"The Proposition 8 battle is being fought on the street in San Jose. After one family claims a 'Yes on 8' sign was stolen from their front yard, they replaced it with a huge banner on the front of their house.
Supporters of marriage equality then parked an SUV directly in front of the house with a sign and arrow on the windshield, indicating "Bigots Live Here."
I applaud the efforts of these anonymous activists. They are exercising their right to free speech and displaying a non-violent form of resistance against our oppressors.
H/T to Towleroad
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
A Beautiful Display of Non-Violent Queer Resistance!
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18 comments:
wow...interesting post.
I have to disagree that this is a non violent form of protest. What if there are small children living in the household accused of being bigoted? It is damaging for the people living in the bigoted household. I understand that it is incredibly damaging for the families they are not supporting by voting yes (I happen to feel very strongly about bigoted individuals), but they have as much right to live in peace and have their opinion heard in a non violent way as do those who would vote no. It's okay to argue a point with an individual (although arguing with bigots is like arguging with a brick wall) but it is not okay to steal a sign from their property or to insinuate that they have any less of a right to their opinion as anyone else. Nothing will become of this situation if we simply let ourselves be walked upon, as many bigoted people would like, but at the same time fighting with them like this (and you can't honestly say that this display isn't a fight) won't help our cause at all. It will only anger them more, it will only make them go to their friends and families and ask that they also vote yes, it will only give them a negative opinion of the people who vote no.
I can't help but wonder if this shows their ignorance as well?
Rachel - I don't condone stealing the signs on either side at all. Everyone has the right to espouse their opinion. I do think the van is a great way to expose the yes on 8 position which is plain and simple bigotry. Look, there are kids in the house, but the parents don't have to explain to them what a bigot is if they don't want to. They can play it off as anything. To be honest I am sympathizing and on the side of the thousands of kids who are LGBT parents who will ask their parents why they are unable to get married and be considered a family.
As much as I hate to admit it, this is not the way to get messages across. Parade your opinions on your own property - not someone elses.
What they did was name calling - pure childish behavior. If they retaliate and write gays or fags live here? Is that not a hate crime then?
Just because we are gay and are fighting for equality does not mean we should stoop to an elementry level of name calling.
anon - I don't see it as an attack on the family, but an attack on their "morals" which ultimately hurt other families.
Plus they aren't on their property, the street is public and they can be in that place for up to 3 days before the police can do anything.
sorry, wanted to edit a spelling mistake so i deleted. my comment is: i am also torn about the way they went about it. perhaps parking a car with NO on 8 would have been better? i am a firm believer that most of those that are for this dumb prop do not know anyone from the GLBT family on a personal level. we catch more bees with honey. our actions are very important right now.
Personally I would slap NO stickers over all the YES's on their signs at least that what I did by my house! Thats makes them upset and they just end up taking them down HA! at least they aren't up. And personally what they do to there car is their problem not mine but i may want to help decorate it with shaving cream on the hood stating "bigot" not my fault shaving cream ruins paint OOPS. ok so i wouldn't do tha shaving cream thing but it would be funny. I disagree with "traditional" marrriage anyways and I'm not gay. Besides whose tradition is it?? not mine if it were most peoples Tradition then we ALL would be married in churches of Christ and all our fiances would be asking our fathers for hands in marriage ETC ETC, and we don't do that its almost 2010 why are we STILL singling out specific people of rights,not only did we do it with color before NOW we are doing it beaucse they are GAY... are you serious!? What has this world come to!? Its sickening honestly!
That real tolerant.
I hope nothing bad happens to the people
who have that on their truck...
I too would just go and put some NO stickers
over the YES ones too....
HUGS!!!!!!!!!!
While I do think that voting yes on 8 is a sign of a close minded person, I can't say that the labeling of the family is a great thing. It makes us hypocrites. I think that, while it is nonviolent in a sense, it is still a huge... just flat out insult to some people. It's mean, and yes, we do get the same thing, but giving it right back isn't going to solve anything. We have to break the circle.
Well said.
Nothing to applaud here. As a gay man, I feel that this is a display of ignorance on both sides
I am surprised how many of you don't agree with the course of actions taken. I love it, but maybe I see activism in a more radical non-violent form. The great thing about activism and politics is we all work toward achieving our goal and different mediums work for different people.
Actions do speak louder than words.
The sign on the SUV was redundant. There was aleady a sign on the house that said that bigots live there.
This is not about discrimination. This is about control. Gays don’t even understand the Agenda that is supporting them—they are blind to it because it supports their desires. They and their sympathizers must awake to a knowledge of what they’re really buying into. The goal of the Gay Agenda is total control over all schools, governments, businesses and churches. It will grind religion and the scriptures under its thumb because these expose it for what it is.
Gays call for tolerance, but the Gay Agenda is extremely intolerant of the opposition. Gays want to be accommodated, but the Gay Agenda is anything but accommodating. The Gay Agenda is one of dangerous destruction and subversion of the moral fabric of society. It paints its motives with rainbow colors to cover the black and white truth. Through the use of liberal news and entertainment, the Gay Agenda casts its members in a positive light while casting the opposition in a negative derogatory light. It portrays its members as pathetic victims of cruel and unjust oppressive discrimination, while labeling the opposition as vicious bigots and intolerant fear mongers.
In the corporate world they call it diversity. This has been pushed so far that one fears job loss should they dare express an opposing view. In politics they call it civil rights in an effort to garner sympathy in relation to the blacks. The blacks were among the first to dismiss this comparison. While it is true that one should not be discriminated against because of the color of his skin, it does not follow for homosexuality. On the one hand you have a physical trait which can be neither altered nor controlled. On the other hand you have a social-emotional trait which can be both controlled and altered. While it is not morally wrong to be black, it is morally wrong to be gay. While it does not damage the perpetuation of species, individuals, families and societies to be black, it does to be gay.
Gays have always had every right to marry, the same as everyone else does—someone of the opposite sex. There's a reason our bodies are made the way they are. Propagation of the species cannot happen in same-sex relations. Liberal news and entertainment have aided and abetted the Gay Agenda to the point people are buying into it and are sympathetic to it.
It's sad to see so many Christians suckered into the Gay Agenda's propaganda. To you I say: They've already got the hook in your cheek and you are being reeled in. But since you are still in the water you feel everything is okay. Soon you'll be yanked out of the water and thrown into the bottom of the boat to suffocate with the rest of the sucker fish who bit the hook.
One California lady commented that she'd vote no on Proposition 8, and that she was a "Christ loving believer, who chooses to follow Jesus' example of all inclusive love and radical egalitarianism." She fails to understand both the Bible and Jesus. God does not save people "in" their sins, but "from" their sins. Jesus did not forgive everyone, and of those he did forgive he always told them to "sin no more". Those who believe otherwise need to dust off their Bible.
Someone else commented about all the anti-Jewish signs and slogans of Nazi Germany, but reality only hurt his point. Those protecting traditional marriage have been the ones seeing discrimination and intolerance. Was it not traditional marriage supporters who had a van parked in front of their house with the words “BIGOTS LIVE HERE”? Was it not traditional marriage supporters who received vandalism and had supportive signs stolen? Nice.
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