In the last few years, left-handed people everywhere
rejoiced as their right to enter into marriage finally became legalized in
states like Iowa and New York, and as their right to serve openly in the
military became protected under President Obama.
However, those rights are now under fresh assault.
Previously, left-handed people were not allowed to marry,
since opposition felt that being left-handed “was a choice,” and argued instead
that they should merely learn to use their right hands to fit the existing
definition of marriage.
However, the rights to left-handed marriage are now being
called into question once again, despite the fact that the change has resulted
only in economic boosts for the states that have legalized it. Michele Bachman,
conservative GOP candidate, has been an outspoken enemy to left-handed people.
“It’s in the bible somewhere. Right after the part in Deuteronomy
22:20,21 about stoning women who have pre-marital sex and before the part in
Mark 9:43 that says masturbation is a sin. And besides, Jesus hated people who
were born different. You didn’t see him hanging out with the sick and the
crippled, did you?” Bachman commented. “And besides, I can write with my right
hand just fine. Left handed people just need to switch ““ it’s an easy thing to
fix.”
Fellow GOP candidate Rick Perry recently released a
video containing his thirty second rant against the left-handed community.
“There’s something wrong when they can openly serve
in the military,” Perry stated in his video. “Everyone knows that being
left-handed means you obviously can’t fight as well or be shot at the same as
someone who is right-handed. I’m not sure why exactly, but it’s just true.
Everybody knows that. If they’re going to insist on using the wrong hand, then
they can’t expect the same rights as us normal, right-handed, people.”
Right-handed and left-handed people have responded
with outrage to the comments made by both Bachman and Perry.
Matthew Bennett, an openly left-handed man,
explained his fury regarding Bachman’s anti-left-handed rhetoric.
“I don’t work a left-handed job, I don’t own a
left-handed dog or a left-handed house. I don’t wear left-handed clothes. I
don’t want a left-handed marriage. I just want a marriage. I want the same
rights that all Americans are entitled to, that I’m entitled to. What hand I
use to write my name doesn’t have anything to do with that,” stated Bennett.
Karen
Richards, who is right-handed but an active supporter of the left-handed
community, commented as well.
“I’m right-handed, but I think it’s disgusting that we live in a country where
politicians are using left-handed slurs to appeal to people’s bigoted,
small-minded notions just so that they can be elected. The left-handed
community has finally achieved some of the rights they are entitled to, and that
those gains are now trying to be ripped from them is evil. We need to be
creating a society where left-handed people are no longer defined by their
dominant hand, but instead have the same freedoms as right-handed people, as
people of any gender or religion or ethnicity.”
