Day 37/Rant

When talking about homophobia and horrible countries that pass anti-gay laws we often think about Putin's Russia, Uganda, Mugabe, and such. These places are more or less far and their society are perceived as traditional, old fashion, nothing like our Western society that is so amazing.

Yet we needn't look so far from home... We forget homophobia is on the rise everywhere, even in Europe. I feel awful whenever I tell my girlfriend I can't hold her hand when we're walking in the centre of Brussels, the capital of Europe. She doesn't hold it against me but I get angry at our society where I can't feel safe because of who I love.

A week after Kansas almost did the same but gave up at the last minute, Arizona passed a bill that would allow businesses to refuse to serve or give medical treatment to gays on religious grounds. First off if you want to get biblical, according to the scriptures, you should hate the sin, not the sinner (Matthew 5:43-44, 6:14-15, and plenty over other verses would help make a good judgement) and besides, didn't Jesus hang out with the worst sinners, wasn't he kind to each and everyone of them?

Then I can see the signs that would hang on the cafes', restaurants', medical clinics' doors; "No Gays Allowed." And that brings at least two images in my mind: one is WWII when signs like "No Jews allowed" were common and the American racial segregation era where not the Jews but the Blacks this time were the victims of such injustice. There are more examples,like the South African Apartheid, French Algeria, etc. All these periods are not so far from us in our past though. We sometimes hear the motto "Never Again" when learning about these events, which is fair enough but what does it mean? Does "Never Again" mean that we should never victimise the same group of people and that we should find someone else? (I know that's not true because anti-Semitism is also on the rise in Europe).
We often justify the teaching of these facts in school by the theory that no one should forget because these parts of History should not be repeated. it seems to me that not everyone got the memo...

Now, although the bill will probably not be passed into law (touch wood), it is extremely scary that a lot of people still think that way in 2014, to think that someone would [legally or not] choose not to save my life because of who I love. America likes to criticise other countries for their inequalities (gender, freedom of speech, etc.) but instead of creating inequalities at home, wouldn't it be wiser to help end them elsewhere? Just a thought...

This makes me terribly sad and mad, and in the words of Sookie Saint James, I'm smad. I'll return to my natural optimism later though...

Shabbat Shalom everyone!

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