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Loading ...Corvino: Gay rights beyond California
I received a lot of responses to my last column, mostly from people who hated it.
At the time I wrote it, I had two half-baked column ideas and multiple deadlines pressing. In principle I would still defend either:Column-idea one was a lighthearted look at a march I had participated in. I reserve the right to poke fun at the community of which I’ve been an active part for two decades—especially now, when a sense of humor is needed to carry us through the fight ahead.
Column-idea two was about how, while people were looking at California and getting outraged about Prop. 8, they should look at the rest of the country (and the world) and get even more outraged. It was also a critique of some of the coasto-centrism of the gay-rights movement (more on that in a moment).
Unfortunately, the hasty combination of the two ideas resulted in a clumsy piece that struck many as saying, “California’s not so bad, let’s have a drink.” That was not my intention, and I’m sorry if the column suggested it.
California is important for precisely the reasons I stated in that column: “it’s an egregious injustice to have minority rights taken away by a majority vote” and “California progress (or lack thereof) has a profound effect on the rest of the nation.”
I wouldn’t have marched—or have dedicated six of my last eight columns to Prop. 8-related issues—if I thought otherwise.
And I do know something about injustice. I’ve been physically attacked for being gay—in New York, where I grew up, when I was 21. I’ve been harassed by a Texas State Trooper for kissing another man—and filed a successful complaint against him. Voters in my current home state revoked the domestic-partner benefits offered by my employer—just one of many examples of how California is NOT the first place where straight voters have taken away gay people’s rights.
Rhetorically, however, it is virtually impossible to say, “This is bad, BUT…” without people doubting your commitment to “This is bad.” So let me repeat: what happened in California is bad—very bad. Period. End of thought. New topic.
For several years I’ve noticed a kind of myopia from certain elements of the GLBT community—especially on the coasts. “We’ve won this war, John—gayness is a largely a non-issue. Sure, there are some stragglers in the South and the Midwest, but they’ll catch up soon enough. In the meantime, trying to engage them just dignifies their bigotry. It’s time for you to accept that we’re living in a post-gay society.”
Prop. 8 stung so much, in part, because it proves that we are not there yet.
So do Florida, and Arizona, and Arkansas, and over two dozen other states with amendments as bad as, or worse than, California’s. Only Massachusetts and Connecticut have marriage equality, and even there our marriages lack federal recognition.
Yet somehow, despite this vast land of inequality, we’ve supposedly “won the war” and are living in a “post-gay society.”
Except that we’re not. And so when the marches are over—the placards dismantled, the cute t-shirts washed, folded, and put away—there’s work to be done. Those of us in the “flyover states” can help.
We can help, as we did, with our donations. But more important, we can help with our insight.
You see, we understand very well that we’re not there yet. Most of us live and work among people for whom gayness is still very much an issue. We know how to talk to those people, because we do it daily.
That could have been useful in California. Amid the Monday-morning quarterbacking about the “No on 8” campaign, two themes stand out. One, which I’ve stressed before, is the failure to tell our stories. The other is complacency, and in particular, the failure to engage skeptical voters.
One of the more interesting intramural criticisms I’ve received—not just of my last column, but of my work generally—is that I’m an “apologist.” Critics toss the term as if it were an insult. But an apologist is precisely what I aim to be.
An apologist, in the traditional sense of the term, is not someone who says “I’m sorry”—something you’ll never find me doing with respect to gayness.
An apologist is someone who explains things to a skeptical audience. An apology (apologia), in this sense, is not a retraction, but a vigorous defense.
That’s something I’ve been doing for nearly two decades, and something I intend to keep doing. Because—as Prop. 8 harshly reminds us—even in California we are not there yet.
John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.
For over 15 years he has traveled the country speaking on homosexuality and ethics. His writing has been featured in regional and national periodicals, at the online Independent Gay Forum, and in numerous scholarly anthologies. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.
For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.
Very well-written and thoughtful column Dr. Corvino: A pleasure to have read. Thanks.
I mistyped something in that last statement. The article in the current issue of the Advocate argues that we should skip over a federal civil *rights* law and instead go for a civil *unions* law. I disagree…I think the federal civil *rights* law will help the red states more at this stage of the game.
Nice column, John!
Nice description of what went on here in MA, Rodney! I’m *still* prepared for our foes here in MA to try another ballot initiative; we have to be ready to keep fighting to keep marriage here.
In my opinion, there are two things beyond the gay community’s control that resulted in us being ahead of the curve globally in the early nineties and behind the curve now. First, the way our country is set up purposefully weakens (or slows) federal initiatives in favor of states rights, so that states don’t feel as if they are being bullied by Big Brother. This was done on purpose by our founding fathers, and it has its merits (the way gay marriage is an ongoing national conversation, with ebbs and flows, some states moving ahead, some falling behind, some staying still…it allows for each state to move toward it at its own pace). The second thing that retarded our progress was the loss of Congress to the Republicans in the mid-nineties, JUST at the point that the Democrats had been won over by ENDA and admitting gay people into the military. Then, follow it up with eight years of a Republican president. Because of the loss of Congress followed by 8 years of a Republican presidency, no federal gay-rights initiative could pass, RIGHT at the time when other countries were passing federal legislation for gay rights. We fell behind.
