![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A moral majority imposing its religious tenets, specifically banning something that it considered sinful, upon an unwilling minority. Sound familiar?
It should: it's the story of Prohibition.
Something to consider, perhaps? I know I'm going to be doing some reading on the rise of prohibition and more importantly its repeal. It seems like we've all pointed out that the 18th amendment, the only amendment ever to restrict freedom, was struck down in the course of arguing against the FMA... but we always go on to frame our arguments with the language of the civil rights movement, we never extend the analogy and adopt the language of the movement that successfully repealed prohibition.
What if we removed "homophobia" and "bigotry" from the equation... what if someone who opposed gay unions was just described as a busybody? What if we removed "is it genetic or is it a behavior" from the equation... and remind the extreme religious groups that morality cannot be legislated. Last I checked, the prohibition party was not very well supported even among the more extreme groups which openly castigate homosexuality as the ultimate sin. By adopting the language of that movement, perhaps it would be possible to show the moderates of the nation that even if something is personally distasteful to them and their morality it should still not be banned outright from our society.
It should: it's the story of Prohibition.
Something to consider, perhaps? I know I'm going to be doing some reading on the rise of prohibition and more importantly its repeal. It seems like we've all pointed out that the 18th amendment, the only amendment ever to restrict freedom, was struck down in the course of arguing against the FMA... but we always go on to frame our arguments with the language of the civil rights movement, we never extend the analogy and adopt the language of the movement that successfully repealed prohibition.
What if we removed "homophobia" and "bigotry" from the equation... what if someone who opposed gay unions was just described as a busybody? What if we removed "is it genetic or is it a behavior" from the equation... and remind the extreme religious groups that morality cannot be legislated. Last I checked, the prohibition party was not very well supported even among the more extreme groups which openly castigate homosexuality as the ultimate sin. By adopting the language of that movement, perhaps it would be possible to show the moderates of the nation that even if something is personally distasteful to them and their morality it should still not be banned outright from our society.
