Greg Sargent, in the Washington Post, shares some personal history:
… I grew up in the far West Village in the 1970s, about seven or eight blocks west of Stonewall Inn, where joyful crowds celebrated the news on Friday night. At the time, even though the Village was supposed to be a leading refuge for gays, the discrimination, hostility and abuse directed at them were everywhere. Even in this neighborhood, gays and lesbians took steps to conceal their sexual orientation… Even on these streets, gay couples who openly displayed affection for each other in public were regularly abused in full public view.
__
It was not uncommon to see vans full of thugs who had driven in from other neighborhoods — for no other reason than to taunt and even beat up gays — screaming “faggots” at groups of young men who congregated along West Street, along the Hudson River. To reveal your sexual orientation in public through even the most basic gestures of affection was to put yourself at risk of mockery, abuse and even violence…
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One thing that’s been obvious throughout this debate is that many people have never really been exposed to the ugliness of anti-gay bigotry with anything approaching their awareness of other forms of discrimination, many of which have received a far fuller airing in popular culture. As a result, the debate over gay rights is saddled with endless discussions over whether the push for gay equality is a “real” civil rights struggle on a par with that waged by African Americans or other groups. Anyone who has witnessed anti-gay hostility up close can tell you it is very real indeed.
__
That’s what makes the New York breakthough so important. It is a major blow to the idea that the gay rights fight is somehow different, that the anti-gay discrimination and bigotry on display in the marriage debate somehow don’t really count as discrimination and bigotry…
__
The bottom line is that I grew up in a world where gay couples were openly treated as deviants on the streets of New York, perhaps the most tolerant and cosmopolitan city in the country. My children are growing up in a world where being gay is no longer viewed — in New York and five other states and counting — as incompatible with the ultimate expression of couple-hood, the institution of marriage itself. As the latter idea spreads, the former world recedes further and further into history. As far as there still is to go, my children are growing up in a far better world than I could ever have imagined would come to pass.
I think Sargent’s touched on a key point here: Until very, very recently, ‘nice people’ didn’t have to bother their heads over gay-rights issues, because for a great many not-gay Americans homosexuality simply didn’t exist in their universe. Sure, there were jokes about someone being ‘light in the loafers’, and a comedian could always get laffs by affecting a lisp and a limp wrist, but while most African-Americans and women couldn’t disguise themselves as white or men, most gay Americans had the dubious advantage of invisibilty. Even in the late 1980s I knew otherwise intelligent people to argue that they’d never even met a homosexual, much less had one in their family or circle of friends. Then, “suddenly”, between Stonewall and the AIDS epidemic, the long tradition of social lies and media enabling broke apart, and … “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re everywhere, get used to it!”
It’s a corollary of last week’s discussion in Mistermix’s threads about the “obtrusive ugliness” of solar panels. People who had unconsciously learned to not see the ugliness of utility poles clusters danging tangles of dragging cables found themselves outraged by the squares of solar panels that are “everywhere, all of a sudden”. Even well-meaning people who grew up when the only “homo” they knew about was Paul Lynde or Liberace have siblings, childen, cousins, neighbors, co-workers who are not ashamed to be identified as gay — and to look for, demand, the same legal rights as all their non-gay fellow Americans.
Thus the recent Gallup survey stating that “U.S. Adults Estimate That 25% of Americans Are Gay or Lesbian“. I believe a lot of people assume, consciously or not, that since their awareness of GLBT individuals has burgeoned from “none” to “a handful in my social circle, plus at least one character on every top-ranked tv show” over just the last decade or two, the statistical curve must be a lot steeper than it really is.
For most people, this is just more evidence of social change, like the ubiquity of cellphones or the way smokers have been relegated from uber-coolness to near-pariah. For our fellow citizens in the Conservative Minority, it’s one more sign of the apocalypse. But just the fact that they’re being forced to argue that gays are wrong, or immoral — not that gays don’t exist, except as a vanishingly tiny ‘perversion’ of ‘the normal’ — is a sign of how far we’ve come.
Rihilism
Excellent post Anne. That is all…
Linda Featheringill
Thugs coalescing into small groups and coming into the neighborhood for the sole purpose of conducting a pogrom. Yeah, we have progressed a lot.
WereBear
Love it… because that’s how it was, and that’s why it must change.
Joey Maloney a/k/a BadExampleMan
Paul Lynde was gay??????
Linda Featheringill
Regarding my comment at #2:
Even if the human species doesn’t seem to be naturally evolving to something better, we as a society are making progress towards something kinder and more intelligent. We progress slowly, in little steps, and sometimes go backward. I get frustrated because it seems to take so long sometimes.
But the NY vote was a big step in the right direction.
And besides, it obviously pissed Rev. Robertson off. :-)
stuckinred
Joey Maloney a/k/a BadExampleMan
“Why can’t they be like we were
perfect in every way. . .”
Keith G
With all the things that are going wrong, this is at least one thing that is heading in the correct direction. I am so gradified to know that it has been increasingly the case that kids who realize they are Gay don’t have to undertake any extra struggle than just growing up. So many (Gay and non, alike) will benefit from this.
RossInDetroit
It starts with kids. In many schools calling someone or something gay in a derogatory way is considered hate speech and is not tolerated under the conduct code. That doesn’t stop all the abuse but it gets the point through to most that abusing people for sexual orientation is unacceptable. You can’t force people to feel tolerant but you can strongly discourage intolerant behavior. And I think it’s working.
Yevgraf
Meh. The GBT side of the GBLT activist world just really isn’t that into us. The L side is great, they get the economics because they live our economic suck. The GBT side, not so much. They’re like the pretty prom date you never thought you would get, always needing a new present while looking wistfully at Ken Mehlman and his glibertarian friends.
