Fast-forwarding to the present, what I've found rather ironic is, when you mention polygamy to those who go on about the rights of gays to marry, their reaction is, "Uh...er...well...."
This is interesting. I agree, it's like African American vote against gay marriage in California. You wonder how an oppressed minority can be so insensitive to the plight of another one.
That's easy! 1) People are just people. Generally nobody is morally superior. 2) People are not just one identity. They're a mix of many different identities. Right? It's intersectionality. When I think of a "white" man do I think of Noam Chomsky or Pat Buchanan? The CIO at my company or the bum at the gas station who asked me for $2?
So the "black" people who voted against gay marriage were also conservative Christians or older people or people that didn't like what they saw as facile comparisons between gay struggle and black struggle or people that believed in traditional marriage or whatever. We can't just say someone is a particular race or gender and thus therefore they should feel this. Because their perspective on the world is going to be just as warped or as personal as any other person. And some of the "white" gay backlash over the issue was quite nasty and racist, which also besmirched their claim to the moral high ground.
I don't know if you've ever seen the show Weeds but I always cracked up at this scene in which the boy's grandfather shows an honest lack of empathy to other's problems. That is just part of human nature and can be found in all of us.
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Winter is Coming Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
