Many tactics. Several strategies. One goal.

[rm]

If you thought the Prop 8 results (and let's remember, that Prop 8 was the first such anti-gay initiative to take away rights the gay comunity had already been granted -- that's frigging scary) in CA were the backlash to the advance of gay rights, you were wrong. They're just the beginning of it. I've been watching the news coverage in the last couple of days, and everthing, all of a sudden, feels like twenty years ago. It's not a good feeling. It makes me not want the news on. It makes me not want that coming into my home.

Let's start with Time Magazine and their "What Happens if You Are On the Gay Enemies List" scare article: Actually, it wasn't gay actvists who posted list of donors to the Yes on 8 campaign. It was publically accessible databases that were masaged into usable form for the general public by the Computer Assisted Reporting unit at The San Francisco Chronicle, one of America's top mainstream newspapers. I used to work in CAR for the Associated Press. This use of CAR is not some gay conspiracy. It's a useful public tool to help people decide in this case -- regardless of where they stand on the issue -- what businesses they do and don't want to support based on how they distributed funds to either side of the Prop 8 issue.

Now, let's talk about things going on around LJ. The discussion in response to this post was fabulous and I think most of us learned something. Some of it was still really ugly though and hurtful. But the reality is this is a fight, and sometimes people get hurt in fights, sometimes, it's even by your own damn side. It sucks, but it's going to happen. Listening minimizes the damage. So does being willing to say you're wrong and ask more questions.

You should also check out what's going on over on engayge_america where there was a discussion far more useful than the one on the D.L. Hughley show last night, about how gay rights is _a_ civil rights issue, but absolutely distinct for both logistical and historical reasons from The Civil Rights Movement. Why do I highlight this? Because the gay community has its own history of racism (this is what oppressed people do, make enemies with other oppressed people -- surely we all remember this from our playground years), and the Prop 8 vote should be the call to address this divide, not talk it up and make it worse.

Meanwhile there's this post from artaxastra that is pretty damn inflammatory (and uses an appallingly poor choice of an analogy) -- so much so that it obscures some good points about how a lot of gay rights organiations and fundraisers have failed us (I certainly won't give money to HRC) and makes it difficult to respond civilly/rationally to the parts of her post with which I vehemently disagree.

If we learned anything from the recent presidential election, there's strategy and tactics. We are not all called to fight this fight the same way, nor should we be. We do need to be in the streets protesting (over one million people took to the streets yesterday against Prop 8). We also need to be sitting down and making our case to the people we don't usually want to talk to about these issues. We need the people who are willing to be conciliatory and push for baby steps towards equality just as much as we need the people who are angry, who draw a line in the sand, who boycott and protest, who say this ends here and this ends now.

Why?

Because this is not one fight.

The marriage battle is a fight to have the legal means to establish and protect our families, but it is also a fight to be able to say "I am as human as you, no matter how different from you I am."

Now it sucks, that marriage has become both a symbolic and practical battle. Certainly, it means that every gay family in America is having to talk about marriage at the dinner table in a way that doesn't necessarily let them choose their moment. It puts stressors in our lives, and many, quite legitimately, consider the matter to infringe on our culture. But this is the shape of the fight and whether we like it or not, now we must answer it.

My mother grew up as the only Jew in her Connecticut town, and when I was bullied as a child she said I must never react -- not cry, not be angry, not do any of the things I naturally wanted to do, because as a people that had once been treated as animals, we must never act as animals.

My mother was not wrong, but she was also not exclusively right. Because I am an animal, and animals bellow in pain when they are wounded. And this battle succeeds through love and patience, yes, but also through pride, and anger and sorrow. It succeeds by some of us be willing to say "ask me whatever you need to about my identity and experience as a gay person so that you can feel more comfortable" as surely as it succeeds by others of us saying "I will not sit down and shut up and make nice and beg for scraps."

We need all those voices, and now is not the time for this community and this coalition of supporters to eat eachother. But that is what we are in danger of doing.

This fight is about to get long. It is about to get ugly. And I would be unsurprised if the violence against gay people that I thought this country was really moving beyond comes back. If you missed it, it was really fucking scary. I had friends bashed, bottles thrown at me. I sat in emergency rooms because people held hands.