When the GBT side
Rihilism
I see our resident professor of GBT Studies has stopped by to offer yet another inane opinion…
Yevgraf
Adding:when the GBT side cares about economics for the rest of us, I will care about their marriages.
Yevgraf
Adding:when the GBT side cares about economics for the rest of us, I will care about their marriages.
Rihilism
Adding, when Yevgraf offers a reasonable and verifiable opinion, I might actually care about said opinion…
Bill
Do you know what T stands for, Yevgraf? Are you actually claiming that transsexuals are some economically privileged minority? Because that’s insane.
bryanD
Aww, hell! Do *I* actually have to be the one here to step in for The Gays against the surfeit of cartoonish posts riffing off the Stonewall incident???
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/74/692/The_Stonewall_Riots_Were_A_Gay_Protest_Against_Mafia_Bars.html
stuckinred
Yevgraf
How’s your portfolio there numb nuts?
stuckinred
Meanwhile Mornin Joe is sucking Scott Walker off on national tv!
Hillary Rettig
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and this rings absolutely true. I remember going to college in 1975 and seeing a gay rights bumper sticker on a car – the sighting seemed so weird (and was so thought provoking) that I remember it to this day. Now, I see rainbow and other signifiers constantly and hardly notice.
This is also an example of how well activism works. It’s been just over 40 years since Stonewall. A blink of an eye for profound social change, given that homosexuality had been vilified in some strains of Western culture for thousands of years. Although the suffering of those who are oppressed is hard to witness (harder to experience, obviously), there is reason for optimism, especially as the Web is a catalyst!
Hillary
the full text of my book The Lifelong Activist is now online at http://www.lifelongactivist.com
JPL
Stuckinred, Life without Joe in the Morning is good. Although I must admit Bachmann was on GMA this morning, and I did listen to the first two questions that George asked her. She is good at evading the issues. Did you say that without a minimum wage unemployment would be zero? What she heard was the word unemployment and went on a tirade against President Obama’s policies. To his credit George said I take that as a yes. She then went on to say all regulations are bad.
Montysano
@ stuckinred
Well, of course he is. Walker is Bold!! A game-changer! Thinking outside the box! Also, Bold!
Never mind that the people of WI have developed a savage case of buyer’s remorse.
BO_Bill
I had a disturbing dream about Hillary and Huma last night. It got worse when Lindsay Graham walked in. Today I will try to eat a healthier diet.
Comrade Misfit
One o the GOP senators in NY had family repercussions from his no vote in `09. He switched sides because keeping the peace in his family was more important to him than adhering to the Doctrine of El Rushbo.
WereBear
@ Hillary: Most wonderful, congrats on your book!
I find your ideas intriguing and have signed up for your newsletter.
For reals!
Cat Lady
I think it was the news about Rock Hudson that was the 2×4 to the side of the head for people of that generation. My conservative in laws lived next to the “girls next door” in a suburb of Boston for almost 30 years. The “girls” were educators, and my MIL, a highly educated woman who in other circumstances should have been a great friend and confidant of them, rarely saw them or spoke to them. They “stuck to themselves”. After Rock Hudson died, my FIL admitted that the “girls” were probably not just housemates. Slowly, that one realization has led to some real change in heart, though my FIL still gets the icks about men together.
WereBear
This is something I don’t ever “get.” I know about Furries; not going there personally; don’t have to get freaked out about it.
I think Rock Hudson was a cultural watershed that couldn’t be brushed under the rug. Liberace? MMMkay, but Rock Hudson was sold as a sex symbol for years. That got noticed.
Though he never worked for me :)
cathyx
Next thing she’ll tell us Richard Simmons is gay too.
cathyx
I think that these gay issues will diminish greatly in the coming years. Most young people today don’t care about it and it doesn’t bother them. I see it with my nephews and their friends, they’re early 20’s and I see it with my daughters classmates. She’s in middle school.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Here’s how we’ll know that this struggle was on par with other Civil Rights advances: In 25 years, when our children are completly comfortable with the idea of gays and their getting married, the right wing will begin passing laws to restrict their ability to get married, starting at the edges. Things like requiring a certain income level for gays, and then having to get married withing a year after declaring themselves gay. Then we’ll know that this was a proper struggle. Oh, and the Democrats will be bitching about their first term president because she’s not sufficiently pro Alien-Human marriage.
Cat Lady
@WereBear:
Yeah, there’s something about a “man’s man” coming out that really torpedoes holes under the waterline of masculine identity. The last bastion of that is professional athletics, and you’re starting to see the cracks in that facade too. It’s funny to see the difference in perception between women’s sports and men’s – everyone assumes that a lot of women golfers and tennis players are lesbians (a lot are), but the men aren’t gay. It will be really interesting to see how athletes now in their teens and early 20’s handle things – will a man bring his husband to watch him in the Super Bowl? Imagine if Tom Brady were gay (yeah, insert obvious joke here) and married to some amazingly gorgeous hunk even better than looking he is, as hard as that is to imagine. Would broadcasters’ heads explode?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Cat Lady
Well, the Bible doesn’t say anything about women.
Peter Herb
7 or 8 blocks west of the Stonewall would put him in the Hudson.
RossInDetroit
Until I read this I had completely forgotten about the two middle aged women who moved in right across the street last fall and set up housekeeping. I’d forgotten that there were a couple of ‘them’ in the immediate neighborhood because, yawn, who cares any more?
RalfW
Sadly, violence against gays isn’t over. Two friends of mine were assaulted on their way home from a local bar, three blocks from Twin Cities Pride this past Friday night.
And in Chicago, 51 floats had their tires slashed this same weekend. Of course, I understand that these are the dying gasps of an old, frightened mind-set. But it’s still happening.
RalfW
And sadly, Yevgraf still thinks that Lesbians want to make sweet political love to him, but GBT’s won’t suck his gnarled, firebagger crank.
