A recent USA Today feature showed a striking similarity to the religious right's ongoing wars on beers and queers.
In the case of alcohol, America's busybodies organized at the turn of the last century, which led to Prohibition in 1920. The teetotalers claimed drinking was a terrible sin and that they had the right to impose their beliefs on the entire country. The result was an unmitigated disaster that is best remembered for unintended consequences -- such as dangerous moonshine and the rise of bootlegging mobsters.
In terms of LGBT people, religious fanatics banned together in the late 1970's to pass or uphold laws that forced their sexual hang-ups and moralizing mores onto people they considered sinful. The unintended consequences included a high suicide rate among gay people and countless divorces that occurred after spouses came out of the closet.
The fight against beers and queers is most similar in that they both encompass pitched, ongoing battles, and both issues are subject to a maddening patchwork of anachronistic laws at the state, county and local levels.
For example, 1 in 9 counties in the United States are still dry. Similarly, for LGBT people, laws on employment protection, marriage and adoption fluctuate wildly from place-to-place. Indeed, a gay person's family can be fully recognized by law in one state, but as soon as the state line is crossed, the family ceases to exist as a legal entity. It really is the metaphorical equivalent of traveling from dry to wet counties with a bottle of whiskey in the car.
To ensure that gay people are second-class citizens, the religious right regularly lies about LGBT life, yet does so with soothing language about "protecting" marriage. In modern anti-gay campaigns, slick, high-priced consultants go out of their way to appear as if their campaigns are not about hate. This is part of an effort to entice mainstream voters who are turned off by fire and brimstone messages.
Similarly, today's teetotalers are using chicanery to disguise their true intentions and avoid upsetting political moderates. For instance, in a Mount Pleasant, Texas, campaign to keep alcohol illegal, a soft and misleading slogan, "Mount Pleasant Cares", was intentionally created to deceive voters.
"We never mentioned beer or wine," Vatra Solomon, a local resident and political consultant who advised the drys told USA Today. "We talked about children and safety and a healthy environment -- those buzzwords. A lot of people like a glass of wine at dinner or a beer watching the Cowboys. We couldn't afford to offend them."
Isn't this eerily similar to how some campaigns use code words like, "family values," to conceal that passing anti-gay marriage laws cruelly strip away hospital visitation rights for same-sex couples? When it comes to the religious right, a belief in End Times often justifies the mean-spirited means.
Fortunately, the religious zealots are losing both battles, as grudging tolerance is finally giving way to acceptance by the wider culture. In terms of alcohol, "drys are losing ground on all levels, from the state -- since 2002, 14 states have ended bans on Sunday alcohol sales," according to USA Today.
The number of Tennessee communities that allow sales of liquor by the drink (in bars and restaurants) has increased 56% since 2003. In the same period, 22 of Texas' 254 counties and more than 235 of its municipalities have gone wet (or "moist," a category in which beer and wine might be legal, but not liquor).
Of course, the same can now be said for homosexuality, with a majority of Americans now finding gay relations acceptable and an overwhelming number in favor of allowing gay soldiers to be able to serve openly in the military. Five states allow LGBT couples to marry. It often seems that victories, large and small, are happening on a weekly, if not daily, basis.
Economic factors are a common denominator for recent momentum in efforts to end bans on spirits and LGBT rights. Locales are beginning to understand that being perceived as rigid and judgmental backwaters is not conducive to attracting new businesses. After all, few people want to relocate to a place that is lorded over by a narrow-minded fundamentalist elite.
One lesson to be learned from the alcohol fight is that fundamentalists don't give up very easily. These fanatics have been railing against alcohol distribution, sales and consumption since Prohibition ended in 1933. They have fought tooth and nail to impose their values on entire communities. So, even though we may have reached a tipping point on LGBT equality, don't expect our foes to fold the tent anytime soon.
Still, this battle is instructive because alcohol was once the religious right's sin du jour. Now, most national right wing organizations don't waste time or political capital lobbying to ban booze. The once biblical absolute against alcohol is disappearing as quickly as a shot of Absolut Vodka.
Would anybody bet a six pack that the same won't be true for the alleged "sin" of homosexuality?
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R/ PRONESE
Marriage should be about two people who've made the decision to spend the rest of their lives together and be a family in every way. It shouldn't be about what one of the literally hundreds of religions say it should be.