This column reminded me of a column in the Advocate, which, essentially said that we’re living in a post-gay world, we should abandon those “victim-based” techniques like fighting for an anti-discrimination policy (ENDA), and that we should leap right to fighting for a federal civil rights law.
No!
Given this column and a lot of the comments to it, we need to close some of the gap between the coasts and the rest of the country by passing a federal anti-discrimination policy. As we saw here in MA, protection against getting fired or getting kicked out of your apartment for being gay, which is a right we won here in MA in ‘89, was a *necessary* initial step that created a foundation for gay marriage in ‘03. We *must* pass ENDA so that ALL states will have those fundamental protections, more people can them come out, more straights can get to know us, and THEN, in the context of them knowing us better, we can have a better dialogue about civil unions/gay marriage.
30 states have failed to come into the 21st century with an anti-discrimination law. We need to pass the federal ENDA law to force them to catch up with those basic rights.
This is one gay Californian who will never forget the support from gays all over the US. I will always be there for you too. Lets not get divided by region/state. Together we can win our equality. It may be time to start pushing harder on the national level. I was so hurt after passage of H8, but I also felt for those in Arizona and Florida. We are all in the back of the American bus.
I am appalled that you had to write this article. The last article may not have been the most eloquent you have ever penned, but that members of our community could not understand how much worse it is in the rest of the country than CA is horrifying. I live in South Central Indiana in a little haven of queer joy named Bloomington. Life in this town is wonderful if you are gay. There are several gay themed businesses, I have domestic partner benefits through my employer Indiana University, and we have a huge (for the area) gay film fest every year. I am however in South Central Indiana. I go 2 miles in any direction from the city limits and all that comfort is over and done with. I cannot think of any place in the country that gives a better reminder of just how much being lucky enough to be somewhere good doesn’t mean the work is done. The people who complained about your last article could stand to get out some more.
Um, nothing to apologize for or explain from the last column. Marriage itself already has way too much attention as the final piece to queer equality, which wouldn’t be bad were it not to the exclusion of other major problems.
And that’s to speak nothing of the ongoing body count of murders specifically of gender-variant folks.
Well-attended nationwide protests about Prop 8, but no one seems to care who killed Duanna Johnson.
I must admit it is becoming increasingly absurd to me that I should be freaking over marriage in California, when in my own state of South Carolina I can get fired for being gay, or denied housing.
And I too am tired of being told to wait. If hear one more person say “It’ll happen eventually” I’m going to poke them in the eyes. And saying we need to wait until we have the votes, wait until we have a more liberal Supreme Court is all bogus. We should be fighting all the time everywhere. Even if we KNOW we will not win until certain stars align, we should still be fighting the entire time. Or else, what happens when the stars do align and we’re so apathetic we don’t do anything.
We need to push people, society isn’t going to change on its own.
Yes the squabbling within the gay Community is an issue. So it’s time for idiots to stop trying to sabotage the march forward. In all but a handful of states, mostly on the coasts, gay rights in America has moved along at a snails pace. The reason for this, is because we’ve been asking for far too little and we’ve been far to patient.
There is a growing impatience in our community for change, and progress by it’s very definition excludes patience. Patience and progress cannot coexist, progress is moving forward with all deliberate speed.
Those retards and gradualists within the community who keep telling us that waiting waiting and more waiting is progress need to sit down and shut the f*ck up.
The girl with Jointheimpact, in a month period of time, was able to do what the HRC, Stonewall Democrats and National Gay and Lesbian Task Force couldn’t and wouldn’t do in 3 decades. That should be a wake up call. Instead we have gradualists and retards acting as if they’re responsible for rapid progress that they themselves opposed.
Progress doesn’t mean tommorrow, next year or next decade, progress means NOW. If you are one of the idiots who keep preaching that we need more patience, that we need to wait wait and wait some more and take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism then you are an uncle tom and need to step aside!!
Sorry John,, no dice.
I am from a red state, a flyover state and have lived most of my life in flyover red states. All of the states I have lived in, except one, has banned marriage equality with both a state DOMA and a Constitutional Amendment. Just because I have lived in one of those flyover states, doesn’t mean I want that one state, Massachusetts to abandon the struggle.
This might come as a shock to most of you, but the United States of America is BEHIND all of the industrial western world in regard to gay rights. We’re not progressing at all, we’re being pulled along on the coattails of a global movement at best. Gay and lesbian “leaders” who sit in cushy lobbying jobs, wining and dining Congress often snipe at the rest of us who’ve been paying their g*ddam*ed bills and tell us we’re progressing. We’re not!
