Prop Mosque

Let me first say that I hate political debates. People get angry and nothing happens. Seems like a big waste of time to me.

That said, I need to come out of the political closet: everyone knows me as a "liberal", but I know myself as "conservative." But the arts community is full of hatred for conservatives. It's ironic, really. For all the "tolerance" that "liberals" supposedly speak of, they are the people who I am most afraid to admit my own beliefs, my own self around for fear of their hatred.

But you know what? I'm tired of being afraid. Hey, liberal artists! I'm conservative and proud of my beliefs.

"But I thought--!" Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm all about "tolerance" so how can I be conservative? Newsflash, bigot and conservative are not synonyms, just as liberalism and tolerance are not synonyms. According to our great president Abraham Lincoln (who, by the way, was a Republican, despite calling for the abolition of slavery; I guess not all "Republicans" hate people who aren't white, Protestant, straight, males!), conservatism is "the adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried." Weird, I see nothing about being a bigot in there.

The thing is, both "liberals" and "conservatives" are the victims of misunderstandings, prejudices, and stereotypes, just like everyone else. Just like I don't like identifying myself as "white", "18", "straight", or even as "artistic" because each puts me into a group I don't fit in 100% in, I don't like stating my political beliefs for fear of being put into a stereotype. I have liberal values and I have conservative values, but in the end, I stand behind our founders and our Constitution, not the whims of a particular era.

To call me white is to neglect that I was raised in part by family members who had been born in Honduras, a small, little-known country in Central America. To group me with all 18-year-olds is to put me with drug addicts and people with real jobs alike. To simplify sexuality to a yes or no (gay or straight) question is to deny others any middle ground. To label me artistic is to forget every other aspect of me.

I don't support Prop 8: not because I think gay marriage is unquestionably right, but because I believe our government has never been given the right to decide religious issues such as marriage. I don't oppose the "Ground Zero Mosque": not because I believe in the symbolic progress toward tolerance it represents, but because I see no way in which our government has reason to intervene. Prop 8 and the mosque are both issues that have exploded into huge ones because of what they represent, but they're simple for me: our government exists only to protect the minority from the oppression majority, so no matter the issue, it is simply a matter of protecting the inalienable rights of everyone, including the not-as-popular groups, like conservatives in the world of liberal arts.

So there you have it: a "conservative" who supports gay and Muslim rights. Because the Constitution tells me so.