Hmm
(I was going to write this up and post it yesterday, but class stuff got in the way.)
Yesterday, I got to thinking about the gay rights movement during lunch and how it doesn't seem to be as united as the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s.
Something the gay rights movement needs is a spokesperson. We need someone charismatic we can unite behind to see as a leader. Right now, we lack this. We have causes to unite behind, but it seems that people work better with a person to unite behind and see as a leader.
Another weakness of the movement seems to be the lack of a central area we can unite against. In the '50s and '60s, they could focus on the southern US to gain visibility. While we could unite and try to change things in the southern US for gays, it would largely be a challenge of society than laws, which leads to my next point. While few blatantly discriminatory laws have been passed (primarily the gay marriage bans), unjustifiable inequalities (justifiable inequalities being things like not hiring gay male strippers at a strip club focused at straight males) are allowed to exist. For example, it's still perfectly legal to fire someone just for being gay. This is just as absurd as firing someone for being black or Asian or whatever, and any business that did such a thing would surely lose customers and such, but a business firing someone for gay would either be unaffected or actually gain customers! That's sick.
Heh, well, I had more of a point and more stuff behind all this, but I guess sleeping on it made me lose the initial inspirational push.
Yesterday, I got to thinking about the gay rights movement during lunch and how it doesn't seem to be as united as the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s.
Something the gay rights movement needs is a spokesperson. We need someone charismatic we can unite behind to see as a leader. Right now, we lack this. We have causes to unite behind, but it seems that people work better with a person to unite behind and see as a leader.
Another weakness of the movement seems to be the lack of a central area we can unite against. In the '50s and '60s, they could focus on the southern US to gain visibility. While we could unite and try to change things in the southern US for gays, it would largely be a challenge of society than laws, which leads to my next point. While few blatantly discriminatory laws have been passed (primarily the gay marriage bans), unjustifiable inequalities (justifiable inequalities being things like not hiring gay male strippers at a strip club focused at straight males) are allowed to exist. For example, it's still perfectly legal to fire someone just for being gay. This is just as absurd as firing someone for being black or Asian or whatever, and any business that did such a thing would surely lose customers and such, but a business firing someone for gay would either be unaffected or actually gain customers! That's sick.
Heh, well, I had more of a point and more stuff behind all this, but I guess sleeping on it made me lose the initial inspirational push.