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While there are a hundred reasons why straight people openly specifying that they are straight and also support the rights of GBLTQ people to marry their partners is a useful thing, think of the power of this:

Just saying that you support it. Without mentioning your own damn orientation.

Because I know it's not always or even often distancing when someone says, "I'm straight but I support gay rights," but trust me, trust me, trust me, trust me, when I tell you that's what it can feel like from over here.

Just try saying it without qualification. Picture _that_ as an LJ meme. You know?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

these-3-remain.livejournal.com

At every point in the various struggles for human rights, hasn't someone in the empowered group had to speak for the oppressed? Ultimately, whites had to speak for blacks and men for women. It's the straights-who-hate-queers (at least, that's how I see it) that want to deny gays the right to marry. If someone opposes gay marriage it's because on a fundamental level he/she does not consider gays people. Or the "right kind" of people, just as women were (are) not considered the "right kind" of people. And if straight bigots don't think of queers as human enough to give them human rights, will they ever listen to queer protests? We hear the words "homosexual agenda" coming out of James Dobson's mouth about 20 times a day. Saying, "I'm straight and I support same-sex marriage," is one way to say, "STFU, it's not a homosexual agenda, it's my agenda, too, it's a human rights agenda."

From:

rm.livejournal.com

At every point in the various struggles for human rights, hasn't someone in the empowered group had to speak for the oppressed?

Yes, but here's the deal, up close and personal:

Do you have any idea how it fucks with my sense of self not just to know, but to be told over and over again that I have to have someone else fight for me? That I'm not ever going to be strong enough or good enough to fight for myself?

Just because it's pragmatic, doesn't mean it's not awful.

And in the matter of gay rights, it creates an added layer of complication especially for gay men, who get a double whammy of society's bullshit about what men should be in there too.

From:

these-3-remain.livejournal.com

Do you have any idea how it fucks with my sense of self

I don't. I'm trying to understand, but I obviously just don't get it, because I don't have the same experience as you. I will take your word for it, though, that in trying to be helpful sometimes I (and others, I know, not just me) miss the mark.

From:

cantkeepsilent.livejournal.com

Do you have any idea how it fucks with my sense of self not just to know, but to be told over and over again that I have to have someone else fight for me? That I'm not ever going to be strong enough or good enough to fight for myself?

If it makes it less awful, I'm not fighting for you. I am fighting for the moral core of the United States and the continued revelation of the self-evident truths and unalienable rights that Thomas Jefferson laid out in the Declaration of Independence. And I'm fighting so that my three year-old niece will someday carry the fight in directions that challenge me in the same way that I am currently challenging my grandparents.

You are right. You will win this fight. And when you win, it will be your victory, brought about because of your strength. You are the actor, we are just the chorus.

From:

winterknight.livejournal.com

You can read my answer above, for one thing. For another, I'm just telling you that saying, "I'm straight and I support same-sex marriage," is still enforcing the idea that there's some kind of difference between straights and queers. You can do two things. You can say to people, "Oh, yes, but I'm human and I think they're human." Or, you can say, "I'm with them." I think the reason there's so many bumps in the road; so many arguments are still founded on the same perception of privilege that we're trying to fight in the first place. So, keep drawing that line, or work on making that line irrelevant. Your choice. But at least think about what comes out of your mouth or off your fingers.

One thing that bothers me a whole lot right now is that when I bring this up, the response is, "Well, don't you need us?" or "Isn't it okay because it's for your benefit?" Because, no, it's not. Someone on the other side of the line people keep drawing with their memes and bumper stickers is saying, "that's insulting or painful to me" and the response is, "But it's for you!" Think about that.

From:

these-3-remain.livejournal.com

Think about that.

Okay - I am and I will. Knowing now that things I have said could/did hurt other people - I'll try to be more careful.

From:

winterknight.livejournal.com

Thank you. <3

From:

these-3-remain.livejournal.com

Thank you for 'splaining it to me!

From:

sethg

At every point in the various struggles for human rights, hasn't someone in the empowered group had to speak for the oppressed?

Perhaps so, but then the struggle reaches another point, in which members of the oppressed group speak for themselves, and members of the empowered group have to learn to see themselves as allies rather than liberators. I think the gay-rights movement has moved beyond that second point by now.

Back in the pre-Stonewall era, the Mattachine Society would invite psychiatrists to their meetings who believed that homosexuality could be "cured". Such psychiatrists went before legislatures and argued that sodomy laws were bad things because if gay people were treated as criminals it discouraged them from seeking "treatment". That was probably a good thing...for its time.