Find your path in this, find others who share it. But know your tactic in this war is not and should not be the only one. Mind yourself. Mind your tasks. Mean what you say, say what you mean, consider the repercussions, and offer your acknowledgement of the shared struggle to those who struggle in this in a different fashion.

I've got no beef with you if you're a compromiser, a pragmatist in this thing. It's not my path, but seriously, we need you folks. But if you tell me to sit down and shut up? We have a problem. Because this fight isn't about you. And it's not about me. It's about us. All of us, as a nation.

Many tactics. Several strategies. One goal.

Hang on tight, kids. It's going to be a rough ride.

Comments

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Altogether now (very quietly):
'What do we want?'
'Gradual change'
'When do we want it?'
'When conditions allow'

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

http://artaxastra.livejournal.com/272842.html?thread=5819594#t5819594

I have no tact, but I don't care! <- this phrase sums up much of my life.

[shipchan.livejournal.com]

As someones who was in public school from 5-9th grade, the ages children realize their own and others sexuality, I'm pretty use to fighting over the fundamentals of my humanity. You just have to remember not to get too carried away with fighting and become something you hate.

[blackbird-song.livejournal.com]

Very well said. Would you mind if I linked my f-list to this post?

Catherine

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Go right ahead.

[blackbird-song.livejournal.com]

Done. Though my post isn't a patch on yours.

Catherine

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I think I've gotten officially Old Enough to be tired of hearing the same kind of 'should we be quiet not to offend people'/'what about those of us who ARE more extreme' arguments as if they are new. I forget that that's part of being Old, that they *are* new.

I'm in that category of people who isn't going to ever wear assless chaps to Tgiving, but won't talk about my 401K either, and where I go for Tgiving is welcome to me, assless chaps, and a 401K.

I was a little weirded out by the starving Ethiopian kid banner with the 'money went to tithing instead' banner [on engayge_america], but I'm having trouble articulating what bugs me about it. Black children aren't a bargaining chip?

I'd love to see Dan Savage doing outreach in the African American community here, hah! There are other people locally who could do it a lot better, and hopefully All This will continue to inspire more of all kinds of activism. Thank you for this round-up of a post, and the reminder that there are lots of ways to move forward that all are being done at once.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I was a little weirded out by the starving Ethiopian kid banner with the 'money went to tithing instead' banner [on engayge_america], but I'm having trouble articulating what bugs me about it. Black children aren't a bargaining chip?

I just posted a comment on that, because I do have a problem with it and know what it is. Which is that starving gigs ARE more important than my right to marry. And if we're going to throw stones at th churches who gave money to Yes on Prop 8 on those particular grounds, we should be throwing stones at ourselves for giving money to No on 8 for the same.

Dan Savage was actually reall fantastic and level and clear and precise on the Hughley appearance. The discussion just wasn't useful or deep because Hughley didn't want to engage particularly. That's largely a problem of the show, which can't decide if it's doing controversy or humour or what.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Good to hear Dan did well; I'm not familiar with the show and mostly know him from the community here, his articles here, and his general snarky tone.

Good point on the starving kids; larger world problems aren't somehow only the issue of the church. I think the part I'm having trouble articulating is with using 'starving kids in Africa' as a visual symbol of 'problems in the world larger than gay marriage'.

I'd love to see the 'gay marriage' thing extended to larger 'marriage reform' issues, though I understand that that's not really where anyone's going with this in the US right now.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Or something like, if white gays are committed to reaching out to people of color (of any sexual orientation), why is the image of a starving brown child in a developing country the main non-white image used?

I still don't feel like I'm putting words to what I feel very well.

this is going to be rambling because that's all I can do these days...

[rosemarymint.livejournal.com]

With the job I currently have, in the location I currently live (with no way out these days, it seems) I'm going to have to fight my way. Which is pretty much being an edited version of myself and letting people get to know me without them knowing much about me.

I know this is just the beginning and since I live in an area where homosexuality is viewed as not just a character flaw and mortal sin, but also a great way to punch out some drunken frustration, I'm even more afraid.

