I read the September 8, 2008 New Yorker letters to the editor and a bit from one letter reminded me of my righteous anger. I’m angry about the way the conservative (often religious) right-wing community depicts and scapegoats the LGBT community – particularly right now with Proposition 8 on the ballot in California.
excerpt from letter to editor written by Robert Hinton:
[...] consider the possibility that our anger may be the primary barrier to our progress [...]
Which reminded me (since it mentions Martin Luther King, Jr. and Selma) of this portion of MLK, Jr’s speech in Montgomery, Alabama on March 25, 1965:
And so I plead with you this afternoon as we go ahead: remain committed to nonviolence. Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding. We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man.
Change a few words and it deftly challenges my anger towards the Proposition 8 supporters who want to take away my family’s rights — “Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the conservative religious right, but to win their friendship and understanding.”
