Bogotá's annual Gay Pride Parade had its usual color and flamboyance. It also came at a time of advance for gay rights. Two weeks ago, the notaries introduced new same-sex unions, which provide such couples with most rights of marriage, altho they don't use the word 'matrimony'.
As always, I wonder whether in-your-face spectacles like today's do the gay community any favors in the view of the conventional majority. After all, if sexual minorities want to be seen as neighbors, relatives and co-workers who just happen to have a different sexual orientation, this sort of spectacle doesn't help.
Paraders satirized the Catholic Church and hard-line conservative Ordoñez, who opposed expanded rights for gays.
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| Biblical matrimony? |
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| Catholic Church: Drop the homophobia and hypocrisy! |
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| Free people, secular countries. |
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| I'm hetrosexual and in support. |
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| A man representing conservative procurador Ordoñez leads the enslaved by the neck. |
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours
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7 comments:
I was in the gay pride parade yesterday in Chicago, It was amazing, more than a million people WOW. This country (USA) is also making a lot of progress when it comes to gay rights and, I so happy about it. Mike, why do gay people have to make it in a way that is not " offensive" to square and so call normal people??? It is not just about living your life the way you choose, but also expressing your ideas your own way, regardless of what they think is OK or not. Criticizing the Catholic church and Ordonez should be the normal thing to do and, not just by the Gay community, but by everybody. Tolerance Mike, is something that this world has to learn. People like Ordonez, and institutions like the Catholic church are oppressive and backward and It is about time to let them know that planet earth is changing for good. Con on Miguel, whats going on with you dude.
A lot of what these parades stand for is simply not what they gay community stands for in the long run. (This is an interesting piece in London's newspaper: http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/ivan-massow-this-new-gay-hedonism-is-not-what-i-fought-for-8678761.html) As good and decent the majority of the gay community are, they do not envisage a society such as that demonstrated by Pride. And those that supposedly see Pride as fulfilling their immediate selfish wants will themselves not appreciate the breakdown radicals are thirsting for. Gays want marriage to mean something that is why they crave for it already. Once marriage has been diminished, it will be diminished further... I see the next frontier being the right of Polygamists demanding the same right to marry. To that the gay community will then themselves become the bigoted. Marriage being conducted for polygamists as it is for gays as it is by a meaningless state with leave it all but an empty dead shell of a word. And all concerned will be wondering why of earth they all fought for it as hard as they did.
Hi Mauricio,
I'm all for criticizing government policies and officials. But the flaunting of sexuality, the spectacular hedonism, etc., seems way inappropriate to me - just as it would be if heterosexuals were doing it. And I don't think it does the gay community any favors.
As for polygamy, Stuart, I think it's qualitatively different from same-sex marriage. On the other hand, it seems to me that fundamentalist Christians should support polygamy - most of those Biblical prophets had lots of wives, after all.
Mike
hahaha!
I understand your point Mauricio, but I think Mike's viewpoint is purely pragmatic. Yes it would be great if everyone could be super tolerant of non-harmful behaviours, but that's not realistic. If the first target is to gain widespread acceptance of homosexuality as an expression of love, then simultaneously aiming to gain acceptance of homosexual sexual extravagance is only going to complicate matters.
Interesting response Mike.
I don't like to quote from the bible, but it is necessary to relay my understand of marriage in response to your comment.
“Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Hi Stuart,
That's a poetic quote, but I don't consider the Bible a guide for modern social policy - unless you want to bring back stoning of adulterers, polygamy and other such traditions.
In any case, the quote seems to be against heterosexual divorce, but doesn't say anything about other kinds of relationships.
Mike
It's referring to the creation of male and female genders with relevance to the union of marriage. It requires some logical thinking.
Judging by your after comments you seem to know very little on the basis of Catholicism and the corner stones of all Abrahamic religions, I am disappointed to say. :( I bigged you up to know more or at least as much as myself. Especially after living in a strongly Catholic society for so long.
You could read a little more into the Jesus quote here: http://guzik.biblecommenter.com/commentaries/4019.htm.
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