I used to say I wasn't afraid of violence, that I was only fearful of my reputation (the only thing I have in my line of work.) Now I'm scared of everything. And it's an incredibly helpless feeling to know I can't go protest, speak out or exercise my free speech rights without the very strong probability of being fired.

I hear it in the locker room at the Y, I hear it when I go to the office, I see it on bumper stickers, I feel it every single time I walk into the grocery store in my neighborhood.

There's no safe space for me other than my home. And when I see articles like the one in Time or read the crap on various local blogs, I get paranoid that my home will no longer be safe .

Fear is what drives so much of this hate. So what happens when the hated become fearful of trying to change the world?

Re: this is going to be rambling because that's all I can do these days...

[rm.livejournal.com]

You are in a really hard position, and it's a very real position, and one that I feel is absolutely being overlooked in much of this debate of "how". There are whole communities that queer community has been leaving behind over the last ten to twenty years because the fighths necessary seem to hard or futile -- and that includes rural queers, red state queers, queers of color, trans folk and more. It's a big clusterfuck.

[alchemia.livejournal.com]

thanks for this post

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

The more I think about it, the more I think that the struggle for gay rights is like the Civil Rights movement, and more like the struggle against religious bigotry.

The anti-gay often say that the gay "choose" to be the way they are. I don't believe that, but if it were true it would be like choosing religion. Baptists choose to be Baptists, Catholics choose to be Catholics, religious Jews choose to be religious Jews - whatever faith someone is raised in, at some point, consciously or unconsciously, they choose whether they're going to stay in it, move to another, or just let it slide entirely.

Does that make any sense?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. I don't believe that there is a "gay gene", but the people who look for it because they are convinced that prejudice would decrease if there was proof that "people couldn't help being queer" are IMHO misguided, both because this argument assumes that there is any less prejudice against inherent conditions than choices and because it is based on an assumption that being queer is inherently a burden to be borne.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

I agree. It's established that chemical dependency has a strong genetic component, and yet that's not a valid defense for getting drunk and driving into a group of schoolchildren. People who are chemically dependent are expected to control their urges or seek treatment for them, they're not told to go ahead and take whatever drugs they want.

The obvious difference between drug use and SS&C sexual behavior is that the latter doesn't result in innocent people getting harmed while the former often does, but my point is: I don't get why "it's genetic" is a valid defense in response to "don't do it."

Personally, I believe that sexual orientation is much like any other complex human behavior, such as language use, emotional response, entertainment preferences, and so on: A combination of genetics, biochemistry, environmental exposure, and (last and definitely least) conscious choice.

Regardless, it *is* a religious issue. To use the hypocritically homophobic Salvation Army's own words against them (because it's fun!), a common Christian belief about human sexuality is described thus: "Our sexuality is a part of God's wonderful creation, and integral to our identity. Sexuality, as part of our identity, is expressed in how we work, create, play and relate to others. Marriage reflects the relationship of Christ and His Church. It is a loving, mutually respectful union intended for life." (Selections from the position statements on Marriage and Human Sexuality (http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/www_usn_2.nsf/vw-text-dynamic-arrays/B6F3F4DF3150F5B585257434004C177D?openDocument))

That seems like an excellent argument in favor of allowing same sex marriage on First Amendment religious grounds to me.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

As a friend of mine says, "There's nature, and there's nurture, and there's that other thing."

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Sure, because even if there's a gene, and they accept that there's a gene, they'd say "But you don't have to ACT on it!" Better celibate and holy than loving. Which is ass.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Because the gay community has its own history of racism (this is what oppressed people do, make enemies with other oppressed people -- surely we all remember this from our playground years), and the Prop 8 vote should be the call to address this divide, not talk it up and make it worse.

