Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: It’s never easy
There will be finger pointing today. All unfair. The Maine loss stings and nothing will change that; however, the marriage equality advocates made a valiant argument. Right now the argument isn’t changing enough minds.
And focusing only on the Maine defeat neglects Washington. Looks like voters in that state will narrowly support a beefing up of the state’s domestic partnership laws; “everything but marriage” so to speak.
I know keyboard revolutionaries will be typing missives of rage and that’s cool, but listen up peoples: freedom struggles are difficult and filled with losses and setbacks. It’s not fair and many of us are not going to see the very things we are fighting for, but if you want quick results it’s time to find something else to do. If you are not in it for the long haul, what’s the point? If you think struggles for rights are easily earned in one election cycle, you are not paying attention to the narrative called American history.
Nothing wrong with being angry and disappointed today, but when you are finished put the armor back on because the struggle still continues.
Nicely put, Withers. Very nice. To the other commentors: “Nothing wrong with being angry and disappointed today, but when you are finished put the armor back on because the struggle still continues.” I don’t believe that Withers ever suggested that you not be angry or upset or to not type up your angry missives (for example). It’s just that once you’re done doing that, take a deep breath and prepare once again to enter the fray.
Heh. I wonder… if Maine had gone for gay marriage yesterday, would the battle be over today? Not by a longshot…
If you know it’s a slow process, you should’ve been behind Hillary, no? At least she admitted that the gay agenda would be a slow one.
What does Withers do when he’s angry? He writes. We’ll, we see how well that’s working don’t we.
Maybe you need to actually get angry with something more than your keyboard jerk reactions? A “struggle” as you like to call requires something physical, no? How else is it a struggle?
>Then I would like you to open your eyes, look into the mirror and say those words you’re so fond of typing when *other* people are angry.
This is very offensive.
I’m sad and angry, too. I don’t know James, but I’d bet he’s sad and angry, too.
The trick is to get yourself to a place where you can say, do the right thing *despite* feelings of anger and sadness. If you can do that, it actually tempers the negative feelings and makes them more manageable. James is actually modeling very good emotional self care in times of duress. (FWIW, I’m a clinicial social worker, and I work as a life coach helping people with emotion-management skills. James is skilled.)
>Screw the president…
I think I could comprehend this sentiment a bit if he was out campaigning for other referendum issues. It’s not like he gave lots of effort to other causes and ignored us.
Being a middle aged fart, the other thing that I’ve noticed is that politicians and laws often follow…they don’t lead. Leading is too risky.
One of the reasons why we got sudden traction in the courts around marriage equality is because a large number of us moved out to the burbs, adopted kids, and started behaving equally like “husbands” and “wifes” with very familiar-looking “families.” After a decade of that movement building on its own, the courts took notice and said, “Gee, they look like everyone else. Why are you denying them rights?!”
My point is that we need to live our lives as openly loving, proud families who live, work, and play everywhere. If we continue to act like we’re married, then the sentiment in the straight communities and in political circles will follow. We see this in the polling of young people…they’ve grown up seeing the more open LGBT families of the eighties and nineties, and their understanding, tolerance, and acceptance are reflected in how they poll.
Terrific writing, James. Kudos.
We’re going to get a limited-to-employment anti-discrimination policy passed in Congress this year, which will be 26 years after the first state passed its anti-discrimination law for gay people (go Wisconsin!). If we overturn DADT within the next few years, it will 17 years in the making. Getting to argue Bowers v Hardwick (sodomy laws) took years, and then it took 17 years to overturn that bad decision in Lawrence v Texas. Geez…it took 100 years to get rid of American apartheid after slavery ended.
Marriage equality is not yet a decade old. It wasn’t on any of our radar screens in 2000/2001 (other than the plaintiffs of the Goodrich case, maybe).
It takes time and effort. But I share your concern about the people who think that no change within one election cycle is “outrageous!” Historically speaking, not it’s not. Sorry.