Brian R.
Amen to that!
And how about the Negroes and the Spics!? All they do is bellyache about their quote-unquote “civil rights” but they never do anything to help out the White Man’s pocketbook.
And those stupid women libbers, too! I don’t care if you’re getting paid 60% of what a man doing the same job gets, ladies, because what’s really important is what that man gets. Shut your pieholes and get back in the kitchen!
Keep preaching the truth, Yevgraf! No one else is sticking up for the oppressed white male straight majority quite like you are!
Yevgraf
Ken, Karl, Mitch, Lindsay and the rest of the boys thank you for your continued distraction and tacit support through that distraction. That overpowering miasma you smell when Ken Mehlman and the conservatives come a’ courtin’ Republicans on gay marriage is the smell of white hot rat sex.
Oh sure, what’s left of my savings is not what it should be, the economy is in the gutter, I’m about to lose the Medicare I’ve been paying into for decades, my social security is the next thing on the table, layoffs of public employees are at record levels, the infrastructure is being allowed to collapse, unions are being crushed, liability of corporations for wrongdoing is being limited to practically nothing, education funding is being precipitously slashed and the conservatives are advocating further tax cuts for the wealthy while proposing that the poor and middle class pay more, but that fraction of gay folk who want to marry can go into yet another state to do that.
Fine record of achievement for the emoprogs.
Now, I guess it’ll go on to the next resource sucker in yet another state so the ability for that fraction to enter into a dying institution will increase.
Enjoy your gains up until the time that the justices appointed by the Bachman/Perry Administration strike them all down while constitutionally defining marriage as being between Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve (and that phrase will be in the main body of the Alito-authored opinion, not in the footnotes.
gbear
I used to get all kinds of grief for having a rainbow flag and ‘Hate is not a family value’ bumper stickers on my car. It got to the point that I could tell when the car behind you was going to pull up and shout ‘faggot!’ at me, and I’d be ready with a nice loud simultaneous ‘MORON!’. A lady once asked me if the ‘Hate…’ sticker was ‘a gay thang’ and then started spouting bible verses at me. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never been assaulted, but I was chased all over St. Paul one evening until I stopped at the Amtrak station for refuge. The car pulled up across the street and a group of guys screamed shit at me, but they eventually left. I still feel like I need to protect myself in some situations because I’m gay. Old habits are hard to unlearn.
daveNYC
Yep, now the thugs are able to drive to their pogroms. Go us.
Hairline cracks. I haven’t been following all that much, but the most I’ve seen is some quotes from Charles Barkley.
Brian R.
I think I figured out what’s going on with Yevgraf — apparently, he’s writing from the year 2005, when Ken Mehlman was still active in Republican politics, when gay marriage was still a massively polarizing issue and not something that enjoys majority support in most polls as it does in 2011, and when Republicans were actively planning on making it a campaign issue and not admitting, as even Tony Perkins has, that it’s a lost cause for them.
That’s the only way his comments make sense. Unless, of course, he’s a self-centered asshole who thinks other people’s civil rights need to be held in a second-class position until he’s wealthy.
edmund dantes
It’s still amazing how often people revert back to things are changing from thousands of years of tradition when it comes to gay acceptance and traditional marriage. Many of those things we consider the norm today (one man one woman and gay is icky) are relatively new constructs (new in the sense of 300-400 years old as dominant) versus thousands of years. Homosexuality and marriage were a lot more fluid and diverse thousands of years ago than we give credit.
It’s history that has been warped and altered by the guys in the early renaissance and later years, and the church picking those to follow versus others that had different views.
Marriage has never been as rock solid a construct of one man and one woman for all time as some claim.
Brian R.
It’s been a lot more than that. Former NY Giants’ star Michael Strahan and current NY Rangers star Sean Avery each came out in support of the gay marriage measure in New York.
The real breakthrough will come when gay athletes come out while they’re still playing, but the level of support from active straight athletes for gay rights is higher than ever before.
Glenn
There’s a Quinnipiac poll out this morning of New Yorkers showing overall a 54-40 majority in favor of the Marriage Equality Act. For NYers under 35, however, the margin is 70-26.
I grew up in the South in the 60’s/70s And my father thought nothing of routinely using the “n” word. As soon as I got to be a teenager and aware of the issues, I fought him tooth and nail on that. It’s the way that progress gets made: younger generations recognizing the older generations’ bigotry for what it is.
edmund dantes
DaveNyc : Several professional athletes have come out as gay post playing career. None have done it while actively playing a major US sport. Plus we’ve had a part owner (I think) come out recently too. Can’t recall who it was, but I think it may have been in basketball.
It’ll be interesting to see the first one that does it while still in career, and I don’t think that it is that far off. I could see it happening in the next decade or so.
gbear
Yevgraf, can you point me to this economic wonderland that GBT folks are supposed to have access to? Maybe my boss’s lesbian boss has heard second-hand news on where this magic portal can be found. I’ll ask her. If financial wellbeing is part of my birthright at a ‘G’, I need to get with the program.
Yevgraf
Interesting point of fact – economically, the minority activists who saw to the expansion of their rights were nowhere near the economic or educational status of the current demographic of gay white males. They were poor and apt to suffer some severe street violence on a widespread basis for those efforts – efforts, I remind you, were about securing basic political rights to vote and assemble, and to participate in the economy.
These are rights that you’ve never been denied.
Again, you’re talking of women who were making so little as to be unable to meet their reasonable daily needs.
We’re going to be doing a bruising series of fights over the affirmation of your feelings.
