Mom and Apple Pie

“When fascism comes to America , it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross." -- Sinclair Lewis


Wikipedia™, one of the most used internet reference tools, defines Fascism, in part, as “…the term often used to describe individuals or political groups who are perceived to behave in an authoritarian or totalitarian manner; by silencing opposition, judging personal behavior, promoting racism, or otherwise attempting to concentrate power and create hate towards the "enemies of the state". By such a definition, our country slipped many steps closer to becoming a Fascist police-state when the Bush administration assumed power in the year 2000 CE (Christian Era). In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Bush played upon the fears and insecurities of the people by promoting an agenda of increasing security in our country in addition to redirecting our country’s path back towards the “moral” (religious conservative) high road. As a result of Bush administration policies, and to an extent Republican Party policy as well we, as Americans, have had our basic constitutional rights violated on many occasions, all in the name of “saving Democracy and the traditional American family”.

Having our rights violated is nothing new to many segments of society. The GLBT community has endured its status as Second-Class Citizens for decades. Not content with merely violating our civil rights, we have now become a convenient scapegoat for the woes of heterosexual marriage and a threat to the very foundation of traditional American family values, despite numerous research studies and an ever-growing volume of data proving otherwise. Misinformation, along with propaganda, are useful tools in rallying the fanatical and the bigoted to the point they are willing to incorporate their narrow-minded prejudices into the very fabric of legality by amending their state constitutions to deny us the rights we never had in the first place, except recently in Massachusetts and overseas in other more socially-enlightened countries such as Britain and Spain where their elected officials have taken steps to safeguard the rights of their GLBT communities. This is nothing more than an obvious attempt to misdirect the attention of the American people away from the real issues and the problems we are facing as a nation.

The real issues that are threatening to undermine the American way of life are the loss of freedoms we have endured in the pursuit of the religious conservative agenda. The Bush administration has directly violated our Bill of Rights on at least two occasions, both of which consisted of violations of search and seizure laws concerning the rights of privacy of individuals. This is a serious breach that concerns all Americans, not just the GLBT community. By portraying the GLBT community as an “enemy of the state”, encouraging us to fight amongst ourselves over racial, sexual and other differences, the Bush administration has effectively shifted the focus from being an issue about civil rights, to the question of morality concerning GLBT rights by judging our personal behavior through the filter of their religious fanaticism. The issue of protecting the American family from the GLBT community is so dire that many ignore the fact we are sending our military personnel overseas to kill and die for oil, while fuel prices skyrocket and oil companies are earning record profits, again, under the guise of promoting Democracy.

When we head to the polls this year, we should ask ourselves, “Is this the legacy I want my children and future generations to inherit?” Will our bequest to them be a less tolerant, more violent and bigoted society, where humanity is reduced to a few simple labels and life is traded for oil and other commodities, or will we shake off some of the remaining vestiges of a brutal, primitive society and truly become a civilized species worthy of the title. Will we sacrifice our basic rights as human being in the name of intolerance? If we allow things to come to this, then one day the heterosexual community will wake up and realize you cannot condone the oppression of any segment of society without condoning it all, and in the end, it may come back to bite them in the ass. I just hope someone is around to say to them, “You didn’t complain when they took civil rights away from the fags, why are you complaining now?”