Obama Gets It: Gay People Are Fully Human

Gara LaMarche says that the president's evolved view on gay marriage is a reminder that we mustn't deprive anyone of his or her humanity. Suggested Reading The Real Tea Behind Tina Knowles, Mathew Divorce Suge Knight Claims Tupac’s Mother Made This Shocking Move in His Final Moments Spoilers: Black TikTok Has Theories on Whether Taraji’s…

Gara LaMarche says that the president's evolved view on gay marriage is a reminder that we mustn't deprive anyone of his or her humanity.

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Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?

Yesterday's watershed declaration by the President on same-sex marriage made me think about an experience I had with the class I taught this semester to prisoners at Eastern Correctional Facility. It's a course on social movements, and when I was putting the syllabus together, I included classes on abolition prohibition, civil rights, and labor, but also wanted to deal with a few contemporary issues and movements.ย  New York State had just passed marriage equality, and I thought that would be a good, fresh issue to focus on โ€ฆ

But I was struck in comment after comment, in the very candid exchange we had in the final class, how much each person spoke about his pain about the dehumanization of prisoners โ€” about their own dehumanization, seen as "animals," written off as dangerous, useless, a set-apart "other."

And then I realized that in writing about the need for gay people to be seen and understood as fully human โ€” as just like everyone else โ€” my students were also, or maybe even mainly, talking about themselves.ย  They made the connection, and they felt a personal sense of solidarity with a group they felt that many in society were eager to marginalize, make "other."

โ€ฆ But what I learned about solidarity in that prison classroom was a poignant and profound moment for me, and it has been been very much on my mind since the President's words yesterday.

Read Gara LaMarche's entire piece at GaraLog.

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