Meanwhile, redistricting fights are going to further concentrate voting strength in exurbs, villages and ruralities, there are severe economic inequalities at play and you’ve got a substantial number of gay men working for conservatives AND whom are heavily engaged in seeing to it that the glibertarian agenda is achieved. Why wouldn’t I be less than elated? Hell, I live in a throbbing red pustule outside a very blue city that the conservatives continue to believe they can capture – the ads I’m going to hear and see on this are going to make me cringe for months.
beergoggles
@Cat Lady:
umm eww. I saw the pix of him in his boxers and whatever image I had of his sex appeal vanished.
Now Matt Light would be a different story…
Omnes Omnibus
@ Yevgraf: While I am not a psychiatrist (nor do I play one on the TeeVee), it occurs to me that you might just have a few issues on this topic.
Bulworth
I don’t recall our fearless moral Christian leaders expressing concern, much less anger, at this violence. Strange, that.
rickles
cathyx @ 26
“Next thing she’ll tell us Richard Simmons is gay too.”
Yes, I am. (I’m not the famous one, but I’ve had that name all of my life.)
gene108
Though not a “gay thing”, I think Ervin “Magic” Johnson admitting he was HIV positive was also a watershed moment for the gay community. Before his admission of being HIV positive, HIV / AIDS was strictly seen as a deviation caused by being gay – not something that could happen to straight folks – and was generally ignored in the larger society.
When an great athlete, at the top of his career, got AIDS I think it put a lot more attention on the issue, which had destroyed the gay community during the previous decade.
Yevgraf
Close, I’m a self-centered asshole who’s of the belief that the G side of the equation just isn’t that into the rest of us, and I’m disinclined to spend the time and money required for buying the G side even more nice, shiny presents while they’re busy making googly eyes at the handsome glibertarian activists (those activists who, I add, are busy trying to screw everything about my economic life).
Sarah Proud and Tall
@ Yevgraf:
Yep, all those gays, they’re all the same. It’s funny how every single one of them has the same political views and are only in it for themselves. Selfish bastards.
Lawnguylander
From the NY Daily News:
I’m guessing the anonymous Met is R.A. Dickey. Obviously not very scientific but I think a gay player coming out who was a decent player and teammate would get immediate majority support in that locker room and most of the assholes would fall in line gradually. Then as new players come up and try to fit in, being a dick towards the established gay guy won’t be the smart way to go.
No link because including them seems to send me to spamistan.
Roger Moore
@edmund dantes:
I think the most likely possibility for breaking the gay barrier in pro athletics will come in a series of steps. A few gay athletes have come out after their careers were over, but those have mostly been nobodies so people have tended to ignore them. I think there will be a big watershed when an undeniable star comes out after retirement. After that, you’ll see well established players come out during their careers, and finally younger players who haven’t established themselves.
The other possibility is that a young player will come out to his friends and family while he’s still an amateur and will be so talented that the pro teams can’t ignore him. You’ll see teams dealing with a conflict between their interest in getting a talented young player and their desire to avoid controversy. If the guy is talented enough, some team will be willing to take a chance and deal with the potential backlash. It’s only when that backlash is much smaller than expected that the gates will really open.
Brian R.
That last bit of phrasing might not suggest what you mean.
But, yeah, it’s going to take a marquee player coming out to make a real difference here. And preferably someone who’s also a bruiser — an NFL linebacker, an NBA center, a MLB slugger, or someone in the NHL who’s set a record for penalty minutes for fighting.
gbear
Yevgraf, do you realize that half of the ‘B’s and ‘T’s must be against you too? You need to include them in your hate.
Why not just call it ‘M’s and get it completely out in the open?
lllphd
thanks for sharing this. having grown up in the south, i remember too well very similar behaviors toward blacks. just horrifying.
which is precisely why the hate crime laws are so important. those who scream against them are revealing too much in their desire to protect these bands of thugs. whenever i see those absurd complaints, i want to ask them if they realize the laws protect them and their hyper-christian, ultra-conservative, capitalist, skinhead, whatever fascist group as well.
but of course, it’s not those out in the world who are NOT christians fascists who perpetrate those crimes against those groups, as a rule (anyone ever seen an example of that? we might start seeing some violence against capitalism at some point soon, tho). maybe that’s their excuse for not getting it? ah well…..
Donald G
Gay males are to Yevgraf what E.D. Kain is to matoko-chan – a fetishistic totem against which to direct one’s unbalanced hatred.
Cacti
Gay Voters Support For Republicans Nearly Doubled from 2008
I see plenty of posters shooting the messenger, but how does the above doesn’t fit with Yevgraf’s premise.
Seems that more than a few LGBT voters were willing to throw the rest of us under the bus in the name of single issue politics.
Brian R.
That’s an interesting idea, and fairly likely, now that I think about it. With each year, younger people are more and more likely to be out from the get-go.
It’ll be much more like racial desegregation in the majors — those first teams obviously knew those players were black and that some of their current players would have objections, but what was gained by adding black players more than made up for what would be lost in the racists’ resentment.
Lysana
You want to talk the T side, Yevgraf? How’s about the fact that GENDA, a bill to protect the rights of transgender people in housing and employment, has died in the NY state Senate three years in a row, including this year? And the GLB people (of which I’m a B, but not in NY) *ignored* the lives of their trans brothers and sisters in favor of tax breaks and booking caterers?
It’s despicable how the GL power elite’s shoved same-sex marriage into the forefront when people are getting fired and worse for being transgender. Aren’t their lives at all important? And what about making sure the lower-class members of all the acronym letters get health care and safe housing while we’re at it?
Brian R.
Read the bottom of that article — the sample size in that poll was woefully small and the margin of error was huge. I wouldn’t rely on those numbers in the slightest.
But suppose it were correct. So what? Sorry, but I don’t give a shit if any minority group doesn’t bow and scrape to me and pay me back politically for recognizing their fundamental full rights as Americans. Right is right, period.
debg
Great post, Anne. And Greg’s column is worth reading in its entirety.
Cacti
So, you’re willing to concede Yesgraf’s point then.
