Pouring My Art Out

(or); Maybe I need to be more open-minded about closed-minded people…

Once again I did a post that stirred up a hornet’s nest. I was just poking a little fun at a fast food chain, the owner of which decided to go on record as being against gay marriage. I don’t object to him having a personal opinion on this subject. What I object to is the way that he used his position as an executive to advance his opinion, thereby giving it a false sense of importance. I have the same sort of feeling when celebrities chime in on political matters, even if they happen to agree with my opinion. The only reason we even hear these people’s opinions are because they are famous and therefore have access to the media. I sort of feel that this corporate executive took advantage of his position of power to further his own agenda.

And to be totally honest, I don’t really like it when people use religion as the basis for making decisions that have to do with how other people live their lives. These are things we need to decide as a society. That is politics, not religion. And those are supposed to be kept separate in this country. If you object to gay marriage, fine. Vote against it. But don’t use the pulpit of your position to tell the rest of us that god is telling you what is right and so we should listen to you. There are a lot of people out there that worship the same god you do that have wrestled with this issue and come to the opposite conclusion.

All that being said, I am not saying that I have the right to tell you how to think. It is sort of easy for me to think I see what the right and fair answer to this dilemma is. I grew up in the most liberal part of the most liberal state in the country. I have lots of gay friends. I have no doubt that the world is becoming a more accepting place, and that someday people will look back on this issue and wonder what all the fuss was about. Just like we now look back on the civil rights struggle in the 1960s and try to figure out how people in the South thought they could just keep an entire segment of society living under separate rules. Or how about the right of women to vote? I bet there were a lot of men who thought god was telling them that women just weren’t smart enough to handle that awesome responsibility. Just something to think about, when you are deciding which side of an issue like this to take your moral stand on…

But I have to remember that many of you are nowhere near as old as I am. And I had a little reminder of what I was like when I was young show up on Facebook. Back in the day, as they say, I had this friend named Lisa. She was a few years older, and moved to the Bay Area from New York. We used to have some pretty good parties at her house. She dug up a few pictures of one of those parties and posted them on Facebook…

I took the liberty of covering up the faces of most of the people in the picture. I left the guy in front in, because that is my friend Bryan Kehoe, and I have done posts about him already. But let us take a moment to observe the tall, handsome fellow holding up the wall and a drink of some sort. Oh yeah, that is me. Back when I was about 20 years old. I started drinking when I was about 15, and I was pretty serious about it. I guess one close look at my slack-jawed face will confirm that. Do I look like someone who was concerned about whether everyone in society was being treated fairly? Do I look like someone who agonized over the injustices done to the gay community? Not really, I have to say. Don’t get me wrong. I was politically aware, and had a certain innate sense that any kind of discrimination was just plain wrong. I drew my little cartoons and comics decrying unfairness. I did poems and songs and stories about justice and fair play. But that was as big a stand as I was willing to take. I was too busy chasing girls and… well, I don’t really remember everything I was too busy doing in those days, but you take my point, I hope.

These pictures are from way back in 1980 or 1981. The world was changing. The civil rights movement was not ancient history. They had just finished doing all these social experiments, like busing African American kids into the white schools to give everyone a fair chance at the educational opportunities available. A lot of people on both sides were not really thrilled by all this. Now, my daughter Mollie goes to school in a school system where the kids come from so many different cultures that there are 27 separate languages spoken in the homes that send these kids to school. And you know what? Despite whatever worries people had about these things, it is making America stronger and better.

Society adapts and grows and changes. Complete equality in every aspect of life for the gay community is inevitable. So choose the side you fight for with care. Don’t be that person who said that one race was not as good as another race, or one person was not the same as the next person. Don’t be on the side that says women aren’t smart enough to vote. Because some day you will have to explain to your kids or grandkids why you took that side, and it isn’t going to be as easy as you might think.

On the other hand, if you are in your early twenties, I apologize for poking fun at you over this issue. If you are giving serious thought to something so complex and divisive, you deserve my respect. Even if I don’t agree with your conclusions. Because this is what I looked like when I was your age…

And I don’t look as if I was thinking particularly hard about anything important.