Sully had a great perspective on the defeat of the gay rights measure in Maine:
The hard truth is: people are still afraid of this, and our opponents knew how to target their fears very precisely. They have honed it to an art – their prime argument now is that although adults can handle gay equality, children cannot. And so they play straight to heterosexuals whose personal comfort with gay people is fine but who sure don’t want their kids to turn out that way. One way to prevent kids turning out that way, the equality opponents argue, is to ensure that they never hear of gay people, except in a marginalized, scary, alien fashion. And this referendum was clearly a vote in which the desire to keep gay people invisible trumped the urge to treat them equally.
I honestly don’t know where the gay rights movement goes from here. There have been some recent successes- there seems to be some movement on DADT, an openly gay mayor was elected in North Carolina, Washington state passed a gay rights bill, Obama signed the Shephard legislation, the HIV ban was lifted, and some other victories in other states in recent years. At the same time, I understand (as much as I can) the anger and the frustration. They did the right things- they had bills passed by the legislature and signed by the governor, followed the legitimate political process, and unlike any other civil rights issue, laws are only temporary for gays and a year later it gets overturned in referendums. It has to be maddening, and I have no answers. About the only thing I can do is to stop being a jerk and openly taunting gay bloggers when I think they are doing something stupid or flailing pointlessly at the administration, because at this point I can’t think anything other than that they have every right to be pissed. I don’t know if it will work, but maybe the only recourse left for the gay rights movement is legitimate anger. Nothing else seems to be working.
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
The right says it would be a “big mistake” for gay rights activists to try to get the courts to rule in favor of gay marriage, which tells me this is a great idea.
Bostondreams
Great post, Mr. Cole, and well said.
Ann B. Nonymous
The courts would be nice, except have you seen what the Supreme Court looks like lately?
Kilkee
As a Mainer I think there are two basic possibilities here. First, the demographics clearly indicate that in a few years the gay marraige forces will win handily, just as the effort to provide basic civil liberties to gay citizens grew over teh years. Secondly, if the issue gets placed before our Supreme Court, I have zero doubt that it will strike down any effort to confine marraige to straight couples. I’d have much preferred that Maine be an example to other States by rejecting the scare-mongering of this referendum, but I guess that wasn’t in the cards.
LTMidnight
I still think the worst idea the GLBT movement made was to decide that not only was Obama a homophobic bigot, but anyone who disagreed with that belief were homophobic bigots as well. It was at that point that the momentum they had earlier this year came to grinding halt.
J.W. Hamner
Yeah, I don’t know what to say to those guys/gals… move to Massachusetts? Vermont is nice this time of year? If I was gay I certainly wouldn’t find the idea that “we need to wait for the bigots to die” to be very appealing.
That said, it honestly didn’t surprise me that Maine went against gay marriage… I love visiting there, but it’s not exactly what you would call a “cosmopolitan” population.
Charity
If I were gay, I would just stop paying my taxes. If I wasn’t going to be treated like a full citizen with full rights, why should I pay for it?
A lot of people will go to jail, but it might make people think.
The Grand Panjandrum
@J.W. Hamner: We have marriage equality here in NH and we’re right next door.
inkadu
Maybe they can join Bachmann’s group today and terrorize some federal legislators. I’m sure the teabaggers will greet them with open arms, what with all their talk about the rights of the individual.
But good points about the “WTF!?” that must be running through the movement. It looks like the courts are the last resort for civil rights; that’s the way it was, ultimately, in the 60’s. The law has to rule and then there has to be the political will to enforce it. But gays are so widely accepted in society, and those “anti”‘s so fringey, that an unassailable court ruling should settle things nicely… right up until the federal gov’t decides to annul state rulings on the issue.
cd6
According to the comments I’ve read on local news sites here in Washington, God is now going to punish our state with natural disasters and continued recession.
Maybe when we don’t get earthquaked, people will reconsider that position.
Otherwise, keep in mind half this country doesn’t believe in evolution. That’s the same half that is “OH NOES TEH HOMOS” and until they die off and/or their children are old enough to vote, its an uphill climb…
Leelee for Obama
@Charity: I like this idea-and so did Thoreau. The problem is the Mexican War did what it was meant to do, in spite of his poll-tax evasion, and, as loved as he is, that episode isn’t anymore popular than MLK, Jr.’s stand against the Vietnam War. The satisfaction of making a statement would have to be enough.
