Pay Attention


Around The Margins

I know a guy that complains about a TV show he’d like to watch. It looks like a good program, he says, but there are gay characters and “they shouldn’t be allowed to show that sort of thing” on television. He’d like a law that would allow him to watch a show about a high school glee club without worrying that he might see someone gay. 

The show would apparently be set in an alternate universe.

I mention this because of a bill that’s working its way through the Tennessee state senate. The bill would make it illegal to discuss homosexuality with students prior to the 9th grade. I don’t know how likely the bill is to become law. It’s failed before, but apparently it has a better chance this time because the most recent election favored Conservative lawmakers. 

Let me just say the thing that should be obvious: it’s wrong to make people invisible, and to make it illegal to talk about a significant minority of people is to take the first step down a very ugly road. 

I rarely talk about politics anymore. There’s no joy in it for someone whose views are outside of the mainstream, and at the end of the discussion I always have to concede that there’s not a lot of difference in our two major political parties in matters of war, civil liberties, fiscal, or economic policy. As a middle-class and nearly middle-aged straight white male, the outcome of any particular election is unlikely to impact me at all because change happens at the margins, and I’m comfortably in the middle.

But if I were on the margins, things would be different. If I were a pregnant teenager, or just a teenager trying not to get pregnant, then the outcome of the last election would matter a lot to me. If I were a lesbian serving in the Air Force, or a guy that walked over from Mexico looking for a job washing dishes and a better life, then I might care a lot about the last election.

That’s why I vote. That’s why I write letters and sign petitions. That’s why I give to candidates. That’s why I care who wins and who loses. It’s not for me, it’s for the younger version of me. It’s for the less fortunate, less straight, less white, less male versions of me. It matters a lot to them.

And when shit like this floats to the top of the pool, at least I can say it’s not mine.

  1. door reblogged this from afgurri and added:
    I think someone needs to explain to this fellow was “laws” are.
  2. afgurri reblogged this from stephenharred
  3. stephenharred posted this