The Queer Nation Manifesto

This morning I read an article in the New York Times an article that made mention of Queer Nation protesting in New York. Good to see them back. Modern social movements have seemed to lose the power needed to disrupt the status quo and bring about meaningful social change.

The website History as a Weapon has printed the text of a manifesto originally passed out by people marching with the ACT UP contingent in the 1990 New York Gay Pride Day parade. I'm reprinting the manifesto here. 

It reminds me of a time when social change was about liberation and freedom -- not conformity and becoming part of the status quo.

Queer Nation Manifesto

How can I tell you. How can I convince you, brother; sister that your life is in danger. That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary. There is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence. It is a miracle you are standing here reading these words. You should by all rights be dead.

Don't be fooled, straight people own the world and the only reason you have been spared is you're smart, lucky, or a fighter. Straight people have a privilege that allows them to do whatever they please and f--- without fear. But not only do they live a life free of fear; they flaunt their freedom in my face. Their images are on my TV, in the magazine I bought, in the restaurant I want to eat in, and on the street where I live. I want there to be a moratorium on straight marriage, on babies, on public displays of affection among the opposite sex and media images that promote heterosexuality. Until I can enjoy the same freedom of movement and sexuality, as straights, their privilege must stop and it must be given over to me and my queer sisters and brothers.

Antaeus: Keep your Feet on the Ground

Hercules and Antaeus by Gregorio De Ferrari

As the story goes, Antaeus, a half giant, would challenge those who passed him to a wrestling match. He would kill his challengers and save their skulls. It's what you did when you were the half-giant son of Poseidon and Gaia.

Of course he wasn't just saving those skulls for posterity. He was planning on using them to build a temple in honor of his father, Poseidon. Perhaps it was a father's day present. We'll never know for sure. Antaeus never got to build that temple. Hercules came around one day and challenged Antaeus to a fight. He was perplexed that he could not win. Every time he threw Antaeus down to the ground he would become reinvigorated, rise up, and continue to fight.

After several rounds Hercules caught on to Antaeus' super power. Every time he returned to ground, he was healed by his mother (mother earth, Gaia). Catching onto this, Hercules flexed some serious muscle and held the half-giant up into the air, squeezed Antaeus in a bear hug, and ended his skull collecting days.

I'd not heard about the story of Antaeus prior to this evening. I've been doing a little light reading of Erich Fromm's essays on "What does it Mean to be Human" and came across this quote:

Man is not bound to be sheep. In fact, inasmuch as he is not an animal man has an interest in being related to and conscious of reality, to touch the earth with his feet, as in the Greek legend of Antaeus; man is stronger the more fully he is in touch with reality.

I lingered on the quote for a little bit and looked up the story of Antaeus. As it ends up, this skull crushing half-giant offers some important commentary on modern day dilemmas. Have you turned on the television lately and watched the news? Have you read a newspaper? With a presidential election coming, our media is fired up with competing descriptions of reality. None of those descriptions, of course, are particularly reflective of anything resembling reality.

Back to Fromm to scoop up another quote:

As long as he is only sheep and his reality is essentially nothing but the fiction built up by his society for more convenient manipulation of men and things, he is weak as a man. Any change in the social pattern threatens him with intense insecurity and even madness because his whole relationship with reality is mediated by the fictitious reality that is presented to him as real. The more he can grasp reality on his own and not only as a datum with which society provides him, the more secure he feels because the less completely dependent he is on consensus and hence the less threatened by social change.

Presidential elections remind us we are in a period of intense social change. Our fictitious foundations of reality become battle grounds where forces of change (generally the left) battle against the forces of stability (generally the right). Where our political system becomes deficient and dangerous is that both sides become agents that advertise increasingly slick depictions of a fictive reality.

We no loner seem to want to help people keep their own feet on the ground. I'm thinking Hercules made a big mistake by lifting Antaeus up off the ground and crushing him to death. We seem to have forgotten that the heart of a well rounded education requires us to learn to stand on the ground and use   critical thinking skills--the ability to take in information from the world around us, analyze that information, and come to reasoned conclusions in a disciplined way. No. Not much of that. What we actually have is an abundance of irrational thinking that is based on a deep need for those in power to demand the other to be a state of submission and dependence.