Lawnguylander
BTW, it’s not like there’s not precedence for being at least a semi-out gay baseball player and with the Mets. Rusty Staub played for the Mets in the 70s and 80s and everyone involved with the team knew he was gay. And even though it was never talked about in the press, eventually so did most of the fans. Rusty was a beloved figure in that clubhouse and all the way up to ownership. Maybe a lot of that’s due to his personality but he stuck around with the team way past the point where skills merited a roster spot. They were not looking to get rid of the gay.
Glenn
Lysana, your sweeping condemnation of NY GLB’s for “ignoring” transgender rights is pretty over-the-top. The NY Senate is controlled by Republicans. There was never any chance that they were going to bring GENDA for a vote. There was a chance for the Marriage Equality Act. What would you have people do?
Cacti
And I’ll also ask, if the Marriage Equality Act had failed, would that have been blamed on the blacks too?
Peter
Well, Cacti, I could start by pointing out that 31 isn’t actually anywhere near double of 19. I could further point out that either number represents a pretty significant minority. And I could also follow that up by pointing out that not only is it taken from a poll with a small sample size and big margin of error, it is also an exit poll from a midterm election with a highly depressed turnout on the left.
And finally I could point out that Yevgraf’s position is beyond moronic for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with that number.
Glenn
Well, it failed in 2009, and no one blamed it on the blacks then, at least no one of any note that I can recall. What’s your point?
I don’t understand how the fact that some (in my view) very misguided LGBT voters support Republicans — at the expense of LGBT rights, mind you — suddenly makes the entire LGBT community suspect and our equality unworthy of support. This whole line of comments from Yevgraf and Cacti is just bizarre in the extreme.
celticdragonchick
@yevgraf
Speaking as one of the resident transgendered ballon juicers:
Go fuck yourself with a rusty chainsaw, you self absorbed, pompous, dripping tool.
Suffern ACE
People are shocked, just shocked that gay voters behave like other voters, including democratic constituencies who also rejected the democrats in noticable numbers in 2010. Shocked I tell you. WTF is wrong with those Asians, Hispanics, and white women, who did the same thing. Perhaps noone’s support for Democrats as well as progressives is set in stone. But those gay voters are so problematic.
http://elections.nytimes.com/2010/results/house/exit-polls
See any category in those exit polls who was showin’ those Democrats that loyal lovin’?
celticdragonchick
@ Glenn
There is a long history of bad blood between the gay (as in gay men in suits) and transgendered communities in New York state becasue of deliberate decisions by gay stratagists to marginalize and denigrate trans people over the last 30 years. Any tactical decisions for political purposes are going to be poisoned by suspicion and anger for being insulted and thrown under the bus in past years.
celticdragonchick
I believe he is a distant relative of mine. Oh well.
Donald G
Yevgraf and Cacti are embarking on a “divide and conquer” strategy. If they throw out enough distracting shit about those they deem “philosophically impure”, someone in disagreeing with them will phrase something badly in reply and that will highlight a “fatal contradiction” in our reasoning or otherwise show their opponents to be elitist, sexist, racist, or otherwise “illiberal” or “impure” and then they can use that as a cudgel against everyone else who disagrees with them. It’s best just not to engage with them and just assume they’re talking about the preparation and serving of pie.
Glenn
@celticdragonchick I’m well aware of the history. Though I’m not sure I can agree with all of your characterizations, there’s no question that trans rights have often been back-burnered. But it seems to me that GENDA has been a reasonably high priority of the LGBT political community in NY for a few years now. It’s been passed by the Assembly 3 times, but the political reality of the Senate has not enabled it to go all the way through. I just don’t see how passage of the MEA means that trans rights were “ignored.”
Yevgraf
@Peter
Actually, since ACA is now going to be on the ropes, the debt ceiling negotiations are going to involve my future access to Medicare, I’m going to spend the last of my feeble savings on educating my last couple of kids for pathetic state colleges, and my access to my social security contributions is likely to be affected, I’m going to ask EmoProg gay activists this:
Again, I note – at no time have white gay males suffered from a relentless lack of access to the voting booth or the economy like minorities or women. Your feelings haven’t been affirmed in the past and caused you great gobbets of dramatic emotional pain, and this new legal affirmation – utterly meaningless to my life and, more importantly, meaningless to the lives of a very large majority of economically besieged Americans – seems to be about the only accomplishment of so-called progressive activists over the past 20 years or so.
I say “so-called”, because this couldn’t have been accomplished absent the efforts of the conservative/glibertarian gay activists liberally sprinkled throughout the conservative power corridors of Washington.
So again, for EmoProg gay activists, I ask
It isn’t a rhetorical device, not anymore. These wins that you get that affect the lives of so very few make it much harder for folks in places like Indiana and Ohio. Those independent voters aren’t going to know that it was Republicans who brought it home – it’ll resonate as a “coastal elitist soshulistical librul” thing, and it will cost votes. The longer it is crowed about and the more pride parades you have (along with the imaging), it costs even more votes, and causes some real downticket pain.
The move after the win should have been about solemnity – not days of gloating, parades and promises of more crusades.
daveNYC
Yesgraf’s point is irrelevant to whether or not same-sex marriage should be legal. It’s like saying that we shouldn’t have GOTV programs for old people because they tend to be more conservative. Rights are rights.
Glenn
Shorter Yevgraf: You gays and lesbians STFU and go back in the closet, so that Democrats can win more of the bigot vote.
Uncle Glenny
There was Glenn Burke but that didn’t work out so well…
Yutsano
Interesting little assertion you make there. Tell me: do you think all civil rights should be decided on the merits of their impact to the vast majority of society?
Peter
Yevgraf: I think you’ve misunderstood something, I am not myself a gay male.
