I was on Buzzfeed yesterday (because that's where i get my news do not judge me it could be Fox) and I saw an article titled "Illinois Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Repeal State Marriage Equality Law" and I was shocked. I has been so proud to live in a state where anybody could marry whomever. But, this isn't the only place where people's rights are coming into question. There is of course all the drama going on in Utah, the most conservative state. And it makes me mad, honestly, last night I was fuming about why people couldn't just get over the fact that a guy's gonna marry another guy or a woman's gonna marry another woman. What's the big deal? Is the world going to end? Will the sun explode?
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| No, no, not Melissa Etheridge, save me! |
As I was laying in my bed, grumbling, I realized that maybe this shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, if I really thought about it, America does not have the best history of social justice.Granted, we are better than some places (ahem North Korea cough cough) but we still are a long way behind a lot of the western European countries like Finland and Sweden. Using my limited skills of addition and subtraction, I'm going to tell you why, and together, we all can do third grade math.
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| Look it's even culturally sensitive clip art |
Let's say that the U.S. became a country in 1776. Technically, we weren't called the U.S.A yet, but we had officially told Britain that we were going out to go live on our own and cook ramen every night, so I'm counting that as us becoming our own nation. Now, we had slavery up until 1865 which was oh, about 100 years after the U.S. was founded. Then, fast forward to the civil rights movement. If you wan to be picky, this hasn't ever really "ended", but officially we could say around 1970. That is about 200 YEARS after this country was founded that we finally decided "Oh, I guess skin color doesn't mean much except that it's a different skin color because that's all it is." And women's suffrage? Yeah, it also took us nearly 150 YEARS to get the vote and I could go on a feminist rant but I know someone who does that and it annoys the cannoli out of me
So yeah, judging by all that, In guess it make sense that the LGBTQ rights movement is taking so long.
2 comments:
Shannon,I agree with you that people are very reluctant to change and accept that two people of the same sex can get married. I completely agree with you that it is crazy that is has taken so long for gay people to earn their rights, but historically civil rights take a LOOOONG time to become accepted by society.
Always hilarious, Shannon.
But let me challenge you: although your explanation of the relative "youth" of the USA as a country makes a lot of sense, perhaps think instead of WHY the news report affected you the way it did?
Was what the member of the IL General Assembly REALLY that consequential? Or is it an example of a small-town legislator rattling cages for attention? Or is it a way for Buzzfeed (just look at the name) to capture eyeballs on its site?
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