Back to Fromm, one last time:

The process of increasing awareness is nothing but the process of awakening, of opening one's eyes and seeing what is in front of oneself. Awareness means doing away with illusions and, to the degree that this is accomplished it is a process of liberation.

So I ask you this: what are you going to do today to dispel the illusions and bring forth a little more liberation? What are you going to do to stand on the ground today?

Curious about Erich Fromm? I've gathered several videos which capture the essence of what he offered the world. Click here to explore those videos at your leisure.

A Call to Action/Shine Brightly

This  morning I came across a video produced by the Family Research Counsel. I found it to be a particularly repugnant piece of propaganda and live tweeted my responses to the video. I felt that in good conscious, I couldn't let out-right falsehoods go unchallenged. I strongly encourage you to watch the video for yourself.

Interested in encouraging these folks to move from hate toward compassion? Consider an e-mail, tweet, phone call, or letter. Share with them the importance of love, compassion, and acceptance of all of our humanity. Tony Perkins, near the 26:50 mark, says that it is important to be "letting your light shine before men in such a way that they can see your good works." Show them all your good lights. Shine bright. Our futures--your futures--depend on it.

Rev. John Rankin
Theological Educational Institute
P.O. Box 297
West Simsbury, CT 06092
tei@teii.org
860-408-1599

Jeff Buchanan (or here)
Executive Vice President
Exodus International
1-888-264-0877

Joe Dallas
email here
17632 Irvine Blvd.
Suite #220
Tustin, California 92780
714-508-6953

Tony Perkins
Peter Sprigg
Chris Gacek
(email here)
Family Research Counsel
801 G Street, NW
Washington, D.C., 20001
203-393-2100 (p)
202-393-2134 (f)

Redeemed Lives
Rev. Mario Bergner
(email here)
P.O Box 451
Ipswich, MA 01938
978-356-0404

Massachusetts Family Institute
(email)
(web)
781-569-0400

Liberty Legal Foundation
Kelly Shackelford
9040 Executive Park Drive
Suite 200
Knoxville, TN 37923
324-208-9953
(web)
(email)

Carol M. Swain
Vanderbilt University Law School
131-21St Avenue South
Nashville, TN 37203
615-322-1001 (o)
615-310-8617 (c)
615-322-6631 (f)
(web)
(email)

Rep Vicky Hartzler
(web)
(email)
1023 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
202-225-2876 (o)
202-225-0148 (f)

Alliance Defense Fund
Austin R. Nimocks
15100 N. 90th Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
1-800-835-5233
(web)

Mass Resistance
P.O. Box 1612
Waltham, MA 02454
781-890-6001
(web)

Julie Harren Hamilton, Ph.D., LMFT
P.O. Box 1382
West Palm Beach, FL 33402
561-312-7041
(email)
(web)

(read my letter to Dr. Hamilton here)

Book People Unite

Check out the story and the pledge. Also, while you are at it, check out the organization behind this video, Reading is Fundamental. From the website:

Reading lovers are coming together to help us get books into the hands of kids who need them the most. Remember visiting Narnia, playing Jumanji, and eating Green Eggs and Ham? Books can have an incredible effect on children's lives, yet there's only one book for every 300 kids living in underserved communities in the U.S. So we've brought together some of our most beloved literary characters to help make this film and rally Book People for the cause.

Why am I a book person? I'm a book person because when I was young and opened a book, my life was transformed. It made the world bigger, and it still does. Why are you a book person?

Born This Way: A Note on Liberation

Some time ago I wrote a blog post called "On Orientations, Preferences, and Mother Monster." I had an interesting conversation with someone who asked me if gay people are "born this way" as Lady Gaga and large parts of the gay and lesbian community suggest. The answer is complicated. Look at my original blog post for some food for thought (and a little Lady Gaga).

This morning I read a news story from Brazil. It is a good reminder to look outside of ourselves and outside of our own country from time to time. Here is someone from Brazil conceptualizing sexuality as an option--a choice--and not being afraid to make that choice (despite the gay bashing).

"These comments are nothing more than proof of what we're trying to say. We are assaulted by our sexual option ", says Fernando.

The way identity is constructed and thought of here in the United States is not the way the same phenomena is thought about elsewhere in the world. The way we think about ourselves is bound up in our culture and our national dialogue about identity. We forget that too easily. In forgetting that, we lose some of potential offered by the liberatory social movements of the 60s and 70s where people started making choices about who they were.

What choices do you want to make?