But regardless, your whole argument is structured around the idea that we should correct social inequalities in order to win elections. When actually, it’s exactly the other way around: We should win elections so that we can correct social inequalities, among other things.
It’s also structured around the idea that we shouldn’t actually accomplish any sort of agenda if it might lose us votes in red states. Which is tantamount to saying that we simply shouldn’t do anything at all, because these days Fox News and the right-wing noise machine can and will demagogue anything done by the Democrats into a terrible soshulist threat to America.
It’s a stupid argument, and making it makes you look stupid.
celticdragonchick
It got to the point that trans women were being deliberately excluded from Stonewall remembrance events, even though trans women like Sylvia Rivera were the actual instigators of the Stonewall Riots (she is generally credited with throwing either the first or second shoe/bottle/rock etc)
The earnest young gay guys in suits saw our community as an embarrassment and we were going to be invisible if they had anything to say about. I personally confronted the president of PFLAG at a conference in Charlotte on the issue of sidelining Trans people. His answer was encouraging, and I think things have gotten better…but people can have long memories about this subject.
Suffern ACE
I believe the parades have been on the calendar for 40 years, so I’m not quite certain how easy it would have been to cancel the parade so that we could be properly somber. Had the bill failed, there would have been a parade anyway.
But o.k. then, I’ll as the gays not to defend in Iowa or Minnesota next year so that Yevgraf can win those states back for Democrats. I’m guessing that the progressives are likely not to be able to supply those votes, but hey, if it makes you happy I won’t feel so sad.
TR
What? How did you read it that way?
Logic isn’t really a strong suit with you, I’m guessing. The gays are probably to blame for that too.
TR
What Peter said at 81.
Listen, Yegraf and Cacti are perfectly welcome to be selfish narcissists who only care about other people in terms of what they can do for Yegraf and Cacti. But don’t pretend that’s even remotely “progressive.”
We call people like you Randians. Go have fun with the libertarians you claim to despise. You’ll have a lot in common, if it’s only your tendency to look in the mirror all day long.
Yevgraf
Actually, no. But when people are economically oppressed as they are now, they get less concerned with the purely private concerns of others, and want to see results for themselves.
gbear
When Cole comes in from gardening, he’ll be laughing at this comment thread.
Yevgraf
Irony can be so ironic…
Yevgraf
Maybe somebody will tell on me….
Rihilism
If you continue to throw these tantrums while we’re in the store buying toys we’ll leave you in the car with the windows rolled up, young man and/or woman…
Senyordave
I remeber last year asking my stepson (age 29 at the time, lives in Ft. Lauderdale) his opinions on marriage equality, and he really didn’t understand the question. He’s not very political, and after about a minute I reaized he could not conceive of why anyone would think to ask someone whether they agreed with it.
To him, it just wasn’t anymore of an issue that interracial marriage would be, or marriage netween two people of different religions. In ther words, a non-issue, no different than any other marriage.
Give it two more generations, and most of the people against it will be the sort of people who don’t approve of interracial marriage today.
Rihilism
‘Cept when it’s not…
Presumably, they’d tell Cole, “Hey, look at this idiot on Anne’s comments. Funny stuff, no?”….
Yutsano
So civil rights should only be advanced when the economy is good, otherwise hurt fee-fees will ensue. Duly noted. Are you even listening to yourself?
Tonybrown74
@Yevgraf
You obviously have issues with gay men, particularly gay men with money.
Lawnguylander
Oh well? If I wasn’t clear, I was saying I think he’s the pro marriage equality Met quoted in the piece.
@Uncle Glenny
Yet it worked out much better for Rusty. I wonder why Burke didn’t find the same kind of acceptance but I don’t know enough about him to guess. I don’t think it’s just because Burke was more out than Rusty.
Peter
Senyordave
This. I’m 23 right now, and I remember when I was a boy, I read an article in a Reader’s Digest about some priest in Nevada who was performing Gay Marriages, and I just didn’t understand it. It seemed so perfectly obvious to me that Same-Sex Marriage should be legal that it had simply never occurred to me that it wouldn’t be.
Rihilism
Oh, The Humanity! I feel your pain! In my younger years, when I received my first university bill from the “state college” that I attended with no assistance from my parents (they couldn’t afford to provide any), I immediately ran to the campus center and screamed, “DAMN YOU, KEN MEHLMAN! Now that you’ve got yer gay marrying, where’s my kudos!”. This being 1985, my fellow students were confused by my actions until I explained that I was afflicted with precognition as result of a car crash involving Stephen King…
MaximusNYC
@Lysana:
In other words: It’s despicable to make huge progress on one issue, when there’s another issue on which we’re NOT making progress!
WTF?
To make Lysana happy, why don’t we just never do ANYTHING progressive? That way no one can have their feelings hurt that we didn’t do something else progressive instead!
(I see that Lysana’s blog appears to be dedicated to the cause of promoting as much infighting and competitive victimhood as possible within the LGBT community.)
Yevgraf
I’m working hard to document the EmoProg Activist accomplishments over the past 30 years to date.
Aside from gay marriage (which was just given an amazing boost from gay conservative activists after being the bete noir that wiped out John Kerry and Team D just 7 years ago), I’m drawing blanks.
Interestingly, health care couldn’t seem to get any traction from the moment that Hillary got stomped on it back in 1993 – 18 goddamn years ago. Financial reform can’t seem to generate passion despite the world falling in. Card check was a non-starter, climate change legislation gets a big assed “meh”, and god forbid we do cramdown on mortgages in bankruptcy despite the world caving in. Yet in The Years of the Teabaggers a mere 7 years after a lot of sturm and drang and constimatooshinal amendments prohibiting Teh Ghey Marriage, GOPers fall all over themselves to do that, spurred on and urged on by the conservative/glibertarian activist cadre.
One finds oneself wondering how much of it has to do with the age and economic status of the sorts of gay men who would be eager to marry.
