Make Love, Not War

It’s not exactly a Memorial Day shot. On the other hand, if we agree that war is pathological, this image from an International Gay Rodeo Association event in Little Rock this week could be seen to radically challenge the disease. Conflict around the world is all to commonly motivated by the fear and hatred of “the other.” I can’t tell if this married couple in the deep South also happens to be bi-racial. Even still, to see two men challenge conventions and stereotypes we’ve come to identify with cowboys, the Bible Belt, good old boys and the Stars and Stripes, it’s a vision that suggests that, perhaps one day, this holiday might be put out of business.

(photo: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters. caption: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 – Gordon Satterly, 61, from Michigan (L) kisses his husband Richard Brand, 53, from Texas, at the International Gay Rodeo Association’s Rodeo In the Rock party in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States April 24, 2015. Contestants at the International Gay Rodeo in Arkansas, a Bible Belt state with a same-sex marriage ban on its books, competed in events from barrel racing to bull riding on the soft soil of a fairground that looked like just any small-scale rodeo held throughout the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in June whether to strike down bans on gay marriage nationwide. Arkansas has been one of the front-line states in the battle between cultural conservatives and those seeking expanded rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.)