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this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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I think the state has a responcability to act impartial. I find lgbt flags (or any none state or national flag, the confederacy flag would be inappropriate) on government buildings and the pledge of allegiance in school to be uncomfortable uses of state privilege to push agendas. Teaching kids in school about the existence of gay people and their normality, to me, is the time and place for the state to be both impartial while normalizing an important group of American citizen
Except that we are talking about a group that is being actively targeted by political and religious groups within the country (and the world tbh). Manifesting support for minorities falls well within any state's prerogatives.
I would concede that this is a mostly empty gesture in most places if not followed by actual tangible measures.
The abuse that LGBT people have experienced is immense. Any normalization of those who are harmlessly different is good, but normalization isn't always used for good. A state building can wave an anti LGBT flag in support of some hijacked vision of traditional values. I think it is important for government to host a culture of neutrality. Neutrality builds trust and fairness, and in a time when trust in all forms of government is down and thinning hope for change, I believe fundamentally states must act neutrally, for the sake of the LGBT.
As a bi man, I frequently find myself giving short lived sympathies to right leaning people because in some aspects, they have a point. I think that Americans have every right to be skeptical of the state to a point, but I disagree that Trump was the solution.
I think you no one, and especially not any government, can actually be "neutral" on such a topic. Because there is a status quo of marginalization and structural discrimination. If a government decides to be "neutral"/"impartial" it is actually promoting the status quo to continue going on and thus it indirectly promotes discrimination. It is a false, a pretended neutrality benefitting the hegemonial class. Sure, in an ideal world the government should definitely be impartial and accept everyone as they are. But the problem is that this is not possible in our current society. I see it as necessary that a government takes sides with marginalized and structurally discriminated people in order to be progressive. Obviously not only virtue signalling but actually taking responsibility for the government's own actions.
It is a bit like if you argue with someone what is fair. Like, if you share a flat with someone and discuss what everyone pays. Is it totally fair if everyone pays equal amounts even though one person has rich parents who support them and the other person has debts and is working their ass off to make ends meet? It is not so easy as to say what is actually fair or neutral and what's not. I rather feel like saying that we need to have this fake impartiality is a talking point of privileged people because they will benefit of everything staying the same.
Fascists don't care if you try to be impartial and "neutral". They'll simply step back and ask you to meet in the middle again...