Has the 'organized gay' led us down the wrong path?

[thoreau]

I had a real intense conversation with a gay coworker today about the recent rulings and laws that have come down around the issue of the rights of gay couples to get married. In the course of our discussion we talked about the term "gay community."

We talked about how disappointing the No on 8 campaign was - and he said he felt the worst about how the gay community treated and continues to treat gay people for whom gay marriage isn't their pet issue. My coworker felt that while he identified as a gay man and has a partner of many years that he didn't feel part of a 'gay community' nor does he feel compelled to seek it out - - - if it even exists in the first place.

Marriage isn't #1 on their radars - they have wills, domestic partnership papers, power of attorneys and all the documentation and legal power of married heterosexual couples. (minus federal recognition and tax status)

I spoke up that I thought many people in the community feel that getting out about gay marriage is a solidarity issue - that folks should get out and help the cause even if it's not their #1 issue. His response was that it's unrealistic to think that gay people (or ANY people for that matter) will rally unanimously around any issue - leave alone this issue.

It was like a lightbulb came on.... the more I thought about it.

To negatively judge a gay person that doesn't entry the fray screaming like Don Quixote with their pocketbooks or ballot box is a poor choice that will have far-reaching negative impact. We're no better than the religious right if we decide to demonize our brothers and sisters that don't put gay marriage at the front of their own personal path to equal civil rights for everyone.

and I realized that I had lost the wider-view....

This conversation stuck with me really hard - and then I had a 45 minute phone conversation with Brett septimuswarren about the "Day of Silence" at his school and other issues. and while out on Kateywalk^tm I gave some thought as to what I might say here on my blog.

here we go....

We can all recall how the blogosphere felt the first few days after Prop 8 passed in November. The biggest lesson it had for me was the abolition of my notion that I moved to a liberal state when I moved to California.

The California of 1979 perhaps - yes. California in 1979 was 60% white and Democrat. 30 years later California is 48% white and a destination for immigrants. Immigrants tend to vote Republican - and I'm not talking "right wing whacko republican" - but simply for the traditional GOP platform of less government. All the charts from the November election showed the incredible divide California has on social issues. The divide pretty well matches the percentages of the vote.

I think if the NO on 8 folks had run a campaign on civil rights vs. the campaign about marriage the YES on 8 folks ran; we would have come out on the winning side last November.

Even with that conservative immigrant driven change in political demographics coupled with an embarrassing No on 8 Campaign - the measure only passed by 2.5%. Anywhere else in the country that would have been an incredible election even with the loss. Other states passed these amendments with 67% approval (Idaho) or higher.

To lose that measure by such a slim margin - was/is/should be heartbreaking.

....but back to my point.

What do I think the turning point in this debate over our rights is? I think that the battle will turn dramatically when it's about gay equality on EVERY issue; not just marriage equality. Why? Because then it becomes a movement everyone can get behind; not just those progressives and queers that want to get married.

nudewoody posted an essay by Bob Ostertag Historian, Journalist, and Professor of Technocultural Studies and Music at UC Davis back in December that I've read and re-read. (entire posting here)

..."Gay marriage" turns the real issues of equal rights for sexual minorities upside down and paints us into a reactionary little corner of our own making. Yes, married people get special privileges denied to others. Denied not to just gays and lesbians, but to all others. Millions of straight people remain unmarried, and for a huge variety of reasons, from mothers whose support networks do not include their children's fathers, to hipsters who can't relate to religious institutions. We could be making common cause with them. We could be fighting for equal rights for everyone, not just gays and lesbians, but for all unmarried people. In the process we would leave religious institutions to define marriage however their members see fit.

That's how you win at politics, isn't it? You build principled coalitions that add up to a majority, and try not to hand potent mobilizing issues to your opposition in the process.
We (the gay community, the 'organized' gay) have done the opposite. Instead of tearing down the walls of privilege enjoyed by the nuclear family, we are demanding our own place at the married couples' table (leaving all those other unmarried people out in the cold)...

...The fact is most of us won't marry even if we have the right to. We are putting all our resources into winning a right that only the few of us in long-term conventional couple relationships will enjoy. What's more, we are creating a social climate in which young queers are encouraged to recast their vision of the relationships they seek to favor the married couple. This is not only a loss for the vibrancy of queer culture, it is a disservice to young people who will not be well served by their nuclear family ambitions. Just consider the high number of gay and lesbian divorces (yes, the rate is already high despite the fact that we have not even fully won the right to marry yet).

It is no secret that marriage isn't working for straight people. That's why religious institutions are so up in arms about it. The institution of marriage is in crisis. On what basis does anyone imagine it is going to work better for queers?"

Here's a few questions that I'd like to put to you....

1) Have organizations that represent the 'organized gay' (e.g. The Human Rights Campaign, The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund or The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) lost the "wider-view" in their response to the marriage equality issue?

2) If yes - we have lost our wider 'rights view' - how do we address, politically, the wide variety of opinions in our ranks as GLBT Americans without devaluing someone because they don't share our opinion on what our "civil rights" priorities should be? How should the leadership of these organizations respond to this dynamic?

3) If you feel that a focused - narrower defense against marriage equality is the right tactic - how do we do so without alienating part of our community that disagrees with that tactic. How do we engage them rather than dismiss them, which has been the prevailing behavior?

I really want to hear your points of view. This discussion is the most important one we can have - how do we make the journey towards civil rights for GLBT people one that everyone can get behind?

