HATE POLITICS-The Supreme Court has spoken...again and again and again. And now we're encountering a group of New Haters, as repugnant as the Old Haters, as we discover who is REALLY on the side of Love, Country and Humanity versus that once-marginalized group of emotionally- and intellectually-stunted individuals who now somehow think they're not only empowered, but it's "their turn".
Whatever "their turn" means. But "their turn" isn't going to prove these New Haters any better than the Old Haters.
We're certainly familiar with the Old Haters, those individuals who ignored the plight of the underrepresented, the underempowered, the socially ostracized, the poor (who they felt must certainly and always be blamed for their own destitute circumstances).
Some of the so-called "Moral Majority" were amongst the Old Haters, while others in that "Moral Majority" were always filled with love and the desire to understand and forgive others...while trying to understand and forgive themselves.
As a Jew who spent many years during the "I Found It" movement of fundamentalist Christianity in the 1970's and 1980's, I saw (and heard from) plenty of chest-thumping individuals who proclaimed that God was clearly on their side. Of course, no better is that "What Would Jesus Do" crowd made up of much of the same chest-thumping attitude who feel they speak for God, and know exactly what Jesus would do.
Many on either side spoke out of Love, or tried to speak out of Love, and while I had my views on the Presence of God and Judaism cemented (interestingly enough) during my high school and college science and humanities courses, I couldn't help appreciating those Christians who were praying for my soul to achieve immortal salvation.
The way I figured it, I needed all the help I could get as a lonely but caring pre-med in my late teens, and ditto when I prayed (as a Jew, but appreciative and respectful of the Christians I was praying with) with many of my fellow medical students as a medical student after I arrived in Galveston, Texas at the ripe old age of 20.
And many of those Christians I prayed with were gay--although most didn't let it on at the time.
I did know, however, that those AIDS patients who I volunteered in my medical school and internship in Richmond, Virginia, to take care of were gay--I was so impressed by the courage and devotion that HIV patients and their gay partners displayed, I felt it was my God-given duty to help them, and wished that heterosexual couples could show that much class, character and courage.
Ditto when I helped take care of the distegrating practice of a once-prominent Southern California dermatologist who grew emaciated and died of AIDS--both he and his male partner (who fortunately was able to fight for conservator status of his estate) were, surprisingly, quite the political and economic conservatives.
Which is probably what hard work, dedication and commitment often does to people.
So let's summarize what the Supreme Court just DID, and what it did NOT do, with respect to marriage:
1) The Supreme Court DID, narrowly, support all the legal and economic protections of gay couples that heterosexual couples now enjoy. Apparently, the term "civil unions" was not one gay couples appreciated, and did NOT allow and afford these gay couples all the same civil rights as heterosexual couples.
2) The Supreme Court did NOT force churches, temples and mosques to perform gay marriages, or to recognize them in a religious sense.
And those who proclaim the Supreme Court decision a victory for Love will hopefully now reach out to churches and other religious institutions to accept the Supreme Court decision NOT as pro-gay, but pro-monogamy.
Meanwhile, there will be the remnants of the Old Haters who lump all homosexuals into the Sodom/Gomorrah class, while the New Haters will use this Supreme Court decision as an attack on religion altogether.
We know who the Old Haters are...but are we ready to acknowledge the presence of the New Haters? Those who describe the preaching of Christianity, Judaism and other religions as akin to nails scraping and screeching down a blackboard, or as unpleasant as the smell of a person breaking wind? (Not my made-up words and terms, by the way.)
Those are the folks who decry and use all sorts of profane words of the conservatives on the Supreme Court (or any other conservatives), particularly when they rule against EPA and governmental over-regulation (and the destructive costs they've imposed on Americans with virtually no environmental benefit whatsoever), but say nothing when these same conservatives rule in a more progressive manner because these individuals are trying to do the right thing.
These are the folks who ignore President Obama's request to reach out and respect the rights and beliefs of all faiths, and his singing at a Church in memory of the innocents cruelly slain at the hands of a truly-evil monster in Charleston. They'll also ignore the fact that Republican-led governments of South Carolina and other Southern states to make darn sure that that monster will NOT start another Civil War, and to bring all Americans together.
No, whether they call themselves Progressives or whatever is their favorite term of the day/week/era, these New Haters are NOT Liberals, who by definition try to learn and respect all points of view.
States' rights? Separation of Church and State? To heck with that noise--the New Haters have a "better" idea of a centralized power that tells us lower life forms how to eat, think, talk and breathe (even if other powers, such as the failed Third Reich and Soviet Union also had that same idea because THOSE leaders thought that THEY knew better than the rest of us).
It's quite clear that religious institutions will have to debate what "Sodom and Gomorrah" is in our time.
"Sodom and Gomorrah" is NOT homosexual monogamy but men or women who run out on their spouse and children (with gay couples often having to fill in for those who abandoned their families), and perhaps those Old Haters who scream so very loudly about the "evils of the gay lifestyle" doth protest too much.
But those New Haters who are so quick to condemn any person, religion, portion of the nation or political party (despite their possibly not ever having met those people) doth protest too much as well, methinks. And their own personal lives are proof-positive of an internal set of issues that are consuming them alive.
Did the Supreme Court ruling get greeted with elation and Love, and the desire to do outreach to bring all Americans together, or was it seen as a "getting-even", a way to justify Hate--and perhaps the hopes of a new Bigotry that will now be politically and socially "acceptable"?
Love and Tolerance are often very difficult and painful concepts for individuals to get used to. That's nothing new.
But Haters? Unfortunately, they're also nothing new...except we should beware a new class of individuals who will choose to divide us, to splinter us, and to make us turn on each other.
All because THEIR personal issues have been eating them alive their entire lives, and they cannot prevent themselves from letting their personal issues consume the rest of us, too.
Beware the Old Haters. But beware the New Haters, too.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] He also does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 53
Pub: Jun 30, 2015
