By Matt Bors.
First the gays came for the county clerks…
Cartoonist Matt Bors riffs on Martin Niemöller’s famous quotation about the holocaust, to pitch-perfect effect.
12 thoughts on “First the gays came for the county clerks…”
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Oh-oh! Looks like homophobia, smells like queen spirit.
Dear Matt, I suspect you are fortunate enough to be too young to have been around in the great Uranus conjunct Pluto period (1967). In those days there was a seminal underground artist (not dissimilar from yourself in style and content) called Robert Crumb. One of his creations, Wonder Warthog, protected mankind from the Pigs of Uranus, large-penised muscle studs whose like could only rarely be observed while on Sandoz or Owsley in the backrooms of gay leather bars in a fantasised ‘Frisco. (I’ve looked for frames on the net but although mentions are made, actual pictures are as rare as chickens’ teeth, or the studs themselves.)
Many gay people are not in relations, and so the concept of gay marriage is politically meaningless. Perhaps, as Eric suggests, it would be better for their psychological well-being if they did plunge their todgers into those dark passages where the sun doth not shine. Nevertheless, their upbringing or perhaps personal decisions prevent them from doing so.
I think it would be much more beneficial if young gay people were accorded understanding by their fellow planet inhabiters, and not subjected to hysterical homophobia, bullying and gross ignorance. To be totally cliche-ridden, would you really have the balls to publish this cartoon if it maligned blacks, women or Muslims? Please do not subject gay kids to prejudices that they do not deserve. Life as a queer is still hard, despite liberal “understanding.”
Of course, I appreciate your humour, coming as it does from now. I hope that, in the future, you will be able to look back on it as an historical moment, as curiously dated as:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_a_Bunch_of_Sweeties
Here is a recording laid down in London in 1972. The lyrics are by Gilbert Shelton and taken from the Warthog’s strip cartoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X040xBUQY70
With love and respect for you and your talent.
Geoff
This is not homophobia. This is Matt ripping into the minds of these twisted people. For those who don’t live in the United States the irony may be lost. I was cracking up just from the headline. We are so sick of this bullshit nobody has any idea.
PS
he’s not kissing up to PC
he really is making fun of the paranoia of fundamentalist loonies
In that case, I do find this cartoon obscure to the point of obfuscation. Whatever Matt’s intentions, it makes very good propaganda for the fundaloonies as it stands.
Of course I could be wrong, and maybe it just doesn’t translate well. I don’t recall “the homosexual agenda” gaining traction in the UK, although I suspect its effects are manifest in organisations such as The Alpha Course and the New Life Church which sprang up around the same time here, promoting aggressively anti-gay sentiments encased in family-friendly re-introductions to Christianity.
The real irony for me is in the nature of Jesus’s sexuality. It seems obvious to me that he was homosexual.
He almost certainly means to mock the right wingnuts and their artificial panic about allowing gay marriage. However, I do not think this comes across particularly well, Geoff, and I share your discomfort. Not his best work by any means.
With love
Amy x
Many thanks for your support, Amy. It’s most appreciated. xx
He is mocking what used to be called The Homosexual Agenda.
The lawyer for Mrs. Davis, overpaid Kentucky clerk, claimed that we’ve become Nazi Germany:
“Back in the 1930s, it began with the Jews, where they were evicted from public employment, then boycotted in their private employment, then stigmatized and that led to the gas chambers. This is the new persecution of Christians here in this country.”
Huckabee likes these comparisons too, uses them about Planned Parenthood, etc.
This is a direct hit on the radical-right’s delusion of persecution — where, I wonder, would they be without it?
I didn’t say it was homophobia, I said it looked like homophobia. Literally, the cartoon tells of someone who wishes he had spoken out on behalf of Ms Davis when she was arrested for not fulfilling her duties to issue marriage licences for gay couples. After that, although before that in real time, bakers are prosecuted for refusing to make wedding cakes for gay couples, again because of their religious beliefs. It then proceeds to suppose that the logical outcome of legalising gay marriage is the legalisation of bestiality. The final frame illustrates the very essence of homophobia – heterosexual people should be very afraid of homosexuals because the latter’s intent is to incarcerate them in concentration camps.
This may seem ironic and amusing to you. It is not amusing to homosexuals who suffered such a fate under the Nazis in World War Two. In any event, I am certain that gay kids will find it unhelpful in combatting the prejudices they experience every day in school, at home and in general.
As a celibate gay men, I don’t give a toss about marriage rights, although I accept that there are many gay people who do value its legalisation. What I think is more important is that society should show gay kids that their situation is understood, that every effort is made to socialise them into the mainstream, and that this very normal sexual variation which has been part of society since before the dawn of man is not used to alienate and devalue people who have, perhaps, a different and more valuable viewpoint on the human condition to add to the sum total of our human experience. I don’t get that from this cartoon.
What is ironic is that in Britain it is generally accepted that Americans have no sense of irony, whatsoever. It’s a given. Ironic, that, isn’t it?
The topic of “lost in translation” is upon us in this conversation, I think. And I can see how this would register as hostile to LGBT folk if they don’t have the American view, Geoff.
