"Civil unions" are the legal equivalent of a ghetto.

I've been thinking of the movie "The Pianist" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253474/) and the scene where the kid gets stuck under the wall.

If you're not familiar with it, The Pianist was based on the memoirs of Polish musician Wladyslaw Szpilman and directed by Roman Polanski, who was forced into the Kraków Ghetto as a child during World War II. The film depicts Szpilman's time in the Warsaw Ghetto at about the same time as Polanski's time in the Kraków Ghetto.

Polanski does a brilliant job of showing how the people were forced into the ghetto, how crowded it was and how people challenged the restrictions, such as sneaking outside the walls and the eventual uprising.

Smuggling food, medicine and other goods over, under and through the wall was common in the ghetto and was often performed by children.

I don't remember why the boy in the movie sneaked under the wall (it was based on something Polanski had actually witnessed) but he was killed as he tried to get back to his side of the wall.

The message was clear: there was only one side of the wall on which he was welcomed and he would be punished for daring to be on the wrong side.

And I guess that's the purpose of all ghettos: to keep one group of people separated from the rest by erecting walls around them.

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LINKS
* Video from the movie
* http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/review/2002/12/27/pianist/print.html">Review of the movie
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto">Wikip*dia page about the Warsaw Ghetto, with links to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pianist_(memoir)">Wikip*dia page about Szpilman's memoir
* United States Holocaust Museum's history behind The Pianist

Such comparisons only serve to inflame passions and are EPIC FAILS in our quest for equality, understanding and solidarity.

to the problem at hand.

You can get married now, there is just no legal recognition. nt

in the Krakow ghetto. It's a pretty disgusting comparison. In fact, it's fucking sick as shit to make that comparison. Now if gays and lesbians in Kansas or wherever were forced to wear pink triangles and live in a cattle yard with inadequate food, water, etc, you'd be on to something.

from your reply I gather you think they have absolutely nothing in common.

As a GLBT person on DU I get very sick of hearing that we are insulting groups, groups that we share a common history with. It comes across to me and many other gay people here that our story and our path is so revolting to some of you that we must not compare them to learn anything from it. Its sicking and homophobic IMO. Maybe you dont realise it but that is how your post is coming across to many of us.

of civil unions to the Krakow ghetto. Yes, the GLBT community does indeed share persecution with other oppressed groups, and has a tragic and appalling place in the history of the Holocaust, but the comparison was to civil unions and being imprisoned in the Krakow ghetto. That's just wrong on so many levels.

Perhaps YOU don't realize how your post denigrates what people- including gays and lesbians suffered in the Holocaust.

Homophobic? Fuck that. I'm completely committed to full equality for my gay brothers and sisters and furthermore I've actually worked my butt off for it here in Vermont for over a decade- and sunk my own personal funds into it.

Take your bullshit accusations of homophobia and shove 'em. Disgusting.

First off, let me say I'm not going to allow you to get this thread locked.

Secondly, I never did what you accused me of doing,

Please reread the OP carefully.

I posted that "civil unions" were a legal equivalent to a ghetto.

I never compared being in a civil union to being imprisoned in the Krakow Ghetto.

I merely pointed out that the movie made me think of the comparison, providing links to anyone who may not be familiar with some of the things I was referring to.

Please calm down.

Not as a physical barrier but as a legal barrier that was restrictive of one group of people, down to a basic human right, namely to have legal recognition of the right to marriage.

extensively. It was a lousy comparison. And no, I'm not trying to get your thread locked.

I dislike seeing history so misused.

... I did not "extensively" use the Krakow Ghetto in the OP.

I'm not comparing civil unions to the holocaust; I'm comparing it to a ghetto.

of ANY couple's partnership and EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW, INCLUDING FEDERAL TAX LAWS is our goal. What are the paths of least resistance? First is generational change. I have 2 bi-racial children who have not yet been offered the"exception" status that so contributed to Obama's win. Second is a willingness to be sensitive to others' sacred cows and peel them off TO OUR SIDE by using language that will appeal to their core values rather than hammer their knee-jerk reflexes.

However, as I said in another post (#14)



I have also been working on creating a new way to describe the rights of the GLBT community, "Constitutionally invisible."

Do you think that is better?

I'm horrified at how our GLBT of colour on this board are COMPLETELY INVISIBLE to the community-at-large. It seems to gather unto itself all their struggles as ammunition while WHOLLY IGNORING THEIR VERY EXISTENCE. It is my deeply held belief that we have been afforded a window of opportunity to find our solidarity and ensure that minority rights are NEVER AGAIN put on the chopping block of a simple majority vote. Gays AND BLACKS AND ROMA were murdered by the Nazis. That is not relevant to gay people in CA who are now flipping out as their families are threatened and understandably so. WHAT IS RELEVANT is that we cobble together the legal and people power to send the bigots running in fear to their bunkers, squealing like stuck pigs having relied on OUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT for their businesses while contributing to causes designed to harm OUR FAMILIES.

Boycotting businesses are great, since the GLBT community has been relegated to a ghetto-like part of the American public's conscience. Boycotts can work to remind everyone how much monetary value the GLBT communtiy has.

The issue isn't that GLBT people can buy things; they're citizens. It should be enough that they pay taxes, but we know it's not. Because they're invisible.

What has to happen is an overwhelming reminder of all citizen's rights to be recognized by the law as being equal.

This is going to take more than just boycotts; it's going to take awareness and a change in the fundamental application of the law.

The boycotts will hurt the target businesses immediately, awareness will last a little longer and the legal change will be more permanent.

