Special Interest Groups

President Bush said Monday that special-interest groups running TV ads and mobilizing supporters for a fight over his choice of a successor to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor should “tone down the heated rhetoric.” He forcefully defended Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a prospect criticized by conservatives. (source)

Should I remind the President that back in say... 1962 - 1964, “blacks”, or “negros” as African Americans were then called, were what we would today call a “special interest group”. Like gays today, they were only looking for one thing; EQUALITY, and to be an equal part of American life. Not “separate, but equal”.

But would the President today dare call that part of American society a “special interest group”? I doubt it. Maybe it’s time gays started rioting? Maybe we’re just not pissed off enough yet.

Yes, I know... I’m going to get a lot of hate mail saying that “the fight that blacks faced back in the 1960’s was not the same thing”. But I would only say to you that, from my end, it feels the same. It feels very much like riding in the back of the bus. We are at the black water fountain of marriage and should never dare to drink from the white water fountain of marriage. To dismiss or minimize our quest for equality, we are simply herded up and a label (“special interest group”) is placed on us, like a four-letter word.

That’s how things are done in America today. Everything has a label and every label has it’s place in society. And, we’ll wrap all of that up and put the label of “freedom” on it. Nice and tidy.

So, what label are you? I have many; complex, simple, depressed, optimistic, gay, caring, apathetic (sometimes), angry, forgiving, husband, lover, and many others. All of those are fine with most people, except my experience is that most people, friends, drop me like a rock when they find out that I’m gay. It’s strange how that one label outweighs all the others because to me, it doesn’t.

For example, I have a friend that I haven’t seen in ten years. Suddenly, he wants to be friends again. But, I can tell what he really wants me to tell him is that I’m gay. I can tell this by the way he uses the conversation to talk about his new wife, turning right around to ask who I have in my life. He knows I’m gay because he used to work for me. At the time, other co-workers told me that he didn’t “approve” of me being gay. It was never mentioned at work, and I never talked to him about it.

Now, ten years later, gay people are out and everywhere, not only in real life, but on TV and movies as well. I suppose he feels that it’s time for him to be more accepting and wants to show me that he “understands”. But why should I give him the satisfaction of putting the gay label on myself, when I am so much more than that?

This site is not a “gay site”. I talk about a lot of gay issues here, but it is because the world I live in and the country I live in is completely messed up around the topic of homosexuality, and whether I like it or not, I’m part of that mess. My writing merely reflects my frustration with being totally marginalized and demonized by “the government of the people, by the people, for the people”. Right now, our government doesn’t care about my people, aside from taxing the hell out of us and telling us what we can’t have. They simply say that we are a “special interest group” for wanting equality, of all things! How dare us!

On another topic...

While I was driving home from the gym last night, I noticed that the guy in front of me had a Bush/Cheney ’04 bumper sticker on his car. On the other side of the bumper was a sticker that said “Flip Floppers” with an “X” through it, referring to John Kerry, I’m assuming.

I thought to myself about the irony involved here. How many times has our President flip flopped on just about every issue involving the war in Iraq, or energy, the environment, or ... [insert your own topic here]? The only thing this President has been rock solid on is his hatred of gays, abortion, and putting the interests of oil companies and personal vendettas ahead of the lives of our boys in Iraq. Aside from those hot topics that can be labeled as being a “special interest”, this President doesn’t have intellect to reason his way out of a paper bag. I honestly believe that. Does he have any ideas that are truly his own? I say this because when he tries to talk without the help of a prepared speech, he can’t put a sentence together.

It’s all about labels and the weight one puts on those labels. It has nothing to do with what’s important - the lives of real people.

Do you think there will ever be a time again in America where our President and our government will put those lives above labels?