I believe you are laboring under the misconception that moderate Republicans can be swayed out of supporting queer exterminationists by appeals to queer people’s humanity and decency. This is not the case.
My dad loves me, his openly queer child. Like, really genuinely loves me. I know because he’s forgiven me for doing some truly awful shit to him. He’s an amazing dad in some respects. He does not think there should be any legal prohibitions on queerness, and I don’t think he cares much one way or the other about queer people. He also votes for queer exterminationists on the regular.
It’s not as though I’ve never tried to point out how this hurts me, either. I have made it very clear to him that I feel betrayed by him continuing to vote for people who want me dead. I have told him directly that it endangers me. He apparently does not believe that I personally am in enough danger to warrant him changing his voting patterns, or perhaps he believes that the alternatives are more dangerous to me somehow. I’m not entirely sure.
Granted, I don’t know if my dad counts as a “moderate Republican.” He considers himself a libertarian. But I believe he is the sort of person you are talking about: a fence-sitter. Someone who isn’t really an ally but doesn’t outright hate us either. And I think his response is typical of those people.
Some people will simply never, ever give a shit about something until it becomes their problem. This is how you get genocides: Not by the majority being violently bigoted, but by the majority being apathetic.
What do you do, then, if you can’t appeal to their compassion? The only option I can see is to become a group that is Not To Be Fucked With. You hit us, we’ll hit back harder. Bigots won’t let us live and moderates won’t help us thrive. All we have is one another, and we have to unite and rally around our shared interests in order to save ourselves. Respectability politics only divides us, and we can’t afford that.
I believe you are laboring under the misconception that moderate Republicans can be swayed out of supporting queer exterminationists by appeals to queer people’s humanity and decency. This is not the case.
My dad loves me, his openly queer child. Like, really genuinely loves me. I know because he’s forgiven me for doing some truly awful shit to him. He’s an amazing dad in some respects. He does not think there should be any legal prohibitions on queerness, and I don’t think he cares much one way or the other about queer people. He also votes for queer exterminationists on the regular.
It’s not as though I’ve never tried to point out how this hurts me, either. I have made it very clear to him that I feel betrayed by him continuing to vote for people who want me dead. I have told him directly that it endangers me. He apparently does not believe that I personally am in enough danger to warrant him changing his voting patterns, or perhaps he believes that the alternatives are more dangerous to me somehow. I’m not entirely sure.
Granted, I don’t know if my dad counts as a “moderate Republican.” He considers himself a libertarian. But I believe he is the sort of person you are talking about: a fence-sitter. Someone who isn’t really an ally but doesn’t outright hate us either. And I think his response is typical of those people.
Some people will simply never, ever give a shit about something until it becomes their problem. This is how you get genocides: Not by the majority being violently bigoted, but by the majority being apathetic.
What do you do, then, if you can’t appeal to their compassion? The only option I can see is to become a group that is Not To Be Fucked With. You hit us, we’ll hit back harder. Bigots won’t let us live and moderates won’t help us thrive. All we have is one another, and we have to unite and rally around our shared interests in order to save ourselves. Respectability politics only divides us, and we can’t afford that.