It's ok to discriminate against gays in Indianapolis
Last week the city-council of the 13th largest city in America chose not to protect gays in the workplace and in the housing market. There have been measures to protect homosexuals in the workplace in 152 other cities in the United States including fellow Hoosier cities Bloomington and Lafayette.
The measure was killed by an 18-11 vote even though the Democrats hold a 15-14 majority on the council. One brave Republican voted "yes" and five Democrats voted against the measure. Four of the five Democrats who voted against the proposal were African-American. One of the councilman, Patrice Abdullah, was quoted as saying, "I don't think that I should be forced to compromise my integrity and my beliefs as to what God put here for us to obey and to accept." Do these black council members realize that the Ku Klux Klan once quoted the Bible to justify slavery? I doubt that we've come so far in society that they have forgotten what it is like to be discriminated against.
The Indianapolis Star ran an article on Sunday which attributed the success to an email barrage by conservative groups. Advance America, a fundamentalist Christian group had members send 12,000 emails to council members. As many as four or five Councillors may have been persuaded by this tactic even though polls suggested that the public supported the measure.
Many gays do not feel welcome here and will leave to the multitude of cities that will embrace them with open arms. The rest of us straight and gay will stay in a stagnant Indianapolis that is held hostage by fundamentalist bigots.
This reminds me of the Indianapolis that Dan Wakefield wrote about. Wakefield was an Indianapolis author who fled Indianapolis in the 1950s because he could not deal with a city whose morals were dictated by the John Birch Society. He detailed his displeasure and he detailed in his autobiographical novel Going all the way. Kurt Vonnegut left too for the same reason.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
The measure was killed by an 18-11 vote even though the Democrats hold a 15-14 majority on the council. One brave Republican voted "yes" and five Democrats voted against the measure. Four of the five Democrats who voted against the proposal were African-American. One of the councilman, Patrice Abdullah, was quoted as saying, "I don't think that I should be forced to compromise my integrity and my beliefs as to what God put here for us to obey and to accept." Do these black council members realize that the Ku Klux Klan once quoted the Bible to justify slavery? I doubt that we've come so far in society that they have forgotten what it is like to be discriminated against.
The Indianapolis Star ran an article on Sunday which attributed the success to an email barrage by conservative groups. Advance America, a fundamentalist Christian group had members send 12,000 emails to council members. As many as four or five Councillors may have been persuaded by this tactic even though polls suggested that the public supported the measure.
Many gays do not feel welcome here and will leave to the multitude of cities that will embrace them with open arms. The rest of us straight and gay will stay in a stagnant Indianapolis that is held hostage by fundamentalist bigots.
This reminds me of the Indianapolis that Dan Wakefield wrote about. Wakefield was an Indianapolis author who fled Indianapolis in the 1950s because he could not deal with a city whose morals were dictated by the John Birch Society. He detailed his displeasure and he detailed in his autobiographical novel Going all the way. Kurt Vonnegut left too for the same reason.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
posted by torporindy at 5/02/2005
1 Comments:
Hell yeah, I have. I really like Toronto. I even filled out a questionnaire after the election. I think Canada would take me, but those winters!
I have both a US and a UK passport and I could probably go live there, but once again it's hard. I have a house and a wife. We are both licensed professionals. We don't really want to start all over again.
Plus, there is some good in America. I don't want to abandon it and leave all of the good aspects to those bastards that I detest.
I don't understand it though. Americans and Canadians lead pretty similar lives. We share a common culture, a lot of the same media, the same background, etc. How is it that Canadians are so much more tolerant? Less jingoistic, more concerned for the collective good of society. I don't know, but it amazes me.
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