This has been an interesting time for civil rights and our perceptions of the people still fighting for them. We’ve seen a (half) black man elected President of the United States but we’ve also seen a major civil rights setback in, of all places, California, one of the most liberal places in the union. So what gives? How are some groups overcoming large hurdles while others are struggling to clear even small ones? How is it that when one group makes significant gains, another just takes it’s spot in line, asking for the same things that we’ve just given to others? Where does this cycle end (before we get down to Furries, I hope)? And why am I asking so many damn questions?
Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: just because Obama has been elected President, the problems of blacks are far from over. Racism will not just up and disappear, poverty and crime in our nation’s poorer minority areas will still be rampant. But that’s not to say that this isn’t a significant victory, not just for blacks, but for everyone who has ever been held down because of outdated prejudices, because it is. What we see here is the embodiment of the American dream, yes you can come from any background and aspire to be what you want, as long as you put in the work and have a good head upon your shoulders. In Obama, we see people looking past skin color and seeing just a man, a man that we hope can turn things in this country around for the better. So why is it, that in the same year we have this historical and monumental event in which we look beyond a man’s race, can we not look past something else that is a substantial cause for division: one’s sexuality.
It came as a shock to many that one of the most nationally talked about ballot measures, California’s Proposition Eight to ban gay marriage, had passed. I mean, this was California, the state that has made medical marijuana readily available, the home of Hollywood and the porn industry! What the fuck were they thinking? It seems to me, that as willing as we are to except some new change in regards to treating others equally, there are still a few groups we, as a mass, somehow deem unworthy of equal rights. Right now, in the middle of our crosshairs, are gays. Gays are now fighting the same bigotry that other groups (women, racial minorities) have fought successfully in the past. No, they don’t have to use different drinking fountains and their sexual preference does not inhibit their right to vote, but they are the new targets of nonsensical legislation aimed at denying them the same rights that straight people have. Of course, we are talking about the interpretive definition of one word. Marriage.
The argument is tired at this point; if gays are allowed to marry, then dogs and cats will live in harmony, men will start marrying their toasters, and the whole fabric of the space/time continuum will break apart and we will be sucked into another dimension where we will all be forced to do slave labor for Jabba the Hutt while listening to Nickelback. While this makes no sense whatsoever to any reasonable minded person, I am almost happy that this is the problem that many gays are now facing. The fact that the passing of Prop 8 has become such a cultural hot button issue, attest to the fact that gays have become a much more noticeable and voiced segment of our population, which is only a good thing. While coming out is still a huge step in any gay’s life, one that is still subject to ridicule and scorn from peers and family members alike, the fact that they are able to lobby, this intensely, for equal rights in the realm of marriage is a huge step forward and one that brings along with it, a sense of hope. Yes, people may not be comfortable enough with you getting married to someone of the same sex, but they seem to be getting more comfortable about the fact that you are gay in general.
So if, in fact, gays have started to move on to larger battles, who is next in line? What group of people has a “personality quirk,” which despite not being of any real damage to society, finds it hard to divulge such information to the general public in fear of ridicule and shunning by their peers? The answer: atheists. The “A-word” is still very taboo, especially here in the United States. A disturbingly large number of people equate a lack of belief in a higher power with a general lack of morals, regularly using non-believers as scapegoats for society’s ills (“If he had just been a good church going boy, this never would have happened!). You see it everywhere you look, in churches, on TV, “boycotts” of films with atheist themes (boycotts only in parenthesis because they’re never really successful). Having all these things thrown at you at once, and you can be put in a very precarious position, and that’s just from people you don’t know. The real damage, like it is with homosexuals, comes from the people close to you.
One of the striking similarities I find between gays and atheists, is that other people (usually religious), tend to look at a person’s admission of either as a failure of the parents. If they had just worked harder, done something different, little Johnny wouldn’t have turned into a heathen (just imagine if he was gay as well! They just might call a priest over right then and there to perform some sort of emergency cleansing!). Now, your parents may not mind the ridicule, and if they are well reasoned people, they shouldn’t. But it is unfair to us, for others around us to have to suffer such ridicule for a something that they had no control over. Let into us all you want (in a perverse way, I’d actually enjoy it), but holding our loved ones responsible for what you deem our moral failures is downright reprehensible. It’s bad enough that we have to worry about what our parents will think when we tell them the news, the last thing we need is for some self-righteous douchebag to kick them if they’re down.
Some will make the argument that I really cannot compare the coming out processes of gays and atheists, as one is come upon by research while the other does not occur by choice. And yes, while that may be true, us atheists are not born believing what we do (nor, for the record is anyone else), when you hold a position that goes against “proper society,” you begin to sympathize with others who have had, and eventually had the strength to overcome, such plights. And if that view (or trait) des not hold any real threat to society, then the sense of hatred hat society feels towards these individuals is not only unwarranted, but it is unnecessary. As we become a more tolerant society, just like we have many times in the past, we will learn to accept not only atheism as a normal and (dare I say) healthy viewpoint, but whatever comes up next will become accepted as well. There are no atheists in the foxholes, we’re not out to corrupt society, we just want to be able to be open about our beliefs without having to deal with constant ridicule and demeaning. And if we can convert some of you in the process, well that would just be icing on the cake.