Here, across the pond, we are just now pushing down the walls of religious oppression — known as the fundys, the snake handlers, the American Taliban and assorted members of the Kim Davis fan club — that has sought more than its equal share of power on these shores since the Mayflower landed.
Those on the left are fighting to re-establish a healthy separation between church and state, before it’s too late (although some of us have all but given up.) And while you guys, it seems, are suffering an up-tick in repression from an energized right-wing, we, unfortunately, have never been without one.
That said, our gay population knows EXACTLY who to thank for their persecutions, so I’d lay money that very few of them would find this ‘toon offensive. In mulling this overnight, looking for a way to illustrate, I think you could draw Jews in persecution of Nazi’s and get the same kind of surrealistic disconnect, an absurdity that flies in the face of accepted reality.
And Bors is also pointing up another important aspect of this issue: the Pubs have one tried and true method of stunning their opponents into silence and that is to accuse them of doing the very thing that they’re doing, pretending innocence. It is the epitome of hypocrisy, illustrated in this ‘toon. Kim Davis demands liberty to make us all prisoner of her religious convictions — upside down and backwards, just like this cartoon.
Which is not to say that your desire for gay (kids OR adults) to be accepted as normal is happening easily here, that’s still part of the fight to separate church and state and establish basic civil rights and privileges. Remember that at the moment (and unbelievably!) we’re still talking about the Dred Scott law that prevents Negroes from either freedom or citizenship, although that whole question was settled over a century ago. Those who want to fight against modernity will — as the Bible puts it — be with us always.
Here, in the American outback, there’s a thin veneer of acceptance for gays covering over deep hostility encouraged by churches, and by right-wing politicians, who know feeding the culture war keeps citizens from actually noticing policy that victimizes them. But things are changing, and quickly if we factor in the general approval of gay marriage. As is often the case, things are much less hostile on the coasts. My grandkids in California have best friends with two Moms, who recently married — my little granddaughter was thrilled to be in charge of the guest book.
If we want a clear example of evolution, we can see that in our younger generations acceptance of sexual differences. My many gay friends and loved ones all fought for marriage, although I had “the conversation” with most of them, not being much of a marriage fan any more. Still, I understand that social normalization is at the heart of it, human rights and equality, and that is ALWAYS worth fighting for.
One last thing — this conversation has made me newly aware of how difficult these cultural “translations” can be, how easy to step on toes, offend when no offense is intended, yadda. And that’s worthwhile, my dear. Especially as its apparent that we’re ALL being charged to become diplomats with one another, here on our very small and crowded planet.
What Judith said — and thank you, Judith, for explaining the translation so well. I’ve been offline almost all weekend and was surprised to see the reaction to this cartoon.
Geoff — thank you for letting us know how this cartoon did not translate. I stand by my initial reaction to it (I wrote the little excerpt that shows on the front page, since I post our two syndicated cartoons each week): for me, on this side of the pond watching how the far-right twists things (such as comparing the “gay agenda” and whatnot to the Nazis), this cartoon is brilliant.
Thank you so much, Judith. “Lost in translation” is exactly what’s happened here, I think. Another part of the problem for me is that in Britain we tend to believe that whatever America does today, we will be doing in a couple of weeks’ time. This can make me very nervous about some of the moves I see emanating over the western horizon. Despite this particular confusion, I am pleased that my antennae are still active!
I’ve felt ever since gay legalisation in Britain (1967) that it wasn’t a right that was being granted so much as a piece of political expediency. The notorious Kray Brothers, gangsters from the East End of London who happened to be gay, had infiltrated the aristocracy and were causing concern over possible blackmail and exposure at the highest levels of British society. Around the same time, Lindsay Anderson’s critically-acclaimed film “If….” openly acknowledged what was common knowledge about same-sex goings-on between pupils at one of Britain’s top fee-paying schools where future government ministers were educated. The Russian KGB were also busy hard at work turning these ex-public schoolboys, now ambassadorial staff, into spies and informants by taking compromising photographs of them in bed with handsome young soldiers. The best way to defuse these threats was to decriminalise buggery and minimise embarrassment and the risk of blackmail. It was a strange love, but there was a way to learn to stop worrying and love the come.
At the time, much was made of the sentiment that homosexuals should not show public rejoicing at this liberalising of the sodomy laws. Needless to say, within four years Gay Liberation Front was marching hand-in-hand down Oxford Street in London once a year. In a very real sense legalisation for me was a major disappointment. Politicians hadn’t suddenly realised what a sad and bad thing it was to treat homosexuals in this way, they were essentially saving their own from public disgrace and humiliation. (Lesbianism had not been made illegal at the same time as male homosexuality because Queen Victoria simply would not accept that women would do such a thing.)
To come back to the point – legal is still legal, and it’s better than the alternative. The BBC ran a very moving documentary recently – Louis Theroux, I believe – about transgender kids in America. Quite mind-blowing by British standards where, after almost 50 years of legalisation, the backchat concerning gay people is still primarily negative but where violence on the streets is rarely identified as homophobic in order to protect the feelings of relatives who “didn’t know” their boy was gay.
It’s a pleasing story about your granddaughter, and an encouragingly hopeful sign, I’m sure. In the meantime, “Ever Vigilant,” just to be on the safe side.
Much love.
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