IMHO, Losing On Prop 8 Was Probably A Good Thing
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7 November 2008 | 15 Comments
I know this post is going to be pretty controversial, but while I would have liked to see us win on Prop 8, after thinking about it for a few days, I think losing on Prop 8 is actually a good thing for our community.
The gay community used to be pretty political – in your face, and radical. We used to look bigots in the eyes and say “fuck you!” Now we look those bigot in the face and want to be like them. We’re running to the suburbs, setting up house like Ward and June Cleaver, and wanting those bigots to accept us.
Well, they’re bigots, why in the hell do we want their acceptance? Why should their acceptance matter? Why is it that our sense of self-worth is in their hands in the first place?
That’s why I think losing on Prop 8 is good for us. It’s a slap in the face to all the people in our community who are trying to be “straight-acting”.
Then there’s the 27% of the gay community that voted for McCain. They fit in there somewhere, but in a very complicated way… Needless to say, they horrify me. Only 15% of Manhattanites voted for McCain, how can nearly twice as many gay people vote for him? How is it that Manhattan is twice as liberal as the gay community?
Yes, I’m legally married, and I think we should have the right to marry and have our marriages fully recognized everywhere. I don’t want civil unions, I want marriage because “separate but equal” is always separate and never equal. [I’d love to get Obama in a room and have him, as an intelligent black man, look me in the eye and tell me that “separate but equal” is a good idea.]
While I want gay marriage, I don’t want our marriages to mimic straight marriages. There are those in our community who want marriage so they can be more like straight people, so they can be better in line with heterosexual norms. That’s just fucked up.
This summer I said I was really disappointed in Lambda Legal for telling gay people not to sue for their rights. I think the loss on Prop 8 sorta vindicates what I’m saying. I realize there’s legal strategy behind what they were saying and they didn’t want negative precidents, but for god’s sake 30 states have now made gay marriage illegal. We can’t even win equality in California where the Republican governor is fine with gay marriage. What does that tell us about the US right now? If you can’t win through being nice in a place like California, you’re fucked and it’s clearly the wrong strategy.
I think we should have a blitzkrieg of lawsuits and our rallying cry should be that we are not 2nd class citizens and we won’t just shut up and sit in the back of the bus. I think we need to hold friends accountable for how they vote, and even take it into our business lives and refuse to do business with bigots, when we’re able to do so financially.
I really like the fact that some people are talking about stripping the Mormon church of tax exempt status. We need to be in-your-face radicals. We need to make people see that it’s not acceptable to be bigots. For too long we’ve let the fundies take the battle to us. Let’s turn that around. Let’s show that you’re not “pro-life” if you start offensive wars that kill tens of thousands of people, and you’re not “pro-family” if you can’t respect loving, stable homes that happen to be gay, and you’re not “defending our children” if you don’t allow unmarried people to be foster and adoptive parents.
If you need a model for how a radical strategy works, just look back to ACT UP and the fight for AIDS treatment. ACT UP was throwing blood on people, but it raised the issue, made a point, and softened people up so they’d make deals with the moderates in our community. But now we have no radicals and the right wing extremists are painting our moderates as “too extreme” and “dangerous”. Well, let’s show them too extreme and dangerous so they can understand the difference.
excellent post man. Most definitely.
I can agree with the concept you’re making – to a certain point, but saying that prop 8’s loss was a GOOD thing is like saying Bush’s war on terror was good for civil liberties. Action needs to come in MANY forms, some radical, some passivist, some legal, some social. What we seem to lack (and Lambda Legal is /attempting/ to provide) is leadership. With due respects to Harvey Milk, gay rights don’t seem to have their version of MLK, Ghandi or William Wallace. We ALL need to fight, but each of us needs to find our own place in the battle.
When I was younger, the radical method served its purpose and truly felt liberating. But with a bit of age came change of perspective. If I had maintained that radicalism, it would have meant sacrificing some of the career advancements and social status which give me a louder voice today. And, I think it would have eaten away at my soul somewhat. Anger and and radicalism have their place, but when it’s the ONLY weapon in your arsenal, you run the risk of hurting your own cause, like the IRA, Palestinian Autonomy movement, or Unabomber.
I feel just as much a part of today’s movement by attending (Catholic) church with my partner and encouraging the warm reception we receive. Discussing religious and political issues at wine-tastings in a logical and non-threatening manner. It’s not as in-your-face as the demonstrations and rallies of my youth, but it engages just as many allies without instigating retribution.
The true bigots will never be our allies, which is why we need a fuck-you approach to counter their sneaky methods (and limiting our theocracy via tax-exempt issues is a GREAT way to start)! But bigots, too, are a minority, even though they have swayed enough ‘moderate’ opinions to become the majority voice. We also need to show the Ward and June Cleavers that there are MANY faces to gay America, so that we can sway them to OUR side when we need them.
