Jonathan makes an excellent point. Without Malcom X, the racists of their time would have had no reason to seek the peaceful alternative offered by Dr. King. Dr. King’s movement had, in fact, slowed and was in danger of falling apart. In my opinion, even tho I don’t agree with his philosophy 100%, Malcom X deserves as much credit and recognition as Dr. King for the success of the Civil Rights Movement. We tend to forget that some of our most honored heroes were also some of our most violent, and it was because of that violence and aggression that much progress was made.

This may seem overly optimistic, but it has a proven track record as Ruby-Sachs points out.

I honestly don’t care what our unions are called: word-choice is not what we’re fighting for; equal rights are. If civil unions are granted all the rights of marriage under federal law, the words will become synonyms. If the rights granted to civil unions are unequal, as they will be if that should be the path the nation follows, the courts will have a much harder time defending that inequality.

As Americans, we seem to hate pragmatism. We view it as compromise with the devil, which really rankles our penchant for black and white thinking (you’re either with us or against us: how well did that work?). As the Canadian case shows, however, it is often this uneasy compromise that spurs REAL equality. Courts don’t like pragmatism, they seek ideological purity. Though we all know that separate but equal is fully unAmerican, we forget that it is frowned on my judges as well. Unless full equality can be proved in court, which it can’t, “separate but” cannot hold water.

I guess we have to figure out whether separate but equal is a trojan horse for further freedom, or whether it is a roadblock on the way to obtaining what we deserve. Given the tawdry history of separate but equal, I believe that it would be the perfect way to get the courts to rule in our favor.

I might be wrong. But at least there’s precedent, which is what we’re sorely lacking in many of our legal battles. To establish unassailable precedent, pragmatism (in terminology) might be the way to go.

Conservatives, by the way, are happy to give us “nothing”.

The truth of the matter is that as much as we all WANT marriage equality NOW we cannot HAVE marriage equality now.

This is going to be a long process. The U.S. does not have a nationally-mandated marital standard, as marriage has historically been delegated to the states and is merely recognized, usually, by the federal government. So it’s not even really clear if the federal government even has the legal power to impose a national marital standard.

Hence the chaotic mess of battles being fought state-by-state. Judges are still human beings and even in the best times do have personal political and religious beliefs. The same goes for legislators. This is why attaining marriage in Massachusetts did not in fact open the floodgates to national marriage equality.

Unfortunately, in the minds of some of the more childish activists there is a single grand victory that they imagine can be won somewhere that will miraculously settle the issue all across America. This idea is unrealistic in the extreme.

Unfortunately, they’ve also taken to tar and feathering realists who acknowledge that this is going to be a long fight and who are willing to accept short-term gains like domestic partnerships as stepping stones to long-term success.

Any good general will tell you that wars must be won one battle at a time.

If Spain can get marriage equality through legislation, a heavily catholic country that had NO civil unions legislation in place prior to marriage equality, then there’s no reason why we can’t do the same. We just have to keep on demanding it and not let the haters win. I’ve said this many times before, we need to go after religious cults and other tax-exempt organization that meddle in and advocate for discrimination and inequality against us. Many are already in violation of their 501c3 tax-exempt status, the Mormon sect is one and the Kinghts of Columbus, a catholic organization is another that comes to mind. Once they see how we can flex our muscle and take away their rights, then maybe they’ll back off a bit. Money is their god, first and foremost, and with money, comes power. We need to bash them back with impunity and hit them where it hurts most, in their pockets.

No excuses. No more free passes. I’m an American citizen and I demand the full and equal access to the rights that I gave up my youth to defend!

My post wasn’t directed at you or anyone else for that matter. Just my thoughts on the coversation as a whole.

What I was saying is I don’t see most of the different approaches being discussed currently as necessarily fighting for something less than. I see them as different parts of the puzzle.

If nothing else, the conversation itself is helpful to the Gay communtiy because all points of view can be heard.

To use King and X as an example again.. King was about a let’s do IT in a logical, piece by piece, peaceful way while listing every reason why we deserve it.

X said F*** you I want IT now on all levels and we’re going to take it while listing ever reason why we should take it.

I see that as saying we can do IT the nice way or the rough way. Both agreed IT needed to be done and both found common ground eventually.

I think both approaches are necessary.

P.S. No, I’ve never heard of The Society for Human Rights but I’ll look it up at your suggestion

That’s partly my point, and it didn’t get better for black people by just fighting for something less.

I don’t agree about Stonewall though. The gay movement started a lot farther back than then. Ever hear of The Society for Human Rights? That started in the early 1920’s but was shutdown by police.

I remember reading about a black woman who was a legislator in Mass. during the debates about legalizing gay marriages or not and she got really upset and tearful and said she could not in good conscious vote to put a people in a place that her family came from but one generation ago. That was a black woman comparing the issue of gay marriage to that of civil rights. I forget her name though .

Slavery “ended” in 1865
Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964

Nearly 100 years and it didn’t end there. Add that to the time it took to get any semblence of REAL equality for Black folks in the U.S. Signing a piece of paper did nothing to change minds or behavior.

Look at two of the most well know figures from the Black Civil Rights struggle. Dr. King and Malcom X..

Different tactics. Same goal. Both necessary in my opinion.

====

Stonewall, which is beleived by many to be a watershed moment in the fight for Gay Civil Rights in this country, was 1969. So we’re about 40 years in.

I don’t believe it’ll take 100 years and it won’t be fast enough for any of us but we’ll get there.

Fact is every approach to the end goal has its place.

That’s not true. In many cases such states also sought banning civil unions.

In California even they were trying to push to get rid of domestic partnerships along side with Prop. 8 but it didn’t get enough support – point being it was there.

We are NEVER going to have full equality fighting for anything less than full equality. Can you think of any major civil rights movement that changed America where it was the majority that welcomes it and not the minority fighting for it the whole way through?

Take interracial marriages for example. Despite everything that changed for blacks/whites, what did it take to change it? An interracial couple fighting it to the courts..

Rosa Parks had to make a stand.

ETC.

Pragmatism only goes so far.

It’s a matter of principal to fight for nothing less than true equality until it happens and not to concede to the majority that would deny such equality.

I know people think that part-way equals something, but in California for example the latest gay marriage case in Supreme Court the judges implied that no rights were being taken from gay marriages in light of domestic partnerships existing for gays similar to marriage.

ROADBLOCK!

See what happened?

None of us should be fooled into thinking that those who might afford us civil unions and not gay marriages might in time favor gay marriages.

NONE of the arguments against gay marriage are even valid. We give them credibility by accepting less..