No matter how slowly you heat the pot…sooner or later the water comes to a boil…

Anti-same-sex Marriage Amendments Spark Distress Among GLBT Adults And Families, Says New Research

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Amendments that restrict civil marriage rights of same-sex couples – such as Proposition 8 that recently passed in California – have led to higher levels of stress and anxiety among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults, as well as among their families of origin, according to several new studies to be published by the American Psychological Association.

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Participants reported feeling not just alienated from their communities, but fearful that they would lose their children, that they would become victims of anti-gay violence or that they would need to move to a more accepting community. Some of these anxieties were mitigated by social support.

For instance, one interviewee said he became "petrified …of being raped or roughed up or killed, you know, for doing nothing, basically. I worry about being picked out as a gay guy because my mannerisms are not entirely masculine." Another said the marriage amendment supporters were using the Bible "like a brick on us. They are beating us with it."

Social support from religious institutions, families, GLBT friends and heterosexual allies led most of the participants "to greater feelings of safety, happiness and strength," the researchers wrote.

And in the third study, 10 family members of GLBT people living in Memphis were interviewed regarding how anti-GLBT initiatives and movements had affected their family. Their responses were also grouped into clusters of similar themes.

"Some participants identified so deeply with their family member’s experience that they felt equally attacked by these movements and policies," the researchers wrote. "They considered themselves members of the GLBT community and experienced rejection by others for being a GLBT family member."

"Typically, we tend to think of anti-GLBT policies such as marriage bans and Proposition 8 as affecting only GLBT people. However, our research suggests that others in addition to GLBT people are also impacted by this legislation and sometimes quite negatively. For example, we learned that some family members experienced a form of secondary minority stress. Although many participants displayed resiliency and effective coping with this stress, some experienced strong negative consequences to their mental and physical health," said Jennifer Arm, M.S.

Emphasis mine.  Hold that thought for a moment…

But of course…this is what was supposed to happen.  When louts like Lee Benson call us "sore losers" don’t be fooled.  They know exactly how we feel about having the knife in our hearts.  We’re supposed to feel that way.  And they take a good deal of self righteous satisfaction in seeing the impact hit.  We are supposed to be sore losers.  What we’re not supposed to do is fight back. 

What anti same sex marriage amendments are supposed to accomplish, particularly in states where same-sex marriages, and same sex couples, have no legal status to begin with, is further alienating gay people from their communities and their families.  That is the point.  Not that we aren’t supposed to marry, but that we are not supposed to exist.  God doesn’t want us here on this good earth.  The faithful are only doing their part to insure that we understand this.

At some point, it all boils over.  The wave of anger and revulsion after H8 passed was just a taste of what is to come if the religious right keeps hammering away at same sex couples.  Rex Wockner was getting a tad jittery a few weeks ago at all the rage being vented by gay people against their tormentors.  But it wasn’t just gay people who were out on the streets.  I suppose he was worried that the haters would start killing us in retaliation or something.  It’s easy to forget, because the deaths happen one lonely life at a time, that gay people are being killed all the time.  The struggle turned violent a long time ago.  Before Stonewall even.  And that’s not counting the suicides.  Humans kill themselves for a variety of reasons, most of which are personal and private.  But when a people are constantly and relentlessly driven to it, you have to ask yourself if that isn’t a kind of murder too.  There is already a lot of gay blood on the pavement.  What happens next, is that straight blood starts splashing down on it too.

Take another look at this article.  The stress is noticeably affecting the families and friends of gay people now too.  What happened after election night this year, was that hundreds of thousands of our heterosexual family members and friends stood with us on the streets, angry and outraged at what they can see now, finally, at long last, is happening to their gay family and friends.  What you have to understand is that isn’t going to make the haters back off.  It’s going to scare them.  And like the guy in Easy Rider said, it won’t make them running scared, it’ll make them dangerous. 

Over at Pam’s House Blend, Pam is reporting that some of the righteous folks behind Proposition H8 are planning to take out a full page New York Times ad, to accuse gay people of a campaign of violence…

According to our source, the ad will cite an incident where a white powder was sent to a church, and "document" disruptions of services at houses of worship. The Becket Fund is also allegedly contacting like-minded anti-gay organizations to request that they sign on to the ad. 

Matthew Shepard.  Nicholas West.  Scotty Joe Weaver.  Barry Winchell.  Thanh Nguyen.  Michael Burzinski, Gary Matson and Winfel Mowder and Billy Jack Gaither and Brandon Teena and William Metz and Carl Warren Jr. and Aaron Webster and all the others listed Here …and all the tens of thousands of tens of thousands more whose names we know and whose names we don’t.   A campaign of violence has been going on and on and on for generations against gay people.  It is considered so unremarkable by the bigots, and by most of the country still, that when gay people start fighting back they can accuse Us of creating a climate of violence without even smirking. They’ve been looking the other way at violence toward gay people for so long, they really think we’re the ones starting it.

What’s coming next, is that the families and friends of gay people will start dying too, because the bottomless hatred that moves the bigot is unable to distinguish between queers and queer lovers, anymore then it was able to distinguish between niggers and nigger lovers back in the 1950s.  The crime that finally shocked the nation during the struggle against race segregation in America, was the killing of three young civil rights workers in Missisisippi, two of whom were white.  I prophesy now, that somewhere, right this moment, their hearts beating, young and full of life, are one or more heterosexuals who have an appointment with a bloody and grusome death in the jaws of the same mindless sub-human beast that has been killing gay people for generations.  They will die for the crime of loving their neighbor as themselves.  And when love is put to death for loving, what is left within the human heart to take its place?  It isn’t the rage of gay people Wockner needs to be afraid of.