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posts about #yeptheyregay more → Ellen & Portia Tell Oprah About The Importance Of Gay Marriage
New York, 1:21 PM
Thu Dec 17
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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Ellen & Portia Tell Oprah About The Importance Of Gay Marriage |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
11/10/09
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I was very happy that they were legally bound, and can receive the same rights and privileges as hetero couples. They seem very much in love, although, truth be told, Ellen seemed to have a lot of therapy-speak mixed in. She seems to have lots more to work on. Portia seemed the more centered of the two, but maybe because she is not in the spotlight as much. That level of fame, esp. connected with the issues surrounding the couple, must be overpowering at times.
Give me fortune instead if fame any time.
12/04/09
It is one of the things that makes her such a great comedian. Her wit is so quick, sometimes her mouth can't keep up.
Think about what Ellen went through when she came out. It did disrupt her career, it did have a profound impact on her bankability and public perception of her.
It's hard to remember how far gay rights have come since Ellen came out. But lots of progress has been made. The success of Ellen's talk show is a prime example of how someone can be judged by who they are, not who they are attracted to.
12/04/09
That kind of fame and exposure has always seemed terrifying to me due to the effect it has on celebrities—how profoundly shaken up (or just plain confused) she describes that time period. Yeesh!
I'm hetero, and I wouldn't want my life splattered all over the tabloids, let alone being judged by many who still consider homosexuality taboo.
We live in a bubble in NYC sometimes, esp. in regards to the attitudes the rest of America lives by.
Which is exactly the PR brilliancy of an Oprah appearance. She's gives guests the Middle America seal of approval by easing her audience into "controversial" issues, kinda like guiding a toddler toe by toe slowly into a warm bath: she makes it safe for them to understand and discuss (and question) issues which might be frowned upon as conversational items in their typical social circles.
11/10/09
To be denied that access because of discriminatory laws is appalling. #oprahellenportiaderossi
11/10/09
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In my mind it's a big world and love is rare between people and it's not my place to tell others how to live. It's just not. I'm glad they are happy--I'm glad anyone can find that connection with another soul. We are all just people trying to make our way.
I'm of the opinion that souls don't intrinsically have a gender...and neither does God, who sees our souls. So the whole idea of a person's gender determining worth or wrong by acts or whatnot is moot. What imperfect people have decided to do by setting up societal rules is in and of itself imperfect.
Too crackpot? Maybe...but it keeps my life really peaceful. I'm not driven to expend energy in a negative hurtful way. #oprahellenportiaderossi
11/10/09
11/10/09
I wish gay marriage were legal, because then my partner could get on my health care, and get radiation and pain management, treatment that she needs to fight this cancer effectively. And then, we could have more children, because we won't be worrying about her dying any more... #oprahellenportiaderossi
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Marriage means so many different things to so many different people.
Anyone uncomfortable with gay marriage is either 1) insecure in their own marriage or 2) has wrapped their entire identity around being a spouse.
Or, they just take the Bible way, WAY too seriously. #oprahellenportiaderossi
11/10/09
Marriage is considered the ultimate validation of binary gender roles, and the goal of all gender conditioning. The entire belief in the infallibility of those gender roles, which is what allows the Patriarchal/Christian/Capitalist ideology to continue to hold power, rests on straight marriage remaining a cultural institution.
If gay marriage were legal & accepted in our culture, and forms of sexuality outside of heterosexuality were treated as equal (or even acknowledged as valid), all of that would be undermined. If being a lesbian is an accepted way of life, then culture doesn't tell a little girl she has to wear a dress when she doesn't want to. A four year old boy who speaks in a feminine voice isn't chastised until he changes it, if growing up to be gay is considered an option. Classes and sports don't have to be split along gender, and can't be, because it is acknowledged that you can't distinguish who is gay and who is straight or assume heterosexuality. So how do you deal with the locker rooms once you admit that members of the same sex may be attracted to one another? Starting from a young age, gender conditioning would become much more difficult and complex.
And if you can't program gender and start the inequality gap young, girls will be given the same opportunities in school as boys, and encouraged to succeed in what have been considered "boy" subjects. Neither gender will feel alienated from the other, which means that once they hit puberty, the straight ones among them will be able to pair off with less of the psychological damage that happens now, and less resentment or mischaracterization of the opposite sex.
Essentially, women will be treated as equals, and cease to be kept down by gender roles that condition them to be stupid, weak, insecure, accomodating, and less ambitious than men. Men will feel less pressure to be dominant, aggressive, competitive, and masculine, or to feel entitled or superior to women.
And that sense of the superiority and dominance of the masculine, and the servitude & nurturing nature of the feminine, is what Christianity is based on. God is the ultimate Man, and people are His servants (a feminine role in contrast). Next in line in the microcosm of that dynamic is the Husband, who is the God to his wife. The wife is stuck in the Mother role, having been convinced that it is her "biological nature" to have children & serve her family. Which distracts her and keeps her powerless, or as powerless as possible, socially, religiously, and politically.
