 |
| From Sun Club Color Studio, of Mobile, via Action News 4 Pittsburgh. |
Let’s just imagine the situation reversed. In Alabama, for instance, let’s say there was a Thanksgiving parade. Traditional marriage advocates wanted to march holding signs about marriage – [jump]Hm. I'm having a little trouble gaming this one out. The Mobile or Tuscaloosa Thanksgiving Parade isn't going to let you march because why?
even though the parade’s focus was on gratitude. If the organizers told the marchers “no,” and then a business decided to pull out of sponsoring the parade, would that business get respectful coverage from the mainstream media and activists?
"I'm sorry, Ma'am, our parade is all about Thanksgiving, so carrying signs in praise of marriage sends the wrong message." And then, say, Hobby Lobby, or maybe the Sun Club Color Studio, distressed that the grateful refuse to make room for the wedded, withdraws?
Why do I think this is not going to happen, in Alabama or elsewhere?
Obviously in spite of its name Thanksgiving in Alabama is not about gratitude but football, which used to be regarded as incompatible with marriage and homosexuality both, but that view is now dated, and in any event it's a separate issue.
Trinko's point seems to be to show how reasonable the parade organizers are when they perform this psychodrama every St. Patrick's Day—you liberals are always saying how intolerant we are, but how would you feel if it happened to, well, Alabama? But it wouldn't, of course, because this whole thing about the "aboutness" of parades and their messages from which alternative messages could be a distraction, like we have nothing against gay Irish people waving their signs except that it would make our parade complicated to watch—this whole thing is entirely spurious. It's never had to do with any parade ever in the history of humanity.
In the first place a parade isn't a text, to be "about" something, but a pretext, not a story explaining a certain kind of solidarity but the solidarity itself. Whether the Thanksviving meal is about gratitude or not (to me, that's about solidarity too) a Thanksgiving parade, other than the show business one at Herald Square, is generally about supporting a football team, and nodody's excluded except the enemy. Which is Auburn if you're Bama and Hackensack if you're Teaneck High School and so on.
That's why you can't build the analogy in a way that makes any sense, because there wouldn't be any believable reason for excluding any group of fans from a Thanksgiving parade unless you hate them, as there's no valid reason for excluding anyone from an Irish solidarity parade unless they're in some sense anti-Irish (19th-century Lodges and Cabots, I suppose, taking their carriages up Beacon Hill).
So there's no message for a gay Irish contingent to distract from, unless it's a secret message, that there aren't any gay Irish people (St. Patrick drove them all out on the grounds that they were snakes in the grass), which we know to be false. And no reason to allow them to participate in the proposed way only from inside their closets, other than that denial.
A better speculative analogy would be to imagine a group of traditionally married people crashing the Gay Pride parade, not to cast any aspersions on the majority of the marchers, just to assert themselves. How would you like that, liberals?
And the answer would be, I think, sure, why not? The message of the St. Patrick's Day exclusion is an illiberal one, and liberals just won't do it. Indeed, the invitation's already been extended:
Why do I think this is not going to happen, in Alabama or elsewhere?
 |
| Thanksgiving fan, via RollBamaRoll. |
Trinko's point seems to be to show how reasonable the parade organizers are when they perform this psychodrama every St. Patrick's Day—you liberals are always saying how intolerant we are, but how would you feel if it happened to, well, Alabama? But it wouldn't, of course, because this whole thing about the "aboutness" of parades and their messages from which alternative messages could be a distraction, like we have nothing against gay Irish people waving their signs except that it would make our parade complicated to watch—this whole thing is entirely spurious. It's never had to do with any parade ever in the history of humanity.
In the first place a parade isn't a text, to be "about" something, but a pretext, not a story explaining a certain kind of solidarity but the solidarity itself. Whether the Thanksviving meal is about gratitude or not (to me, that's about solidarity too) a Thanksgiving parade, other than the show business one at Herald Square, is generally about supporting a football team, and nodody's excluded except the enemy. Which is Auburn if you're Bama and Hackensack if you're Teaneck High School and so on.
That's why you can't build the analogy in a way that makes any sense, because there wouldn't be any believable reason for excluding any group of fans from a Thanksgiving parade unless you hate them, as there's no valid reason for excluding anyone from an Irish solidarity parade unless they're in some sense anti-Irish (19th-century Lodges and Cabots, I suppose, taking their carriages up Beacon Hill).
So there's no message for a gay Irish contingent to distract from, unless it's a secret message, that there aren't any gay Irish people (St. Patrick drove them all out on the grounds that they were snakes in the grass), which we know to be false. And no reason to allow them to participate in the proposed way only from inside their closets, other than that denial.
A better speculative analogy would be to imagine a group of traditionally married people crashing the Gay Pride parade, not to cast any aspersions on the majority of the marchers, just to assert themselves. How would you like that, liberals?
And the answer would be, I think, sure, why not? The message of the St. Patrick's Day exclusion is an illiberal one, and liberals just won't do it. Indeed, the invitation's already been extended:
Yesterday, Catholic League president Bill Donohue was complaining about Guinness pulling its support from the St. Patrick's Day Parade, because organizers don't allow gay groups to march with signs in the annual event. Then he said he wanted to march in the NYC Pride parade, with a banner that says, "Straight is Great." Well, as it happens, the gay pride parade's organizers are totally cool with that!In a statement issued this morning, David Studinski, the March Director of NYC Pride, proclaimed, "Mr. Donohue and his group are free to participate in the 2014 March. His group’s presence affirms the need for this year’s Pride theme, ‘We Have Won When We’re One.’ Straight is great - as long as there’s no hate." NYC Parade Managing Director Chris Frederick also said, "Straight allies are great. We have thousands of straight people participating in the Pride March, including Catholic groups, who support LGBT youth, families and married couples."
