Obama: Queen Of The Desert

Original Source Unknown

President Barack Obama came out of the closet this week. No, not that closet. The dark and cloistered little room which he poked his head out of was that of acceptance, and the POTUS finally gave his full on vocal support for Gay Marriage in America. Legend has it that if he sees his shadow, that means six more seasons of Glee. Wocka wocka. In all seriousness though, a lot of history was made this week regarding our friends in the LGBT community, and I happened to find myself right in the thick of some of it. You see, I live in North Carolina, and on 5/8/12, North Carolina voted in favor of Amendment One, making it the 30^th state to ratify its Constitution in order to outlaw (even more than it is already outlawed) gay weddings. In fact, it went so far as to discount all legal recognition of any couple not in a hetero marriage. No civil unions. No Common Law husbands or wives. Nada. If you’re an actual living breathing American, you already know all about this, so there’s no need for me to hash out all the gory details.

Needless to say, I was not pleased. My county voted against it, as did six other counties, so at least I have that reassurance. But no one seemed to be concerned with us.

However, I’m not here to write yet another scathing indictment of bigotry or religious zealotry that will undoubtedly get lost in the blogosphere storm of congratulations and outrage. This isn’t meant to be an admonishing guilt trip to my fellow citizens who didn’t do anything to stop this unfair and unjust law.  It’s just that this vote coupled with Obama’s big gay announcement has provided the framework for yet another pondering of the unbelievable hatred that we feel towards each other. And it’s not just the extremists and the hicks and the evil CEOs anymore. It seems like it’s everyone – right and left. 

Source: someecards

Take for instance my little suburban neighborhood. It’s pretty tame. No, make that really tame. It’s the kind of sleepy little burg where kids play in their front yards – not in the back, fenced off from the world. The kind of idyllic middle class retreat of yesteryear, where people look up from weeding their well-kept flower beds and wave when you drive by, even if they don’t know you. Having lived for the fifteen years prior to our move here in an urban setting, noted by the rest of the country for its crime rate and propensity for gonorrhea, it’s been an interesting adjustment. So one wouldn’t think that we would soon find ourselves witness to a Hatfield vs. McCoy style feud.
 

The breakdown: Neighbor A puts a couple of “Vote For Amendment One” signs in his front yard. One night, Neighbor B steals them all. Neighbor A then replenishes his stock. Soon thereafter, Neighbor B draws “Vote Against Amendment One” in huge neon chalk letters on the street by Neighbor A’s house. Naturally Neighbor A buys even more signs. This all culminates days later, when my husband spots the remnants of one of Neighbor A’s signs in the middle of the road, burnt to a crisp. This started out as something fun to watch, a little tale to follow and giggle along with. That all changed when Neighbor B made the huge leap from mischievous to violent vandalism.

We on the left always want to think that we’re above, evolved, more humane, and more enlightened, but truth is, some of us are assholes too. Some of us take things too far and commit arson against our neighbors. Take this article by William Rivers Pitt from truthout.org, an unapologetically progressive publication. I started reading it because I’m a sucker for a snappy headline. Why yes, I too am done with the hatred, done with the “sick at heart.” He wrote what I took to be a fascinating (albeit cynical and one sided) theory on the evolution of the so-named neo-con/Tea Party hate machine. Here’s a snippet:

This rang pretty true for me, and I approved. I marveled at the progressive clarity with which he spins his tale of animus let loose and allowed to fester in a rampant unchecked experiment that inevitably blew up in the faces of its creators. Creators whose greed led to ambivalence (or delusion) to the actions of their vitriol-churning model and who have now been rendered nearly obsolete. 

If you’re on one side of the partisan coin, you can’t help but think of Fox News in this situation. So I checked out Sean Hannity’s Facebook page just for kicks. Mostly, I wanted to read his fans’ comments, you know, to see what’s out there, get the other side of the argument…for fairness sake... Oh who am I kidding? I just wanted to read a bunch of misspelled and poorly punctuated hillbilly malarkey to reaffirm my notion that I’m on the correct side of the spectrum. His fans did not disappoint. Here’s just a few examples (all spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been left unaltered by me and is shown as originally posted):

     [In response to a black commenter’s retelling of being shot twice while serving overseas in 
      the US military] “Took two bullets? Yeah maybe in the ghetto…Smoke another rock
       homeboy.”

