I made buttons with a bunch of people for the effort to defeat the anti-gay marriage amendment and voter ID amendment this November. They are to be distributed at the Pride Festival next weekend. I was with several people who don’t fit neatly into boxes: there was no telling whether they were gay, lesbian, straight, closeted, or in any of the varying stages of trans-sexuality.
And I thought about how, when people’s roles are fluid and not conventionally defined, you have to engage them as individuals. Your interaction with them is thereby enriched. "Scripts" are abandoned and new possibilities emerge, often beyond expectation.
There is a lot to learn from having a decent conversation with someone who is different from you. Yet people sometimes let their curiosity lead them into rudeness by, for instance, asking a foreigner, "What are you?" and giving them the uncomfortable impression that their features are being studied. In the same vein it is not okay to walk up to a person and say "Hola!" just because he or she appears Hispanic.
The people at this little button-making workshop were very different, but we were all similar in the belief that the right to vote and the right to marry are connected, and both of these issues are on the ballot in the upcoming state constitutional vote this November.
pseudoisaac 