What is it with this country with its backward political tactics? Why is it that whenever people are finally able to stand up for a political fight that it turns into a street brawl with chains and shovels? I do of course mean that figuratively, but not by much sadly.
I will let you watch the video and you can see what I mean here. If you can't or you just want to read my recap, then read on. Otherwise just skip the next paragraph.
The video starts with a nice group of people in Albany bellowing out the same spiel about the preservation of marriage and protesting against same sex marriage. What happens next is bizarre to say the least. They are invaded by protest-protesters that are supporting same sex marriage and begin to not only heckle but start screaming at the speaker and attempting to shout down his message with his own brand of loud mouth tomfoolery. The video holds images of them shaking bottles with rocks in them to raise the sound up making it hard to hear, and the whole approach was just plain hostile. They even have one person on the video jokingly threatening to kidnap a child there. Also the reporter said that in a separate spot in Providence, they did the same thing with even attempt to bull charge the podium to shut down the entire event.
Seriously folks, how in the heck are you supposed to get a clean and healthful image when supporters of your political desires are going to attack like this? I will say that there comes a time that peaceful protest is push to its breaking point, but its no where near there, nor is it a subject that will ever get there.
Supporters of same sex marriage have always seen the same type of reactions and only with time do others get to see how ridiculous most of those reactions are. Never once has any one decided that it would help the cause by silencing the other guy.
We need to work toward acceptance of homosexuals in socity. This cannot be achieved by silencing the other guy. We need to convince the other guy that his fears are not legitimate, we need to convince the other guy that no damage will come to the country by allowing it. We have to dismantle their arguments as well as enhance and propagate our own.
People need to realize that never before has homosexual issues came up to be political issues. We are on the side that has something to prove. It is not them, they have their status quo. It is us that needs to show that homosexuals and homosexual supporters can cohabitate without causing damage and even making life better.
How do actions like this help that? How many people were swayed by this tactic? How many of those people said, "wow, they sure are loud, maybe we should agree with them."? I know that this event is not one sided, i know it as i know my name, but this kind of publicity does not do anything helpful and it gains nothing.
People have got to think smarter than this. We need to think better than this. We need to be beyond the age where might makes right. We need to be beyond the point that we think that yelling and being disrespectful will cause any real change. This is not the 1800's any more. We do not have as much trouble getting our own message across. We do not have trouble being heard. What we have is trouble getting people to listen. That is something that only time and proper discourse can do. Not hostility and violence.