Hot topics: Gay Marriage: Wednesday assignment #4

Hello everyone,

In this blog, the focus will be on terrorism. It will focus on the idea that there is a certain strategic logic behind it. Robert Pape’s article “Blowing up an Assumption” and Charles Tilly’s article “Violence, Terror, and Politics as Usual” argues this point. The point also extends to the idea that no matter how random violence appears, the violence is not always random. I will also apply these ideas to gay marriage.

One note that Pape strongly makes is that the Muslim extremists is that they want what they consider their “homeland”. In his article, he says, “What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in seeking aid from abroad, but is rarely the root cause” (Pape 1). According to this, the Muslim groups in the Middle East are only fighting for what they believe is theirs. The religious forefront is only the face that they are showing. Now the religious face of is not a complete fraud. Since their religion is based off of the Judeo- Christian religion, the homeland that they claim they are fighting for is Jerusalem (as where Jews and Christian believe there holy homeland is as well). They, therefore, will use extreme tactics; including using a twisted version of their religion, to obtain what is current Israel as their country. They also use this twisted version of their religion to recruit new members and keep them as long as possible. Another aspect to this is that they want to be free from foreign influence especially from democratic Western influences. In the case, of all things, Americans being in Iraq and Afghanistan (and possible Pakistan and Iran), a main reason of the violence is to try to get the U.S. and their allies out of the region. Their religion dictates their life and do not want to modernize especially with the influence of the western nations like the U.S. and Britain.

In agreement, Tilly says, “In 1999, then, the State Department anticipated a distinction that took on enormous political force after Muslim suicide squads crashed packed passenger jets into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in September 2001: on one side, terror affecting U.S. interests; on the other side, essentially local and regional conflicts” (Tilly 6). He argues through this point, like Pape, is that terrorism affects everyone. After September 11, 2001, obviously it affected the U.S. and its allies by going into a war in the Middle East. The other side of this is that the perpetrators want national attention of their local and regional conflicts. They wanted, through the war that they got the attention that they want. From there, the terror extremists in the Middle East are continuing their actions by attacking American troops in the region that they, ironically, do not want Western influence and democracy in the region. They feel that western influence is wrong and twisted that it should be influencing the Muslim world in the Middle East.

I would like to explain my position. I do agree with the authors. When it comes to violent extremists for any protest movements, wherever they are, there are reasons and motives for them beneath the surface. Now regarding gay marriage in the United States, these ideas can be applied as well to the gay rights movement. Keep in mind here that the objectives of gay marriage are definitely more transparent than terrorist’s objectives. All that gay rights activists want is equal rights under the law. They use many different kinds of tactics, not including violent tactics. The most aggressive I’ve seen this movement is is a protestor of Prop 8 in California on November 4, 2008. In the video (where I’m sure you can find it on YouTube.com), that this protestor was heckling an elderly women who voted in favor of Proposition 8 which banned gay marriage in a constitutional amendment. It stirred up some media attention (I think from CNN). With this kind of attention and tactics are highly questionable and should not be engaged in. On that note, tactics should only be applied if they are tasteful, respectful, and in such a way that does away with negative aspects of the gay movement, but, most importantly, enhances the positive aspect of the gay rights movement. I think that one day, marriage will be for everyone.

Sincerely,

Steven Weingarten