Those who choose to be ‘straight-acting’ won’t change the mind of a bigot, but neither will a radical fag. The attitudes of those who are ignorant merely for lack of information will be changed by whichever they see more of. When people don’t know /what/ to think, they tend to agree with whatever they see on TV. Apparently, California and Florida watch more Oprah than Ellen.
It’s true that people DO need to re-learn the meaning of ‘pro-life’, ‘family values’ and ‘freedom of speech and religion’. It will take radical activists to do that AND it will take suburban soccer-homos. It needs to happen in Manhattan, NY and Manhattan, Kansas. Parades, rallies, intimate gatherings and private conversations. Whatever our individual plan of attack, we just need to remember that we’re all part of the same battle… Respect – don’t thwart – the contributions of others who use different methods to fight the SAME fight.
You say that you hate straight acting gays, that live in the suburbs that want a regular life like everyone else, and you’re married. You’re a big hyprocrite on so many levels.
You make it seem like gay people should have nothing in common with straight people and we’re a completely different species. I’m sorry, we’re all human. There’s no such thing as a gay acting straight either, it’s being either feminine or masculine, and you’re certainly not feminine, so I guess you’re a gay acting straight.
Another thing, you don’t fight radicalism with radicalism. You’re just as worse as some of those Fundies.
Being a Republican has nothing to do with the issues above, being conservative does. While they sometimes go hand in hand, that’s not always the case. I’m not even a Republican, I’m a Democrat who voted for Obama. You’re a radical though, and you can’t fight fire with fire. You need to fight fire with water, and that’s exactly what the non radical Prop 8 tried to do. Unfortunately, Prop 8 didn’t have enough water to put out the fire.
I think its time to take it to another level. Someone should organsie a protest that involves handcuffing themselves to the doors of mormon and other bigoted churches Sunday mornings to silence the churches. A ring of protesters chined to the fence of the mormon temple would send quite a message, with secondary priotests blocking the doors fot eh smaller centers might get their attention that we’re no longer playing nice and going to allow them to spread hate from the pulpit.
as a californian i feel extremely disappointed that prop 8 passed(passed means homos lost rights to marry, it was very confusing here and a lot of people feel that votes on both sides went the wrong way) here in sacramento we have had “quiet” vigils every night since tues. there have been lots of talk about more extreme action. the consensus here is that the police, legislature/govenator and the supreme court is on our side and if we start to go radical we may lose that support and scare even more people into the yes on 8 crowd(the homophobes). even here in california outside of the major city centers people are still scared or ignorant of homos. the sad part is that 70% of black people voted for prop 8, apparently history about “separate but equal” and majority will vs. minority rights has been forgotten. we need education, and a loud voice but not violence.
The 70% is such a small percent overall in the entire state of california. What the proposition 8 has done is revealed the racist attitudes of the gay community. This is evident by the embarrassing display of hate in Westwood this weekend. Within the gay community we ask but don’t give. Unfortunately when it comes to people of color within the gay community it’s “equal but separate”
Coming together takes more than sound bites and snippets of other’s speeches.
I don’t like marriage and I’ve had falling outs with people in the community who were all about it. Perhaps its because I’m the product of a failed marriage but the statistics are there, marriage doesn’t work half the time. I’m AGAINST marriage in general, gay or straight, for the simple reason that marriage is a religious institution and as a nation in the 21st Century, we should totally separate Church and State and amend the Constitution that it’s civil unions for everyone and marriages are strictly recognized by whatever religious institution you see yourself indoctrinated as.
I remember back in the ’90s, Florida tried to pass a law and worded it very sweetly, saying that “the state should protect against all discrimination based upon color, religion, age, etc… and invalidate all laws inconsistent with this amendment”. The trick was, sexual orientation was NOT on the list, so if it had passed, all previous anti-discrimination laws for gays would have been struck down. It was really insideously worded to appeal to people’s sense of fairness, but had obviously unjust intentions.
This is a long shot, but I’d love to see us return the favor by using a similar tactic. Introduce legislation that makes marriage not only 1 man, 1 woman, but also for LIFE. Introduce age restrictions, make divorce extremely difficult, re-marriage only possible for widows & widowers, and adultery a crime with jail penalties. Some groups might even support us, the ones that don’t could be publicly ridiculed for being hypocrites.
If hetero marriage was put up to the same standards of sanctity that the pro-8 supporters envision, perhaps more straight couples would opt for simple ‘domestic partnership’. If the general population finally was forced to understand the difference in wording, and came face to face with the hypocrasy of the ‘sanctity of marriage’, perhaps we could turn some opinions our way. Plus, I’d enjoy the turnabout, lol.