A call to reason, through a different prism

One of my greatest frustrations with supposedly intelligent/educated/thoughtful people in America is that they usually lack the knowledge beyond their own subjective experience or desire to understand. History is a lost concept to so many, which gives rise to impatience and a failure to appreciate that time is a variable they actually do need to consider, not something to be brushed aside as an artifact, curious and unimportant.

This becomes ever more clear with the increasingly shrill and agitated yelling and gnashing of teeth by many gay men (and it is almost exclusively gay men) who with the benefit of just four months of a presidency have already both given up hope and ascribed martyr status to themselves. It is a mixture of distaste and incredulity that I observe this act play out around me.

Perhaps it is viewing a steady parade of Western European nations take the plunge into equal marriage that makes them feel so in need to shake their fists for wishes of a better shake. This is where they fail the test of understanding. I will show the Nordic thinking and Sweden foremost, because it is what I know best.  There is a leftism which has blended into the culture, which encompasses a feminism and egalitarianism that most relatively well off gay men would shudder at, that is if they understood it.

Gay rights in the Nordic countries¹ spring in part from the emancipation of women, of full equality and of a mutual support which many American gay men have not embraced as their own. Equal marriage in those countries has come slowly, and is based on rule by consensus, and in a piecemeal fashion. The decriminalization of sex between two men or two women happened in 1944, not in 2003, though unfortunately the conception of it as an illness remained in medical literature until 1979, 6 years after the APA changed its diagnosis. In 1955, the highest court in the land decreed that being a lesbian is not reason on its own to deny a woman custody of her children. Civil unions with a little extra happened in Sweden 14 years ago, and marriage only a month ago.  The courts were not the way forward, and adversarial actions do not always lead to change or progress; forging bonds do. In addition marriage as such is a different beast, does not mean joint ownership of property and debt but rather that each individual remains responsible for his or her own and still pays taxes as an individual.

Culture and history have a far greater effect than most would like to admit, yet it is to do a disservice to ourselves to pretend they do not matter. Tied up in those are real people with real emotions, and there are some who will always be opposed, but it’s not necessary to say that we can only have gay marriage or only health care for all, or only one thing. People are many things, and have many different, sometimes changing, priorities. To deny this, and to upbraid, lecture and hound those who disagree with you, invalidates your argument, and sensible people will tune you out.

Consider more than just the “I want it NOW!” reaction, which while visceral and emotionally satisfying, is both ephemeral and likely to lead to disappointment and perhaps even setting back progress, just as the hasty moves of Bill “The Waffle/I feel your pain, breasts” Clinton showed us not so long ago.

Man har mycket gratis som                           You have a lot of advantages²
bög och man. Men det finns                          as gay and a man. But there are still
sammanhang där jag inte                                many contexts in which
är normen.  - Are I am not the norm.- Are

As shy as some are of the word and concept, duty comes to mind. It is your duty not to fulminate and rant and rave, but rather to try to live your life honestly, openly and with respect toward others. It is they who go to the ballot box after all, and to work with you, and with whom you share the rather short time you will have here between birth and death.

¹Advancement on the national plane does not forswear other attitudes elsewhere in the country and the gay scene per se is on the whole much smaller than even in cities with similar populations to the US. Still it is not the land of forthright opinions expressed strongly with beating fists into the table, without regard to other people or their feelings.

²I would actually translate the “have a lot of advantages” as “take a lot of things for granted” because it reflects better the tone of  the statement in English.