Peter
Yevgraf, do you actually think conservatives and the GOP were falling over themselves to make Gay marriage legal in NY? Seriously? You must have more than a few screws loose.
celticdragonchick
@Maximus
In other words: It’s despicable to make huge progress on one issue, when there’s another issue on which we’re NOT making progress!
WTF?
Because trans people have been thrown under the bus repeatedly. In fact, there is considerable debate in the GLBT community (on both sides…the GLB and the T )as to whether trans people should sever completely and strike out on their own. A number of gay activists have opined that trans people are a pathological embarrassment to gays and lesbians and need to be dumped. Many trans people are sick of being dumped on by those same persons while they are told time and again that they are the “bad guys” for belly aching when trans inclusive GLBT civil rights bills are dumped in favor of gay and lesbian only bills.
Some GLBT organizations have taken the stand that they will only support bills that include all of us. We stand together or fall together, and no more “some for me and none for you” bullshit.
Glenn
And the Marriage Equality Act is exactly such a bill, isn’t it?
OK, I’m sorry, this might have been true once, but I really have to ask you to back this up if you mean to claim this is still happening. And I mean, with someone who matters.
Jado
In 1967, a year before I was born, the US went thru the legal wringer with Loving v Virginia. When I learned about this case in school, it shocked me that we had laws against marriage of any type that recently – as a child of the 1970s Sesame Street integrated cast, I figured it was a legacy of a long ago, exceptionally stupid time.
I wonder how old my kids will be when the final obstruction falls for this iteration of stupidity, and if it will shock them the same way it shocked me.
Ruckus
Omnes Omnibus
subtle man, subtle and true
Amanda in the South Bay
@ Glen:
Jesus Christ, remember the ENDA debate in the fall of 2007? Frank, Sullivan, Avarosis, etc opining that us stupid transsexuals were holding back progress for upper middle class privileged queers like them? Do you even pay attention to these things? Are you aware of the existence of trans people?
Suffern ACE
@105 Amanda – i agree with you that there is some selective memory going on and the G&L vs T issue is real, of long duration, and also continues. But was Sullivan actually opining in favor of ENDA? i thought his whole spiel was ‘we don’t want to become like those other minorities who make you hire them and threaten to sue you’ conservative vision.
Amanda in the South Bay
Suffern ACE:
From what I remember, he was pretty supportive of Frank, calling it his greatest moment, etc. Oh, count Dan Savage in as someone who (IIRC?) was all for a trans exclusive ENDA.
celticdragonchick
Aravosis has been real vocal about dumping trans people. Barney Frank has been no friend for damned sure. I have seen others on the talking head tv shows.
jprfrog
Does anyone remember an “All in the Family” episode where Archie gets his consciousness raised rather violently when a local now-retired athletic hero comes out to him, and the guy working in the flower shop turns out to be very straight?
Popular culture, especially TV comedy and drama, may not lead the charge for change but I think it reflects common attitudes and heralds things that then can be embodied in concrete law and social custom. In the James Bond movies, the original villains were Russians, then Chinese, then SPECTRE (an outlaw organization) then assorted financial megol-maniacs (e.g. Goldfinger and Mr. Big).In the original Star Trek, the couldn’t show Capt. Kirk (white macho male, although the actor was Jewish) kissing Lt. Uhuru (black woman with a Swahili name). Then in TNG the Captain was a bald Brit with a French name (Picard) and the strongest female was the ship’s shrink, in DS9 the captain was a black man (although his lady had to be black also; however the Klingon Lt. Worf was played by an obviously black actor — Michael Dorn — and actually married a white woman in the course of the show — and the real bad-ass villain was a religious charlatan-cum-hypocrite done to perfection by Louise Fletcher) and finally in Voyager the captain was a woman (as well as the personification of the scariest menace of all, the Borg Queen.)
Of course comedy has gone even further, but even it’s more segmented audiences show that much is coming out of the closet. I just hope that something like true equality is achieved in law and society before the whole thing comes crashing down under the pressure of population, GW, Peak oil, declining fresh water, and hordes of Marching Morons.
Catsy
@Cacti:
I am–for the sake of argument–even though it’s pure bullshit.
I’m willing to concede every last idiotic, sweeping generalization he’s made about GLBT (or however you want to arrange the toppings on that sandwich) persons, because those assertions are absolutely orthogonal to whether or not they deserve the same rights as everyone else.
Let’s assume that gay, bisexual and transgendered people are the most titanic douchenozzles in the history of the known universe, who as an undifferentiated mass just don’t give a fuck about economic issues that obviously don’t affect them or straight people in general. Let’s assume that of all the bent folk out there, only lesbians care about breeder economics. Let’s assume, in other words, that every single one of Yevgraf’s premises are correct.
So?
Something is either a civil right or it isn’t. The KKK and Neo-Nazis get constitutional protection for their opinions. The Westboro Baptist Church’s particular flavor of medievalism is constitutionally protected.
If those odious extremes are all protected, why then should GBTs get the short end of the stick just because someone on the internet thinks they’re a bunch of assholes?
The most fundamental logic error in Yevgraf’s argument is that he seems to think rights are zero-sum or subject to a popularity contest. If the GLBT community gets their rights, he seems to think this will result in less attention being paid to the issues he cares about most. If New York legalizes gay marriage, this means Congress isn’t working on the economy. If gay activists are agitating for their rights, they obviously don’t care about jobs for straight people.
And that’s setting aside the ludicrous and risible notion that the economy affects straight people and lesbians but not gay, bi, and trans people. Yev’s obviously got some serious issues with people who aren’t either straight or lezzie enough to turn him on.
I can’t even begin to unpack all the frozen stupid and bigotry that’s been jammed into his argument. But I can at least get a running start on making fun of it.