The fact that oppressed groups find it both practically and emotionally easier to strike back at other oppressed groups rather than the group in power is simultaneously something that middle class white culture rediscovers with shock and horror everytime there is some particularly egregious incident against an oppressed group that causes them to strike back, and it's also a club the mainstream media uses on oppressed groups. I vividly remember the time during and immediately after the '92 LA riots, when all manner of (universally white and wealthy) commentators went on at great length (and often with a fair degree of nastiness) about the racism of LA's black population. I think part of addressing this issue will be making the cultural mainstream considerably more aware of why that sort of crap happens. I've seen the mainstream media fan the flames of such conflicts far too often.

slightly tangential

[nobodyreally.livejournal.com]

something from years ago is clearer now... thx for that...

Re: slightly tangential

[rm.livejournal.com]

That's some freaky shit. Good on you for not signing that thing.

Re: slightly tangential

[nobodyreally.livejournal.com]

Was weird at the time but it's all so clear now. Not to mention an excellent lesson in what happens when people bring their bias to work.

[junebugged.livejournal.com]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

rachel@msnbc.com


I think she'd be really interested to read your thoughts, considering how eloquently and thoughtfully they're written.

[sethg]

I'm wondering what you think about this proposed strategy.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I dislike the tone of the post, but that's neither here nor there.

I think it's strategically and logically sound. The thing is, I'm not a legislator in temperment. I am a rhetoritician. I'm also not patient. Which are all reasons why I'm not advocating those sorts of strategies although I do think they are valid and that some people in the community should be advocating them. It's just not what I'm designed for, or at this point in my life, what I'm comfortable focusing my energy towards.

[mobobocita.livejournal.com]

I'll admit, I'm not someone who always knew I was gay. Heck, I wouldn't say I'm GAY now other than I live with a girl and am a girl.

I'm Bi. My current love that I'd love to have for the rest of my life is a girl. Doesn't mean it can't ever be a man again either.

I never lived in a world of black and whites and never thought it would matter.

My state went blue for the first time since 1964. My governor is very red. She works for the state. She'd be fired in a heartbeat as a contractor if they ever knew.

Me? I have NO CLUE how my company would handle it. I'm honestly too highly paid in this economy to really risk it.

Socially, all our friends know and embrace us. Even our Bowling League in a very red county just ignores the kisses between frames.

But for how long? How long till "roommate" isn't just the term we use at work?

*sigh*

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

We went to see the new Bond today, and since we were in a damn classy theater (Sundance), the preview was for Milk.

I was gonna let Milk slide by and wait for a DVD, even though we have friends who are extras, but watching it now - after Prop 8 - and darling turns to me and says "We so need this right now", and we do. Jaded-ass San Francisco especially needs to remember the fight, that we elected the first major city official who was an out gay, and we also killed him for it.

And *this* mayor chose to open up that same City Hall for marriages, and I was on that marble floor helping people get married for the longest Valentine's Day of my life. I'm not giving up yet.

[vanitas.livejournal.com]

I am glad that you mentioned the violence may come back. As someone that was bashed fro being gay in 2001 that is one thing that I fear, but accept. Any time a group of people decides to stop sitting on their hands and behaving like good little children it brings out the people on the other side that have been tethered on a short leash. I went to the Seattle march and rally and it was an AWESOME and empowering feeling. It was how I have always felt the gay pride celebrations should be but never are.

The actions of the Knights of Columbus actually helped me in my relationship with my stepdad. He is a lifelong Catholic and when he heard the KoC had backed Prop 8 it infuriated him. He has never been very understanding nor has he wanted to but he agrees that while his religion doesn't condone my lifestyle we do not live in a Theocracy. He was embarassed for his church trying to make it one.

[hiddenshallows.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It means a lot to me that you wrote this for reasons I probably wouldn't be able to articulate, so I'm just going to leave it at thank you very, very much.

[aome.livejournal.com]

Brownies going in the mail today. Let me know when they arrive, ok? :)

[aome.livejournal.com]

Um ... the box of brownies was just returned to me, marked "Unclaimed". I used the exact address you sent me. What happened?

[gement.livejournal.com]

Oh hey, if you haven't seen it, I was just pointed to Nate Silver's bitchslap of racist Prop 8 analysis: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html

It is, as usual, transparent and laid out beautifully, rhetorically speaking. In case anyone still needs to talk to their mom or whoever (ahem) about the fact that this is not a matter of homophobic racial minorities. Numbers, we can has them.