As far as flyover states helping with their insights. I am sorry, if flyover states had any legitimate insight they would be successful in achieving gay equality and marriage equality. The one state everyone needs to learn from is Massachusetts. Massachusetts people were never under any delusion that homophobia had been vanquished. Massachusetts gays and lesbians did dirty work and fought dirty. Sites like http://www.knowthyneighbor.org published the names of the petitioners BEFORE an amendment was put on the ballot, not after, and not after it had passed. We fought vigorously, we used extra-legal means to fight this amendment, we didn’t take the moral high ground because we didn’t underestimate our enemies’ abilities to lie, deceive and use religion to demonize us. If Californians are guilty of anything, it’s the fact they thought California was somehow better and immune. They had a “bring it on” attitude and they thought too much of average Californian voters. They should have done anything and everything to block the petition getting certified, the petition turned into a ballot question and they should have fought it in the courts HARDER before it was sent to the voters. In Massachusetts, we fought the petitions and amendments every single step of the way. We used our power, money and political influence for all it was worth. And in the end, we won. Even though 55 to 60 % of Massachusetts residents supposedly support marriage equality, there is no way to guarantee that these people would have shown up to the polls. Voters might not like any of the people on the ballot, so we shouldn’t wait for all of the people who support us and our rights to show up to the polls.
Flyover states have little to nothing to teach California. It would be the blind leading someone with corrective lenses. If gay Californians want advise, they need to look to Massachusetts and their struggle and their results.
Like Mr. Corvino, I too take issue with the idea that “we’ve won the war” and are “living in a post-gay society”.
But there is something else I found completely ridiculous during the past campaign season: the idea that a win in California would work some kind of magic toward obtaining our full equality. That isn’t to say the outcome in California is unimportant or that it has no national impact; I simply think it’s overstated.
This is a war that will not be one exclusively through the large battles like Prop 8. The only way to get there with lasting effect and minimum resentment is for us to win over one person at a time as individuals, and then helping those allies win over more. And that won’t happen if we spend so much time on our anger that allies become terrified of being attacked for the least little misstep. We need to educate without the rankor.
I’m not saying don’t get mad – only to be careful how you express and channel your anger. Deal with the specific attacks on our equality, rather than blanketly attacking whole groups of people. Shred their arguments, not their dignity, beliefs, etc. Too often we lower ourselves to the level of our detractors.
We need to stop looking to places like California for deliverance. We need to focus on our own communities and state governments. Hoping for the repeal of the federal DOMA isn’t enough. We need to lay the groundwork for repealing state constitutional amendments, too.
The weakest features of the gay community include vehement intolerance of differences of points of view between members of the gay community that approach name-calling, insults, profanity, and other types of reckless incivility including down-right hatred even toward those more or less on the same page about gay civil rights.
All that does is serve to keep gays splintered apart and to give assistance to opponents of equality and of equal rights.
Our opponents want us to be divided, want us to bicker and to fight amongst ourselves, they want us to be mean, nasty and incivil to each other. All the better for our opponents. We make the job of defeating us a whole easier for them with both our lack of unity and our lack of kindness toward each other.
Thank you, John!
As a gay senior, living in a country outside of the U.S.,where same-sex marriage is,and has been legal for some time, I agree with your statement absolutely, “we are not there yet”. As gays and lesbians, we still have a lot of “educating” to do; my own personal opinion is that the “average Joe” knows little more about us than they did in the 40’s and 50’s when I was growing up! Sad!
We shall overcome! “We are not there yet”!
Our biggest issue is NOT the bigotry of the straight community, but the intolerance between ourselves. The gay community’s biggest enemy is in fact, the gay community.
We squabble, backstab, finger-point, and just plain BITCH at each other, when in fact all that energy is wasted. It SHOUKD be turned outward to the injustices we endure, NOT inward against ourselves.
I have been in the trenches for nearly 30 years. Trench warfare simply doesn’t work (look to World War I for THAT)
We need to come out of the trenches and into the livingrooms of friends and realatives to sart winning this battle. Otherwise, we’ll still be in this fight 20 years from now.
People, we are all on the same side, start acting like it!
It deeply saddens me that it appears that so many in the few “liberal” states have no idea what is happening in the other 40 or so states. As one actively working for GLBT equality in the South, progress is slow and limited. The forces of religious bigotry control the churches most government bodies and influence the majority of voters.
This year, it is likely that gay adoption bans will be introduced in most predominately Republican state legislatures. There will be little that we can do about them no matter how hard we work. I hear no clamor from the public for the bans, but there are just enough homophobic bigots in these bodies to see the opportunity and to bully their colleagues into voting for these measures. In most cases, our allies will not have the numbers to stop them. We are at their mercy and will remain so until Federal legislation overrides the states.
Why do most gay and lesbian folks in conservative states have to live quiet, private lives? Because they have to. Only in the larger cities are there opportunities to be out and reasonably safe. Things have changed a little in the past 20 years, but not much.
As a resident of Florida, another overlooked “flyover” state, I couldn’t agree with Mr. Corvino more on this.