This fight is essentially the same one that Booker T. Washington had with W.E.B. DuBois. Washington basically,

The argument over how best to be recognized is nothing new: politely and quietly accept the discrimination and status as an invisible citizen, or fight to be recognized.

The biggest difference between then and now is technology. Oh, and that the current generation has the benefit of having all that history to use to their advantage.

As far as your reading of my OP

I never said that gay marriage was the same as the Holocaust.

I compared civil unions to ghettos.

Look at it this way: if marriage were a city, civil unions would be a ghetto in that city. Walled-off and separate from services (benefits), the people who live in the ghetto pay taxes like everyone else, but due to "where they live" city fathers understand that it is acceptable to allow the infrastructure to be neglected. From schools to streets and everything in between, people in the ghetto get the services that are left over after people in the better parts of town are served.

Maybe I should have posted something like this in the OP, but I really don't see how people are taking this the wrong way.

the real problem with comparing the experience of LGBT people to the holocaust is that LGBT people were killed and tortured in the holocaust. I think CW's main point of comparison here though, isn't a genocide, it's apartheid walls in general. And apartheid walls can and do generally lead to overt or subtle attempts at extermination.

legal groups representing minorities and women are concerned because it could weaken Equal Protection (under California law) if a bare majority is allowed to strip minorities of fundamental rights, without a good reason for doing so. Even the Anti-Defamation League has joined in the legal arguments against Prop 8.

"Not us," says the angry crowd,

Whose screams filled the arena loud.

"It's too bad he didn't marry that night

But we just like to see his plight.

We didn't mean for him t' meet his union,

We just meant to see some fun,

There ain't nothing wrong in that.

It wasn't us that made him bawl

No, you can't blame us at all."

The rights of a minority CANNOT BE SUBJECTED to a simple majority vote. THIS IS THE CORE ISSUE.

Not just equal protection, but equal recognition by the laws that govern the country.

When one group can be sectioned-off into a separate legal area--"ghettoized" if you will--then there is no equality.

I have also been working on creating a new way to describe the rights of the GLBT community, "Constitutionally invisible."

Do you think that is better than using the term "ghetto?"

that is restrictive.

It's the loophole of "States' Rights" that must be closed.

The one the GOP loves to use whenever they get busted infringing on a citizen's rights.

They can claim that any group of citizens who are not specifically mentioned (i.e. "Constitutionally invisible") in the text of a law are not covered by that law. You'd think the 9th Amendment covers this, but the GOP and their legal sleeper cell The Federalist Society are really good at selective ignorance.

Putting equality up for a vote isn't democracy, it's mob violence.

Maybe I shouldn't have put so much in the OP about the holocaust, but remembering the movie made me think of the comparison.

As well as the Palestinian occupation. The Pianist? More like Schindler's list.

and all those who suffered in the holocaust by making this comparison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gay_men_in_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Holocaust

The amount of Homophobia on this thread is staggering. WW2 and the Holocaust IS part of gay history - its shared with Jews and many other minority groups.

then comes the one-two-punch, State Laws that restrict marriage.

Neat, how it all ties into one big happy white knot of oppression.

the anti-equality groups have done to gays an lesbians with laws what happened before to us as well as all the other groups targeted in the holocausts only with out the obvious physical ghettos. There is an very good argument that can be made that the laws the anti-equality groups are getting passed against GLBT people are resulting segregated physically as well (gay ghetto's exist for a reason - on of which is monetary which is directly related to marriage, right to work laws and other subsets of discriminatory laws on the books).

PBS radio had an author on the other day that just published a book on why people live where they do - which I remembered the name, it was fascinating - the author argued that people live only were their neighbors share monitary, political and social class- he did not get to much into the why n the radio but implied it was due to laws, history and culture. Ill have to go find that now :)

in a small rural town in a red state, in the Bible belt. The word spreads like wild fire and they aren't coming a' knocking with gift baskets. That's for sure.

I'd love to give something like that a rec all on its own.

You have to get a license from the state, then after you agree to the contract before witnesses, you both sign the paper work for the state, then the witnesses sign. It is a legal contract. The church wedding is just a show. You are not legally married until you satisfy the requirements of the state.

My marriage is a civil union, a contract we signed. It's lasted nearly three decades. We showed our intent before witnesses, to enter into the contract. A retired minister dressed in his best Hawaiian shirt presided. Before we could leave we had to make it legal by signing the contract. This took place in a restaurant, not a church.

Same sex marriage rights are about full equality under law, State and Federal.

anything you want. All that is really important in a church wedding is the public declaration that you agree to the contract that you will soon sign. All the stuff about God means nothing to the civil union (the contract).

... why is the American Taliban trying to control the legal language?

Why are they so bent out of shape over the definition of "marriage?"

trying to put the power of the state behind their bigotry. That would change them from a bigot to a "law abiding citizen" just like the Bible has been twisted to make their hatred an act of obedience.

They have created a god in their own image.

A Cabernet Merlot to be exact.

:spray:

I'll take a bit of Metaxa to ward off the cold.



Al

I'd just like the American Taliban the hell out of the law.

I am getting confused about who is married legally, metaphorically and spiritually. :rofl:

peace-

bd12

between you too, and the legal protections from that union. A marriage is a close personal union between two.

Not a civil union.

Marriage is a LEGAL TERM in this country.

I got MARRIED by a minister and signing the contract after the ceremony is what made it legal. However, according to the state, I'm a second class citizen who is merely civil unioned.