     [About Obama] “this guy needs to know his place.”

     “Anyone who votes for Obama this time around should be castrated so as to not pollute 
       the country with your moronic offspring.”

     “Are we ever going to hear that obama is responsible for whitneys death.? Isn't it true
       that obama sold cocaine in chicago in the 90's .? I hear whitney first did cocaine in the 
       90's in chicago.!! If president bush gets the blame for katrina then obama gets the 
       blame for whitney.!!”

     “I am 85 years old and i want obama to go I hate him he is killing our country.”

Look at these people go! They have whipped themselves up into a frenzy. They seem to just simply hate everyone not like them. Keep in mind too, that I found these in the first two minutes of looking – all as comments on the same picture – a picture of a book about Hollywood not Obama! I didn’t have the stomach to keep looking further. These commenters are the horse that Hannity and his ilk let out of the barn. This is what happens when the lunatics take over the asylum. These are the people voting alongside me in November! Terrified!

I needed guidance. I turned back to Pitt’s article to see how he proposed we deal with these folks. Surely he would have some keen insight into availing ourselves of our moral aptitudes to overcome this dangerous Tom Foolery. Or so I thought. Here is how he chose to sum up his seemingly admirable point: 

Huh? Did my browser just skip to a different article? We will break you? Isn't that what the cartoonishly evil Russian said to Rocky? Why yes. Yes it is. This fighting hate-fire-threats with hate-fire-threats mentality is anathema to everything his previous statements seem to imply. Maybe I should rethink my cocky admiration for identifying with Pitt's article. Even his best points get lost and are basically negated by the end. It just doesn't fit. Don’t all of us lefties pride ourselves on our adherence to a Ghandi-esque ability to rise above all the hostility and disdain of the gun-toting three-corned-hat-wearing self-proclaimed patriots? When did we become the thing we thought we were better than? Now it's burning signs on our neighbors lawns that we don't agree with. What's next? Crosses? Oh...wait...

Have we forgotten what we were taught as children – that we should never stoop to the level of our bullies? 

North Carolina has been the butt of every liberal and progressive joke since Tuesday. To that I say: “Hey! Knock it off! I live here, and I don’t think that way! Lots of us don’t. Some of us rallied against the law and still are working to change it.” Unfortunately, elections don’t always work out the way you hope, but all you can do is keep your head up, move forward, and try to win over your detractors with civility. And this civility is what's important. Threats laced with snark will not change a believer’s mind, it will only reinforce their stubborn fury. You can’t break this horse with brutality and condescension, trying to force it back into its confines by calling it names. You’ll just get trampled.

Original Source Unknown

Even the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, can’t come out in favor of a basic human right without people from both sides condemning his actions. Barack Obama has done more for the LGBT community than any other president in my lifetime, and he did so facing unimaginable opposition. His historic and very ballsy concession about gay marriage was met with widespread derision. It’s just “politics as usual.” He’s “pandering.” He’s “flip-flopping.” “Why didn’t he say this sooner?” And a return of that crowd favorite "NOBama!" I'm not trying to say that he (in so much as he is still a politician) is beyond scrutiny, but before we’re even given a second to let the momentous implications of what he said sink in, people flooded the web with “Sure, but what’s he gonna do about it?” Give your indignation a rest for a minute folks and just revel in the happiness of the moment. Let the victory steep in all the glittery rainbows and baby puppies it deserves.

 

Leave the hate to the extremist fringe we used to shun.

This goes for everyone. We’re all guilty of it at some time or another. One too many drinks, and suddenly I’m the Ann Coulter of liberalism (minus the smirk but with all the righteous ferocity). Didn't I, in this very article, call a bunch of people I didn't know hillbillies? Sometimes I think we all need to just take a knee and listen up for a minute. Hear the lesson and try to evolve. Try not to lose ourselves in the tar-pit of polarizing rancor that is becoming all too acceptable. Perception is a fine line that need always be walked carefully. Even the slightest misstep will render your arguments invalid. In order to make a real difference, it is important that one attempt to rise to the top of the humanity scale. I think in a lot of ways, Obama struggles with this notion, and he's certainly faced with an even tougher job at it than we as citizens are. While he does what he thinks he needs to in order to remain in office and hopefully enact his fabled change, he more than anyone recognizes that we need to be better than even we think we need to be. Since we live in history making times, history will remember us, and it is not always kind.