand-grenade, for the people who worked their asses off trying to defeat that amendment, for the coalition building that was done across race, party and religious lines, all the local time and effort and money that went into fighting this.
Have you taken a look at how many of our churches, how many of our businesses, how many of our civic and professional organizations, how many of our political leaders across the spectrum came out against this measure? Do you even know that one of our television stations putting together a half-hour news segment on the amendment literally could not find a business leader willing to go on the record supporting it? That the leader of our state NAACP, who was active all through this fight, sat down in a pew of his church and recorded a video message urging people to vote against that amendment?
That already, already, there have been arrests for civil disobedience from people protesting the anti-gay-marriage law in this state?
Do you even care how we feel about all of this? Or is getting your righteous indignation on more important than the people who this actually affects?
P.S. And for those of you going on about how you're boycotting the state now, I suppose you're also boycotting the 29 other states that have already pulled this kind of fuckery? Meanwhile, let me know how boycotting Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer products all at once goes for you. Oh, you only mean your cushy coastal vacation will be to somewhere else. OK!
Dear certain liberals inside the state:
So, you're omg moving out of the state now? Really?
Yeah, great, because just what we need in a state that's edging leftward is for a whole bunch of liberals to leave so that there's no hope of ever changing the status quo. Also, privileged much? Must be nice to have so few money and job worries that you can pick up and leave whenever you want.
When you find the magical land of candy and fairies in this country where it's all love and light for the queers, you let me know where you've washed up, OK?
P.S. This is my home. I was born and raised here, formed in the womb out of the minerals and elements of this place as my mother ate food nourished by this soil and drank water welling from the aquifers in this rock; my first breath was mingled air from down off the Blue Ridge and wafted in from the Outer Banks. I moved away and came back and only then realized that this is where the light falls at the proper slant on winter afternoons and summer evenings, where the red-clay dirt smells right after a rain and the cicadas sound just present enough to keep the dark from pressing in. This place is - literally - in my blood and bones. I'm not giving up this ground. I'm not letting myself be driven out of my home. Fuck that noise.
Oh, also:
Dear a certain president of the United States:
So, the convention should be interesting, then.
P.S. Seriously? Today?
And last, but not at all least:
Dear my state:
Well. It's not like I didn't expect it, but was it such a goddam pipe dream to think that maybe, just maybe, we could have been some kind of trendsetter for the New South?
Yes?
Yeah.
P.S. You're breaking my heart, here.
Now. What's next?
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.
Dear certain national marriage-equality activists:
Sit down. You wrote us off months ago, decided we were a foregone conclusion and you weren't wasting your attention or money or boots on the ground on us. You abandoned us for other places, where you thought you'd have a better chance of winning, while people in this state worked their asses off on a 90-percent grassroots effort to defeat that amendment. And now you want to run around clutching your smelling salts? We don't need your sympathy now.
In the end, what we remember is not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends, to quote a wise man.
P.S. I'm actually trying very very hard not to be suspicious that this is precisely what you wanted to happen all along. Outrage is so handy.
Dear certain liberals outside of my state:
Shut. Up. You are not helping me. I am already tired of hearing about what horrible bigoted toothless redneck sheep-fucking hillbillies my state is made up of. It would be great if you would spare any attention for all the people in this state who were horrified by this precisely calibrated, targeted political hand-grenade, for the people who worked their asses off trying to defeat that amendment, for the coalition building that was done across race, party and religious lines, all the local time and effort and money that went into fighting this.
Have you taken a look at how many of our churches, how many of our businesses, how many of our civic and professional organizations, how many of our political leaders across the spectrum came out against this measure? Do you even know that one of our television stations putting together a half-hour news segment on the amendment literally could not find a business leader willing to go on the record supporting it? That the leader of our state NAACP, who was active all through this fight, sat down in a pew of his church and recorded a video message urging people to vote against that amendment?
That already, already, there have been arrests for civil disobedience from people protesting the anti-gay-marriage law in this state?
Do you even care how we feel about all of this? Or is getting your righteous indignation on more important than the people who this actually affects?
P.S. And for those of you going on about how you're boycotting the state now, I suppose you're also boycotting the 29 other states that have already pulled this kind of fuckery? Meanwhile, let me know how boycotting Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer products all at once goes for you. Oh, you only mean your cushy coastal vacation will be to somewhere else. OK!
Dear certain liberals inside the state:
So, you're omg moving out of the state now? Really?
Yeah, great, because just what we need in a state that's edging leftward is for a whole bunch of liberals to leave so that there's no hope of ever changing the status quo. Also, privileged much? Must be nice to have so few money and job worries that you can pick up and leave whenever you want.
When you find the magical land of candy and fairies in this country where it's all love and light for the queers, you let me know where you've washed up, OK?
P.S. This is my home. I was born and raised here, formed in the womb out of the minerals and elements of this place as my mother ate food nourished by this soil and drank water welling from the aquifers in this rock; my first breath was mingled air from down off the Blue Ridge and wafted in from the Outer Banks. I moved away and came back and only then realized that this is where the light falls at the proper slant on winter afternoons and summer evenings, where the red-clay dirt smells right after a rain and the cicadas sound just present enough to keep the dark from pressing in. This place is - literally - in my blood and bones. I'm not giving up this ground. I'm not letting myself be driven out of my home. Fuck that noise.
Oh, also:
Dear a certain president of the United States:
So, the convention should be interesting, then.
P.S. Seriously? Today?
And last, but not at all least:
Dear my state:
Well. It's not like I didn't expect it, but was it such a goddam pipe dream to think that maybe, just maybe, we could have been some kind of trendsetter for the New South?
Yes?
Yeah.
P.S. You're breaking my heart, here.
Now. What's next?
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.