Gender roles extend to almost every aspect of our lives in the world as it is now: We could think of our country as being masculine, and the world as being feminine. We control it, and it serves us, while other countries compete for use of it's life-giving systems and try to claim dominion over it.
In politics, the politicians are masculine, and the voters are feminine. The politicians define the rules and provide the resources, while the voters work within the politician's system and sustain it through their work, while always maintaining a sense of patriotism and commitment to the country that claims to give them everything that they have.
In our economy, the corporations are the men, and the consumers are the women. The corporations may be created by consumers, but they grow to become a set of entities that control the consumer, setting the standards, upholding and reflecting the cultural values and aesthetic, defining what the consumer's life experience is made up of, and providing the consumer with things they believe they need, as long as the consumer gives the corporation their time & money.
All of these things are accepted unquestioningly because the intrinsic nature of gender roles are taken for granted and assumed to be natural laws. If we legalized gay marriage, we would be admitting that the phenomenon of "gay" isn't a psychological illness, a sin, a form of sexual deviance, or a phase. We wouldn't be able to just deny it, ignore it, and exclude it's existence from our perception of reality. We would be forced to face sexuality and actually see it. Right now it's so ingrained in our every action that we're mostly not even aware of it (and those that are, are probably feminists). Gay marriage would offer a contrast & we would have an opportunity to realize how much of our life is not a universal experience like we assumed, but something specific to us, and something that has a cause, and an alternative.
It would be like seeing someone fly, and realizing that it isn't that you can't fly because humans can't fly and that's just the way it is, but that you possibly could fly, you've just never tried because you had been told so plainly, so many times, that it was impossible, and you never thought to try. Right now, it's like there are stories of people flying, and most of us know someone who can do it or who has seen it done, but either they're mistaken, or lying, or those people who can fly are using machines to do it, or there is something morally suspect to them & they can't be trusted. So that it happens doesn't seem to matter because it doesn't have anything to do with us. But if our government suddenly told us that those people really were flying, that it was natural and legitimate, and that they were guaranteed the right to fly just as much as the rest of us are guaranteed the right to walk, then suddenly, it does apply to you. And the entire system is revealed to be built on a lie.
Not only would it fall apart naturally, but once people realized they had been held back, limited, and lied to, and realized the power and freedom they actually had, they'd be pissed off at anyone who tried to control them again. Anti Gay Marriage people know that the lifestyle they live and love is in direct contrast with the fact of homosexuality. They know they're full of shit, but they're comfortable that way. They need everyone else to believe that they are illegitimate, powerless, and seperated from society as a whole, "real" society, because their way of life is so delicately balanced on denial and condemnation of anything that challenges their idiology that it would have nothing to stand on if any other way of viewing reality were considered a possibility.
I'm very sorry that this is so long.
But I've wondered for a really long time what the fuck these people are thinking, because it never seemed to make ANY logical sense. But I think that this is it, and if we can understand it, we can do something about it, because reason doesn't work, and most of them will overlook the constitution and basic human decency when it comes to gay rights so there really isn't hope of an argument that will convince them. The only thing we can do is strike at the vein & try to understand what's underlying the seemingly absurd things these people say & do to protect their paradigm... #oprahellenportiaderossi
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11/10/09
What if the government were to no longer issue marriage licenses, but instead grant civil unions to all couples regardless of their sex. Then, if the couple so chooses they may go to their place of worship and be married in the spiritual ritual of their choosing.
At the very least it seems like this could end the "sanctity of marriage" words war; but, I am an unmarried atheist so what do I know? #oprahellenportiaderossi
11/10/09
Words do matter. That's why Ellen and Portia call each other wife rather than partners. They want to be wives, and why can't they be?
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We were like eh, after being together for 24 years, erm, why mess with perfection? Marriage won’t change us. We share all finance matters, our names are co-signed to cars and property and I cook, she washes the dishes. I call for the pizza, she picks it up. By some miracle she is on my healthcare plan.
Having said that, being denied the marriage card STILL pisses me off.
So go E and P! #oprahellenportiaderossi
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We are welded together. #oprahellenportiaderossi
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My partner and I are planning a "marriage" in August-- I put that word in quotes because we live in PA, where not even civil unions are recognized.
It's important for us to have this ceremony, to declare our love in front of our friends and (hopefully) our family. But legal recognition would be nice, and it's tough not to have it.
Also I hope my mother shows up....
Anyway. Congrats on 24 years! #oprahellenportiaderossi
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I don't think I need to go into how ridiculous that there should be a vote on whether or not to give a section of the population the same rights as the rest of population. #oprahellenportiaderossi
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And yet they don't want the funny, smart, lovely Ellen to have a happy, legal marriage. #oprahellenportiaderossi