No one of Importance
Transphobia and someone who matters…hmmm, Dan Savage important enough for ya?
From this: http://gudbuytjane.wordpress.com/page/2/?archives-list=1
“I’ve had people flat out tell me they know Savage is transphobic but they’re going to read him anyway. ”
Yup – from gay and bi friends alike. Transphobia doesn’t bother them, so Savage’s huge blind spot doesn’t bother them. When gay transphobia is obvious even to this straight woman, it’s bloody obvious.
PanurgeATL
I’m familiar with this argument (as prevalent as it’s been), but I’m not sure this is Yevgraf’s real argument. It seems to me he’s accusing Teh Ghey Community itself of a lack of solidarity on economic issues: “If they don’t have my back, why should I have theirs?” This is a legitimate political question, but it’s not so easy a moral question. As someone who’s very turned off by “square” men feeling out of place in a Ghey Community that has a deeply ingrained case of crewcut disease, I don’t think they’ve got my back as a bisexual would-be “gender reformer”, but if they want it that badly, who am I to say no?
The issue, for Yevgraf, apparently comes with the enlistment of Republicans to get marriage equality passed. There’s much to be said for solidarity, but the fact of the matter is that not all the victories will be won at once, and I’m saying that as someone who doesn’t really expect to “win” my own personal (“pet” if you don’t care) issues at all. Life is like that, you know. If someone else still has your back even after they’ve gotten theirs, then, yes, they’re on your side.
Nate Dawg
What are we going to with our shiny new marriage toy, asshole?
We’re going to do what you have the right to do, just like everyone else. We’re going to swap property without incurring tax penalties. We’re going to visit one another in ANY hospital, no matter how remote, because we’re FAMILY. We’re going to be able to make life and death decisions for our loved ones and rest at night knowing that if our life is at risk, our most cherished loved one will be able to make that decision for us. We’re going to exercise our marital rights as parents, in caring for our children. And when we die, we’ll know that our loved one won’t be evicted or thrown on the street.
Your commentary is so offensive, it makes me ill.
JadedOptimist
Why yes, now that I have the (theoretical) right to get married in a state where I do not live, let me drop everything to help you improve your personal economic situation.
Yevgraf refers to marriage equality as a “G” issue in the LGBT rights movement. I don’t have statistics at my fingertips, but I suspect that the “L” part of the movement is quite well represented among same-sex couples who marry. Yevgraf also gives me the impression that he sees the fight for marriage equality as somehow being against the economic interests of families, when the health, security and well-being of children and families is one of the primary drivers behind the push for marriage equality. You want to talk about sacrificing for your kids? Talk to a pair of underemployed Lesbian moms trying to raise a family while having to circumvent a system stacked against them at every step just to keep their family intact.
Yes, movement on economic justice has gone backwards recently. Does that somehow mean that movement on other forms of justice must remain stagnant or move backward as well? One reason the long arc of history bends toward justice is the the weight of (relatively) small victories like the one in New York last week continually move the baseline forward. The movement is incremental, but real.
By the way, it is perfectly possible to obtain a good, even excellent education at a State university. It requires intellectual curiosity, hard work and perhaps a bit of aggressiveness, but millions of people have proven it to be true. Yevgraf’s kids won’t be held back much in life for attending a state university if they have intelligence and drive. Having been raised by a parent like Yevgraf, though, may be a much larger burden.
not a gator
Jesus Christ, remember the ENDA debate in the fall of 2007? Frank, Sullivan, Avarosis, etc opining that us stupid transsexuals were holding back progress for upper middle class privileged queers like them?
Oh, god, don’t remind me. I thought there was a reason I was pissed at my former congresscrittur, B. Frank. FUCK that fucking fucker. (I wouldn’t fuck him with Ken Mehlman’s dick.)
Frank brought up the bathroom thing. I mean, seriously? Seriously? A WINNAR IZ U.
not a gator
But was Sullivan actually opining in favor of ENDA? i thought his whole spiel was ‘we don’t want to become like those other minorities who make you hire them and threaten to sue you’ conservative vision.
Ha ha, Sully should know–he got fired for sucking.
Which as we all know, no lawyer worth hir salt would take without sizeable upfront payments.
Puns intended.
not a gator
Yup – from gay and bi friends alike. Transphobia doesn’t bother them, so Savage’s huge blind spot doesn’t bother them. When gay transphobia is obvious even to this straight woman, it’s bloody obvious.
Disagree. You end up reading him willy-nilly because he does stuff, he moves and shakes. Dan used to be semi-tolerable in the 90’s (although I recall his bi-male-hating more than anything else–it wasn’t phobia, just nastiness) but these days he’s utterly insufferable (must be why Maher loves him as a guest).
Savage has issues out the wazoo, for example he seems to share Douche-hat’s impregnation fetish (thank you, RCC) to the extent that he actually whined publicly after the adoption of his son that it took something away from his sex life to know that he couldn’t impregnate his boyfriend.
Right around the time of spreadingsantorum (which was genius and deserved… frankly, the man-dog-sex was only scratching the surface with that conjob) or perhaps a few years earlier Savage claimed to have spread infected spittle all over the doorknobs at the campaign headquarters of a certain homophobic political candidate. He never did seem to get why people were turned off by this (and I was certainly among them). Btw, the “germ warfare” was a strikeout, as no one else got sick.
The germ warfare campaign tells you everything you need to know about Savage … if the fact that he let his column turn into a 24/7 poop fetish blog while claiming that all his correspondents were sickos wasn’t enough. Ironic given that he was the originator of the “It Just Happened” theory in which he explained that pissing yourself while lying in the bathtub with your tighty whiteys on or waking up to the dog eating you out after falling asleep on the kitchen floor with just a t-shirt on and discovering you secretly like it … did not “just happen.” You wanted it to happen. NEXT!