Here are our options. 1, we wait, because we will win eventually. That means suck it up until The Magical Day. 2, we continue to accept the “legitimacy” of mob-rule votes on our right to be. See also 1. 3, gays REALLY start picking up and leaving the US. 4, we start pushing Obama to do what the voters won’t do.
1 will come to pass anyway. 2…we have a choice, when we have no legal standing–which is because bigots have ruled us out of the Constitution, and never mind my self-righteous bitch that my family’s been here since at least the 1780s (long before that Sicilian fuck [which is better than the "oilstain" I initially wrote], Antonin Scalia).
3, Americans are pussies, and no way in fuck will one in ten of those here, let alone a full 1% of the population (3.06 mill.), actually leave the US. If we did, we would shake up the world. But the truth is that we don’t face the real threats that, say, Bavarian Jews did after the failed revolutions of 1848, so we’ll stay where we are and in our second-class status ’cause it’s still easier than starting over. For now.
4 assumes that Obama is any different than Bill Clinton. Obama has given no proof that he has balls, other than the fact that he’s reproduced. Candidate Obama had a sack the size of an apple or bigger; President Obama couldn’t fill half a walnut shell. A strong kick in that walnut shell could make a difference, but as this site has proved, there are too many faggots who think there is a status quo worth preserving, that such a disruption is all but ruled out.
Well, there is 5, “The revolution is waiting for a spark,” which would be great if gay men could pay attention to more than poppers and Britney Spears. Don’t look for gay male America to produce an MLK, or a Gil Scott-Heron for that matter. If lesbian America does, the gay men won’t listen because it won’t involve their egos enough.
I was an avid, activist, financial contributor to the same-sex marriage cause. Maine has changed my mind. Idealistically, it might be the right cause. And same-sex marriage will eventually be the law of the land. But state-by-state is the wrong strategy at the wrong time.
(1) We’re psychologically battering our community. Thirty-one (!) gay marriage ballot measures have gone against us. Forget about Arizona – there are same-sex couples in relatively progressive states who were set up to get their hopes up, only to have it all yanked away from them. In some cases, even previously-enacted domestic partnership laws were left in question by marriage ballot beheadings. We must stop setting people up to be devastated!
(2) We spend hundreds of millions of dollars to defend marriage rights passed in court or legislature in progressive states, while same-sex couples in Alabama, Mississippi, or Idaho, have absolutely no protections for their relationships. That money could be better spent procuring domestic partnership rights for people in more conservative areas. Polling shows that most Americans, even in conservative places, support domestic partnership protections.
(3) In places where there are no protections for same-sex relationships, the poor, women, and people of color are disproportionately affected. Rich and middle-class gays can afford the lawyers to craft the legally-sound wills and directives that ensure that one partner will make medical decisions for the other, or that either will have inheritance rights, or that their joint raising of a child will not be invalidated in courts. I know, because I hired a lawyer and did a will protecting my partner and me; and I recently left a southern state where not doing so would have been begging for trouble. Low-income gays can’t do this. So a same-sex couple in Selma, North Carolina, who have no DP protections and no money, is left to the dogs. To the extent that a greater percentage of lesbian couples, or same-sex households of color, are lower-income than their white gay male counterparts, having no rights at all is far more damaging to them. This isn’t to say that denial of marriage isn’t damaging to everyone, even to middle-class or rich gays, but it does say that not having even domestic partnership rights is absolutely devastating to same-sex couples. California and Maine both had domestic partnership protections before their marriage initiatives. Same-sex couples in many areas of Utah or Louisiana have nothing.
(4) It has become clear that a far more likely scenario than winning gay marriage state-by-state, is winning domestic partnerships on a federal, national level. The Obama administration, as well as the Congress and Senate, are poised to do it. For me (and my conscience, and my money) giving same-sex couples in Tennessee even basic legal recognition of their relationships is far more valuable than upgrading a couple’s status in Maine from domestic partnership to marriage.