Comments

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

I think that organized gay organizations fail when they assume they represent everyone's viewpoint. I've been that activist at a senate hearing - I've been that activist debating a preacher on public radio. It would have been a mistake for me to assume that because I was on the front line representing a gay issue that I am passionate about - that I should expect complicit agreement from anyone who is gay. It seems totalitarian to me to devalue people that don't hold the same priorities as the people on their own personal front line. Because just like any other issue - the front line is blurry. I don't think my coworker is saying the marriage equality issue is a waste of time - I think he (and I) are saying that we're losing ground or spinning in place issues that have much wider impact than the ancient relic that is marriage in America today.

[hwynym.livejournal.com]

No, they don't represent everyone's viwpoint and you're right that they often fail when they make that assumption (take HRC, for example).

I don't think anyone is devaluing someone who doesn't agree, but when someone sees themself as fighting for the rights of others and encounters someone who disagrees that the fight he's making is important, then the reality is that there will not be a warm reception by the community of the people fighting for those rights. Especially if one claims that he's not part of that community to begin with. That's not devaluing, that's people choosing to spend emotional energy in a way that won't cause a lot of drama in their lives.

As I said before the marriage fight isn't so much about marriage as it is about Equal Protection under the law. But one can't go out and fight for Equal Protection unless one has been denied such protection. That's where the marriage rights come in - there has been a denial of equal protection and this is the issue where the best chance of overturning that denial has been perceived. If that fight is won, then it has far-ranging precedence to affect all of the other "issues that have much wider impact". If they can't discriminate on marriage, then they can't discriminate on healthcare, employment...etc.

But if you use language like "...ancient relic that is marriage in America today..." with someone who is fighting for the right to marry his partner and it is, of course, important to him - don't you think that person will perceive that as denigrating his fight?

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

I think the bigger issue here is that leaders of the community are defining "gay community" for us - without asking what our definition is. I think make a mistake assuming that everyone feels marriage equality is the right we should be fighting for. People don't feel part of the community - because the "organized gay" community has defined things for them rather than making it interactive.

I apologize if my choice of words was poor. "Ancient relic" is a bit antagonizing.

I really appreciate your framing this as an "equal protection under the law" argument - because you are ABSOLUTELY right. But I don't hear HRC or other organizations framing it that way. I hear "we should have the right to get married" - or -
"denied the right to value my relationship at the same level as straights do". Thats weak. I wish I would hear national spokespeople hit this harder. It is not about marriage equality - it's about equal protection under the law. and I think that argument is getting muddied and mishandled by "organized gay" right now.

I really appreciate your point-of-view....thank you for speaking up.

[hwynym.livejournal.com]

Oh, no apologies needed. I wasn't personally offended, because I know that wasn't aimed at me personally. I was just trying to respond to your original post where you said your co-worker felt that the gay community treats people like him badly. The language used in discussion is tricky, as any given word has different emotional colorations for one person than for another.

That's a whole 'nother topic, though.

There isn't one monolithic gay community, so I have to beleive that your co-worker felt he was mistreated by some sub-group of gay people where he lives. He might do better with a group like Log Cabin Republicans...but I really don't know. I do know people who felt out of place at Bear events for some reason and wound up writing about how the "gay community" was unwelcoming to them. I'm guessing it was something like that.

I'm just putting myself in a place of someone who has been focused on this issue for what are valid reasons TO ME - and then trying to figure out how *I* would deal with someone I perceived as being dismissive of what I've been doing, in order to respond to the "why" of his perceived treatment at the hands of the community he has approached.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

Well you make a good point - the problem is that when HRC or other gay leaders talk about representing the "community" - I think they DO talk like there is ONE MONOLITHIC gay community for which they are the representatives. John and I were discussing this single issue - that when a national organization claims to represent the gay community - he doesn't feel like his point of view is represented; that being that marriage is just one of MANY rights - not the be all end all.

[joebehrsandiego.livejournal.com]

"ancient relic"?

Hmmmm.

Well your simplistic, 2-dimensional view of it perhaps.

Please read hwynym's response directly above mine here - he, who actually *has* been married in the straight world, and lays it out for us - and humor me, and respond to his words directly.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

my view of marriage as a tired relic is hardly simplistic or 2-dimensional. I don't see a need as a gay man to hold up heterosexual marriage as any kind of standard. Straight marriage is a total mess - with a 50% failure rate nationally.

[hwynym.livejournal.com]

Actually - to restate some of what I said above - marriage as a social institution really defies measurement. Actually, it's better to say that it's ridiculous to try to take monolithic measurements of something like marriage. In the end, it's up to the two people in any such relationship to define failure and success. For some, divorce can be considered a desirable outcome, so how is that failure!?

In all the years I was married, I don't recall anyone coming in from the state to make sure that our marital standards were up to code...y'know, like they do when you remodel the house.

If society isn't doing anything to affect the outcome of marriage, then society shouldn't be tracking the failure/success rate, because their measurements are completely arbitrary and bound to not apply to 99.99% of the marriages that take place! It's like tracking the failure/success rate of clouds that wind up in a shape like a bunny rabbit. And about as useful.

So, anyone can tell you their holding up something as a standard. You are free to ignore them.

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

this has to rank up there as one of the best LJ discussions I've ever had. Thank you!

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

and as I posted above in response to hwynym's comment - this argument needs to become MORE about equal protection under the law and less (whiny voice) I want to marry my boyfriend (end whiny voice).