Carrie Nation, the WCTU, the Salvation Army: Prohibition was a crusade of female do-gooders.
I don't see the analogy here.
Unlike Prohibition, I don't believe women are primarily responsible for impeding gay rights.
That said, you wanna bring Carrie Nation into this, we can. Todays Carrie Nations are Pat Robertson, Rick Warren, and the hateful religious fanatics, who insist on forcing their understanding of Leviticus onto the entire country, in the face of constitutional opposition. Maybe you should try to stay on topic.
We'll have a beer. :)
A nation founded on religious freedom is NOT the place for one religion to stand up and inflict ( yes
INFLICT) their bugaboos and taboos on the rest of us in the name of their religion.
I'm sure the irony is lost on them.
I for one am sick of that tired refrain, ' My god's better than your god!"
my god's better than yours
my god's better
'cause he gets Ken-L-Ration
my god's better than yours!
People repeat stuff they hear on TV. See? LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9ZoHhU6U04
If someone wants to do something they should be able to do it. Why do we have laws that prevent people from happiness? Any law that keeps a person unhappy is unjust and should be eliminated.
Are you serious? Have you thought about this ridiculous statement?
But forcing YOUR brand of religious nutjobbery and miseries on others is arrogant, ill-mannered and shows a level of hubris that should see you into your ficticious h3ll since it IS one of those deadly sins.
LGBT rights are a human rights issue. There is no real danger in them, unlike alcohol and guns. There is no good reason anyone should not have these rights. Any threat they supposedly cause is purely in the heads of religious extremists. No one has lost their child to gay driving. As a matter of fact, teenagers DO die committing suicide rather than coming out of the closet.
I get what you're saying about religious extremists trying to impose morality, but I think there is a logical argument to be made in the dry movement about safety, even if that wasn't the tune being sung at the time. I enjoy a drink as much as the next person- probably more, because I'm from Wisconsin, but drinking involves risks that LGBT rights do not.
They didn't lose their children to "gay driving", they lost their children to unprotected sex, and a lack of sex education. Obviously if there's no possibility of babies, no condom needed, right? They should be fighting the abstinence only sex education, not same sex marriage. Or sit down your kid with a banana and a condom and make sure they know it's not just about babies.
The gay marriage/equal rights movement appears to be inevitable as history marches forward. More people are changing their minds and the older generation, where anti-gay stereotypes are strongest and where opposition to equal rights is greatest, is dying off being replaced by a more elightened younger generation. Such major movements are sometimes slow, but inevitable.
California allowed same sex marriage until, like the repeal of prohibition, the old order was restored by voters.
1. The adjectival form is DemocratIC.
2. The Prohibition movement was hardly something that arose out of the DemocratIC Party alone. The constituencies that made up the Democratic Party incluced immigrants from "less savory" parts of Europe as well as Southerners and Catholics -- hence the epithet made famous by Dr. Samuel Birchard during the 1884 Presidential campaign (Birchard supporting Republican candidate James G. Blaine). This alliterative slogan captured what many believed to be true: the Democratic Party was against "core American beliefs": the prohibition of alcohol, that Catholics' loyalty to the pope was exclusive with being American, and that (Southern) Democrats had threatened to destroy the Union.
3. The historical term Progressive applies to members of both political parties including Teddy Roosevelt, initially a Republican President.
There would be much less crime and fatal accidents and our healthcare costs would plummet. Productivity would improve.
I can't think of one palpable improvement to our society by having laws against homosexuality. What societal ill is being remedied?
In the case of alcohol, it's one of those meet the world where it's at kind of issues.
1. There is alcohol in the world.
2. There are many people that know how to produce alcohol.
Therefore, if you try and make alcohol illegal, people being people, they will continue to produce it. The only difference is now it's completely unregulated because some guy's just making it in his basement. Who knows whats in it or how strong it is.
That being said, I do agree that comparing alcohol consumption to homosexuality does not do the LGBT community any favors.
I think you got that I was speaking in hypothetical terms. No way will alcohol be eradicated, it's an accepted drug. Just look at "unaccepted" drugs, such as meth and coke. Are they going anywhere?
The Religious Right didn't come into being until the 1970's.
http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/prohibition.html