(no subject)

[rm]

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?

Comments

Re: Playing the devil's advocate...

[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.

Re: Playing the devil's advocate...

[these-3-remain.livejournal.com]

That was probably a good thing...for its time.

Good point. Now those who think homosexuality can be cured are not so helpful.