Us and Them

We are citizens of the United States, the “land of the free,” where “all men are created equal” and are supposedly granted the freedom of speech and religion among other things. It is because of its freedoms that this nation attracts a diverse range of people. With this free ideology then, why is it that minorities are often tolerated rather than accepted? Are those tolerated privy to the same inherit rights that the dominant, or general public has access to? Through analyzing these questions, we will develop a better understanding of how free our nation truly is.

Leading up to California’s highly controversial vote to ban same-sex marriage on November 4, 2008, an abundance of propaganda was sent streaming through various channels of media. One particularly influential piece of media that was used to support a “Yes” vote to ban same-sex marriage was a YouTube video titled, “Proposition 8 — Made Simple.” The video, created by ProtectMarriage.com, illustrates a “Plain English” description of the history behind the vote on Proposition 8, as well as a fictitious circumstance between a heterosexual couple, Tom and Jan, and a gay couple, Dan and Michael. In the ad, though Tom and Jan are neighbors and close friends with Dan and Michael, they decide to vote YES for Proposition 8 on the basis of family and moral values. The relationship between the two couples provides an excellent example of the use of tolerance as a façade for acceptance within society.

Tolerance is often a product of an interaction between two or more conflicting social groups. In the case of same-sex marriage and gay rights in general, there are those that are strongly against gay rights, those that are proponents for gay rights, and then there is an intermediary group described by Ann Pellegrini and Janet Jakobsen as the “tolerant middle” (Jakobsen and Pellegrini, 56). The tolerant middle essentially describes the group of people that represent neither parties of radically different views, but instead they are more equivalent to what is deemed the general public, or “‘middle America’… the assumed audience and the assumed subject of public address” (56). Within this piece of propaganda it is heterosexual couple, Tom and Jan, who represent this “tolerant middle.” The narrator of the video describes Tom and Jan’s “realization” that, “they can respect Dan and Michael’s lifestyle choice without affirming and embracing their lifestyle.” This essentially describes how they are tolerant of the homosexual relationship of their neighbors, however when asked to accept their relationship as one of equal value to their own heterosexual one, they are unable to do so. As a result, Tom and Jan are creating a clearly defined distinction between Dan and Michael, and themselves, where “tolerance sets up an us-them relation in which ‘we’ tolerate ‘them’” (50). The “we” within an “us-them” relationship directly refers to the general public and therefore poses “them”, or the proponents of gay marriage, as the minority within this community. The dividing properties of an “us-them” relationship in turn create a social hierarchy placing the “tolerant middle” at a higher status than the gay rights proponents. In doing so, the dominant public is often illustrated as being a group with higher, or at least more popular, moral standings that is able to reach down with the vehicle of tolerance to the lesser, minoritized group. One must ask however, if the illusion of acceptance through tolerance is wanted by those minoritized?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI-GjWY-WlA