Whether you call them “special rights” or “extra rights,” it has long been the argument of the anti-gayers that what LGBT people want goes above and beyond the rights of “normal” people.
It reminds me of that scene in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” when Wonka gives each child an Everlasting Gobstopper. Veruca Salt turns to Violet Beauregarde and shouts, “Hey! She’s got two! I want another one!”
“Stop squawking, you twit!” Violet hollers back, holding up the single Gobstopper in her hand.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wonka is setting them up to lose the contest. He’s got the real power. But they’re too busy bickering with each other to notice.
It’s a pretty good depiction of Republican politics, actually. If you can make people believe they’re being ripped off by their neighbors, it’s pretty easy to distract them and get them to vote against their own interests. Like when Republicans convince married heterosexuals that gays and lesbians don’t just want the right to marry, they want to destroy the entire institution. Before marriage equality came along, it was a common argument that lesbians and gays had the same right to marry as everyone else, so long as it was to someone of the opposite sex.
Which brings us to today’s squawking twit, Ben Carson.
In a recent interview, host Matthew Franck asks Carson, “What will you do as president to guarantee that federal funding will not be used to force school districts to require girls to shower with boys?”
“You see how silly this is. It’s beyond ridiculous that you take the most abnormal situation and then you make everyone else conform to it,” Carson replies.
He continues, “So, you know, boys who say, ‘I feel like a girl today, I wanna go in the girls’ lavatory,’ that is such a bunch of garbage.”
Got it. Transgender kids are garbage. Also, Carson has no understanding of what a transgender kid is. And he’s got another guy, just as clueless, asking him to protect Americans from all of these boys trying to pull a fast one so that they can see girls in their underwear.
“That’s one of the very reasons that I have been an outspoken opponent of things like gay marriage,” Carson says. “I don’t have any problem with gay people doing anything they want to do.”
So long as they don’t want to get married, duh.
“Everybody is equal, everybody has equal rights, but nobody gets extra rights,” Carson continues. “And when we start trying to impose the extra rights based on a few people who perhaps are abnormal, where does that lead?” After all, Carson adds, gay people already have freedom of association.
“If gay people wanna have an association, they can have an association,” he says. “If they wanna have legal documents created so they can have visitation rights and share property, they can have that done. Without disturbing the whole system.”
In other words, homos and trannies, you’re all a bunch of freaks. And for that, you not only deserve to be discriminated against, but you should be thankful for having any rights at all! Now stop disturbing the perfectly happy heterosexual system.
“We are absolutely destroying ourselves because we are paying attention to political correctness,” Carson continues. “You know, our time is running out. If we don’t stand up for principles now and we get a progressive [president] and they get two or three Supreme Court picks, say goodbye to America.”
And hello to Gaymerica! Where everything’s coming up roses and there’s no business like show business! And Ethel Merman is on the $10 bill, obviously.
Oh, and where opposite-sex couples can’t get married, per se, but are welcome to try to cobble together some sort of legal relationship at a lawyer’s office. Have fun with your freedom of association. Because if it was good enough for the gays, surely it’ll be good enough for you.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock and roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister and teaches writing at the University of Michigan.