(5) Getting national domestic partnership rights for couples might increase the numbers of straights who “get it” that gay couples deserve equal rights.
(6) Putting gay marriage on a state ballot makes our gay brothers and sisters in that state wonder who voted against them. Was it family? Neighbors? Friends? This isn’t bringing people together. This is causing suspicion, bitterness, and hurt. Bringing people together is probably the only way we’re going to eventually convince straights that we deserve equality under the law. Telling our personal stories works much better than forcing people to make choices along philosophical lines.
(7) Continuing the same-sex marriage “smack-down” is just emboldening our bigoted foes who will now think they can use their inhumane, despicable tactics in the remaining 19 states in the union.
(8) It took some 160 years between the first state striking down interracial marriage bans, to the Virginia v. Loving 1967 Supreme court decision striking down all such bans. Gay marriage is inevitable – and certainly in much less time than 160 years. But there has to be a more intelligent strategy than battering people psychologically in progressive states while denying people much needed resources and protection in conservative states.
We all move to Canada.
“Pink Flu Pandemic”bobweekend
sounds like a great idea in theory, unfortunately like many people I can not risk losing my job, not only do i need the income I absolutely need the health insurance that comes along with it.
As I have mentioned before, I do not know how to organize enough folks to make this work, but I know there are folks who have those skills. Pink Flu Pandemic! if we could organize a week or more where everyone who considers them self part of the GLBTQZWYFTOFBI community calls in sick. Stays home, does not spend a dime, etc. That would have a major impact nationwide.
James, do us a favor:
When you’re finished reading this, print off this screen with your headline and get up and take it with you to the restroom. When no one is in there with you, I would like you to stand before a mirror, close your eyes and imagine the pain of those people who hoped America would let them sanctify the union between themselves and their loved one and were instead given a stentorian “no” at the polls in California and Maine by these creatures known as the majority of heterosexuals that vote.
Imagine their faces when they heard the news. Imagine the emotionally lethal drain of all their hopes in those seconds and how they had to look into their loved ones eyes the next second and see their reaction, the realization that their neighbors and government joined to remind them publicly that their feelings for each aren’t considered human enough to respect as those of heterosexuals. Some people cry James, like they are right now. Others get angry. Imagine the innocent and optimistic dreams they had for raising their own children in a family recognized as equals instead being publicly executed in the headlines this morning.
Then I would like you to open your eyes, look into the mirror and say those words you’re so fond of typing when *other* people are angry. I want you to look into the mirror and say:
“Keyboard revolutionaries.”
Then I want you to come back here and blog about it and tell us how it felt.
Kyle, that is a lovely thought, but it misses a very significant point. We won’t have the option of someone with a spine, and if someone is on the ballot who has a spine, it will not be someone we want. The President of the United States is what the position makes them. While I certainly don’t think Obama is going to rake in the huge number of LGBT dollars he collected in this past election we’re all going to vote for him. We’re going to vote for him because even if we want something better that’s not how the US political system works. If you don’t like it then move somewhere with a multi party system. And don’t kid yourself into thinking voting for a non R/D party in America helps on that front. Our two parties are institutionalized. That’s just the way it is. Our entire election process is built on supporting them and making sure no one ever replaces them. There is no win for second place, and we do primaries just for that reason. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Unless of course I’m entirely wrong and you think McCain or Palin would have had the sort of spine you were looking for. In which case I am so very sorry.
Screw the president, he didn’t give the time to say even five words on Maine or Washington. We can’t trust him to od anymore then sign the bills, so stop looking towards him, focus on the senators and representatives push them to overturn DOMA and DADT. And when 2012 comes around let Obama know he failed us, that we don’t want a pen we want someone with a frickin’ spine.
I am so mad I could just spit..what do we do next? stop buying cranberries? lobster? we need to really stand up for ourselves..and no thanks to our President for not making any effort in support this vote in Maine.