This is what we have to deal with
Asguard said:
Our laws state discrimination by ANYONE Including the crown on the basis of race, religion, gender, marital statice, breast feeding, sexuality and I think even in some areas criminal history and possibly a few others I have forgotten is illegal
Well, that is a nasty nexus of tangled threads having to do with various cultural differences. To wit, the Crown's general influence in the world has declined; that is, Her Majesty's subjects have already experienced the disappointment of such a dramatic loss of stature. Certes, the Empire still has its clout, but there
was a time when the Crown its people practically ran the world. But, of course, there is also the Australian experience; always an outsider, Down Under, on the rim of the world. Australians have spent a majority of their history clamoring for the respect they are legitimately due. They, too, have specific trends about how they view the relationship between people and their identity politics.
The thing is that the United States not only is a young nation in terms of tradition, it also tends, culturally, to loathe tradition. As a result, we can sometimes be seen clinging desperately to what looks an awful lot like protean insanity.
And what this has to do with everything else is simply expressed:
Equality and privilege. Every political struggle is a class struggle, or so it is sometimes said. There are many ways to illustrate the arrangement, but a rough analogy of a pyramid scheme works well enough.
At the top is wealth and power; this is obvious. Fanning out, spreading out among greater numbers, are those who benefit because of the wealth and power.
The Universe is the Practical Joke of the General at the Expense of the Particular, quoth FRATER PERDURABO, and laughed.
But those disciples nearest to him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow.
Those next to them laughed, seeing the Universal Joke.
Below these certain disciples wept.
Then certain laughed.
Others next wept.
Others next laughed.
Next others wept.
Next others laughed.
Last came those that wept because they could not see the Joke, and those that laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke, and thought it safe to act like FRATER PERDURABO.
But though FRATER PERDURABO laughed openly, He also at the same time wept secretly; and in Himself He neither laughed nor wept.
Nor did He mean what He said.
(Perdurabo)
But what of the people who aren't directly in the pyramid? What of those who are not Perdurabo's disciples, so to speak?
What is happening in the United States is that those within the pyramid are, proportionally, fewer and fewer. That, at least, is the first thing; the rarefied privilege is less and less accessible to an increasing majority of society. This, as you might imagine, causes some frustration.
At the same time, though, those at the top of the pyramid are using their resources to shout loudly about traditions, which has some effect.
Among those traditions is one worth noting: Americans have a deeply, almost neurotically supremacist and xenophobic outlook. Part of this comes from our rebellious, revolutionary spirit. Much of it comes from people who want to get into Heaven. And we cannot discount as insignificant the contribution of privilege.
As a result, it's a striking list, essentially involving anyone who isn't a white, Protestant male. Catholics, blacks, women, indigenous people, Chinese, Jews, Irish, Italians, Hispanics ... it's to the point that we're borrowing other people's prejudices; there is a subcurrent against Eastern Europe that I've seen in television, video games, and even people complaining that aisle signs in a grocery store were written in English, Spanish and ...
gasp! ... Russian. Hell, what was that Eastern European mob flick a few years ago? Oh, right, that was a Cronenberg film, so maybe it doesn't count. Um ... Joe Pike novels? Robert Crais is a bestseller, and led off a series with an Eastern European crime syndicate. And, you know, I recognize that the name "Darko" is convenient for writers, but come
on. Oh, right. Sorry. I digress. But I recall Russian Jews of old, muttering about the Cossacks, and stuff like that. But, yes, the whole thing with Eastern Europe seems a bit desperate for disparaging people according to culture.
Still, though, that is part of the point. Right now, they're down to gays, and when they lose that fight, the bigots will haul out ... oh, I don't know, maybe the incestuous? Or the polygamous? Maybe the bestial?
The point is to have someone to hate.
There is a lovely bit lost somewhere in a couple thousand pages of Brust ... okay, I overstate. Eighteen hundred? Anyway, two servants—House of the Teckla, the lowest socio-political stature among the seventeen Houses—talk randomly about life, the Universe, and everything. Part of what they discuss is how people seem to need to feel superior to others. Well, who do the Teckla, then, feel superior to? The Easterners, who are another species altogether. And who do the Easterners feel superior to? The Serioli, yet another different species. And who do the Serioli feel superior to? Well, everybody else.
There is ths craven, neurotic
need Americans suffer; we need to feel superior to other people. It's easy enough to feel superior to uneducated backwater yokels earning a dollar a day on a good day; just look at all the shooting and executing and raping they do! And it's why we love ribbing the French so viciously.
But it works internally, too. Go down that list of anyone who isn't a white male. We're running out of people we're allowed to feel inherently superior toward. And the liberal social scientists are taking away our right to feel inherently superior toward cultures suffering socioeconomic setbacks, so it's getting harder to feel superior to the shooting and executing and raping uneducated backwater yokels earning a dollar a day.
At its heart,
that is what this is about.
Some—many, enough—believe that one wakes up one day and arbitrarily decides to become homosexual. That is the choice argument. These people believe that one
chooses to be gay. Despite the increasing weight of scientific evidence suggesting that homosexuality is an inherent trait, many people—generally conservative—have made clear that they believe one chooses for the hell of it to become a despised minority.
What is less clear, though, is
why someone would make such a choice.
There are some suggestions, but there is a just question of whether restricted sample availability can augment the appearance of reliability.
Even then, though, it's a neurotic complex.
So one might note that States Rights are not dead, though this is hardly one of our shining examples to be proud of.
But the sum effect is that they have not outright lost the homophobia argument; conservatives still have cards left to play, even if it's a bunch of swindles pulled out of their sleeves. It is a significant enough effect that Republicans are willing to stake offices on issues like civil rights and women's health care. The sum of that, in the end, is that more conservative locales have fewer civil rights protections for gays.
I mean, this is Virginia. Being the Ultrasound State, admittedly, isn't as bad as being the Just Close Your Eyes state. And who knows? Maybe Virginia Republicans want the notoriety. After all, Governor McDonnell got rid of employment civil rights protections for gays and lesbians.
No, really. In 2010, he rescinded a 2006 executive order from the previous governor—Democrat Tim Kaine—that included sexual orientation. And then he issued a new one that was identical, except for the omission of sexual orientation.
No, really.
This is what we have to deal with. They'll figure it out, eventually.
