Believing where we cannot prove

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Andrew, Jr.

AJ,

I see what you are saying. But what about those glbt folks who lived as such back in the 20's-30's-40's and so on? We cannot ignore their presents here on earth. That would be wrong.

I'm not saying we should ignore them. That's not what I'm saying at all. I am painfully and personally aware that my parent's generation is closer to being entirely gone than they are to being in the majority. The generations I'm talking about are those born between around 1900 - 1925 (my parents generation of which the leading edge (first decade) are almost ALL gone and the trailing edge (my parents) are largely gone).

Let me also clarify that I'm not talking about the LBGT folks from that era. I'm talking about those generations as a whole It is simply true--by any study one might care to read--that people who grew up in the 20's and 30's are MORE likely to feel that gays and lesbians do not deserve the right to marry or that interracial marriage is somehow wrong than people who grew up in the 80's or 90's. (And before anyone objects I'm not talking every single person born in the 20's or 30's) Since they are *extraordinarily* unlikely to change their minds at this late stage of the game, when they are gone the balance of political power will simply shift to a different center of gravity.

Yes, I agree with you about the timeline. Society will not allow us to go backwards in ignoring racial and sexual orientation. Too many people are out, and companies are adjusting to domestic partners (benefits). The problem is with obtaining the same rights as hetro. We all are deserving of that.

On the whole I don't think we'll go back but (and it's a non-trivial but) I still worry. Why? Because my curiosity is so wide-ranging and, in part, because I'm the child of people for whom 'The War' means WW II, I have read a lot about 'what went wrong' in Germany. The United States in many ways (but not economically) reminds me a great deal of late-stage Weimar Germany. The first gay and lesbian organizations were formed in Germany in the 10's and 20's of the last century. Berlin was the most cosmopolitan city of the age. Germany was THE place for the study of physics and mathematics. Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac...giants in science walked the German streets. That was the 20's. By 1935 the Nuremberg laws were passed and Germany descended into a barbarism that made everything before it look like so much kindergarten playtime. My fertile imagination can come up with any number of scenarios where we wake up one November morning and find ourselves in America where the newly elected President has promised that they will make America more free and return us to greatness but it will take returning us to our 'Christian roots'. Part of that will be the exclusion of gays and lesbians (we'll be the test case to see how much they can get away with) and then the Muslims in our midst. So barring some kind of theocratic descent into barbarism, yes we won't go backward. But I don't think that we're out of those woods yet and, unfortunately, I fear that Obama and the Democratic Congress are being spineless enough that it will set the stage for just what I fear.

As for faith, that is really a journey that everyone takes alone. It is like someone transitioning. It isn't something that a group does together. It's individualistic. I find it very insulting and offensive when people think it is their business as to why someone like myself does have surgery, but doesn't go on hrt. It blows my mind. Like why is someone Catholic, Buddist, Jewish, or Wiccan. It isn't my focus. It is that person's. Does this make sense?

It sort of makes sense but any given individual's religious beliefs do not concern me. In the words of Jefferson 'what you believe neither picks my pockets or breaks my leg' and as long as that it true, I don't care. What concerns me is what happens when people share a common belief and then decide that society should be ordered according to that belief. If that belief system is open-ended and amenable to evidence then, largely, no harm and no foul. Even if bad decisions are made they can be corrected. It is when non-evidentiary beliefs are made into public policy that things become horrific. Please note that I'm not talking about atheism. Communism had as little evidence going for it as any theistic religion or New Age belief and it was a *horror* to live under. This is entirely about society giving what amounts to a free pass to ideas that have no evidence behind them.

Given the history of our species and given our species absolute LOVE of finding an Other and then coming up with new and unendingly creative ways of doing bad things to that Other, we ignore the problem of non-evidence based beliefs driving public policy at our great peril.

Cheers
Aj