It’s sad, though, that waiting for the recalcitrant generations to move on, so to speak, seems to be the only feasible course of action.
Robin G.
The plus side is that this *will* be won long-term; that’s no comfort to people getting screwed today, though.
I’d say SCOTUS is the answer, but it’s quite a risk. If we lose, the fight gets a lot messier. It might be better — horrible though it is — to keep doing things this way, and let it take the ten years.
Alternatively, maybe take a case against civil rights referendums to SCOTUS? Not ask them to rule on gay marriage, but rule on whether it can be affected by referendums?
Steve
I don’t know why a bunch of 53-47 votes are supposed to signify a lost cause. We all know which way the trend is going. If you can’t get a court ruling, then just keep doing what you’re doing, the voters will come around.
kay
@Kilkee:
What is the specific worry regarding schoolchildren and gay marriage? I read some of the invective, and I honestly don’t get it. Is the fear that schoolchildren would be made aware of gay marriage? And this will happen in schools?
Marriage isn’t discussed in public schools, at least in the public schools I’m in, and I’m in a lot. Teachers and others shy away from anything that might be construed as personal to kid’s parents, for a lot of very good reasons. The two biggies are that a lot of children’s parents are not married, and a lot of children are cared for by people other than their parents.
Where are they getting this?
Violet
Great post, John Cole.
I think it’s going to take some brave person or people making it law and then hopefully the courts will uphold it. Right now Obama isn’t that brave guy, for sure. Perhaps if he gets a second term he’ll leave behind the timidity. I hope so, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
It’s incredibly frustrating to watch.
Incertus
I think you build on the successes and you smack down the assholes like Dreher who want to deny their prejudice against gays the way Ta-Nehisi did yesterday. And you make it safer for everyone in the LGBT crowd to be open about who they are, which is why things like ENDA and getting rid of DADT are so important.
Robin G.
Or, further, a SCOTUS ruling on whether the Constitution does require states to recognize gay marriages from other states. (Dammit, what’s the name of that?) I’m not sure how they’ve managed to not rule on that so far. If we lose, we’re no worse off; if we win, a vouple will have to travel to Massachusetts, but they’re still married with full rights when they go back to Maine.
Incertus
@kay: There isn’t a specific worry, honestly–it’s people feeling icky around gays and using their kids as a shield to justify their own shortcomings as human beings. I really have no patience left for this crowd, quite frankly.
cmorenc
Gays expect tectonic across-the-board social change too much too fast, and overlook that enormous progress *has* been made, and that they ARE (more slowly, but nonetheless surely) inevitably winning in the long run.
TWO EXAMPLES will suffice for now:
1) They would have lost the Maine referendum by 25 points only a decade ago, not four points. Ditto Prop 8 in California, which they would have lost by 20 points, not three or four only a decade ago.
2) ONLY A DECADE AGO a significantly higher percentage of BJers (had they been Maine residents) would have voted “YES” (overturn gay marriage). I know I would have voted yes ten, even perhaps five years ago. But not now – I’d have been maybe not first in line, but I’d have made sure to be at my precinct station before 8am to vote a resounding “NO!”, and so would most of the other BJers who felt differently about this not that long ago.
David
We haven’t even moved passed anti-gay nuts organizing against showing tepid, play-acted, on-screen kisses between fictional same sex couples on low rated television shows.
BethanyAnne
I dunno what to do. Honestly, I’m thinking about leaving. Not just because of this, I guess. I just find America to be way further rightwing than I’m comfy with. I’m getting more and more tired of being such an outlier. Was talking with a very good friend about this again last night. We’ve been thinking about leaving for years, and I think the time is getting closer. I should probably stay and fight, but I look at this place and think “What for?”
Napoleon
@Robin G.:
Full Faith and Credit Clause.
kay
@Incertus:
Thanks. It stuck out because there is such an elaborate effort to not compare parents. Never. Ever. All parents are exactly the same. It’s the right and necessary way to approach it too, as a practical matter. Stay away. I can’t imagine opening that can of worms: right after the multiplication tables, we’ll poll on who has married parents. Raise your hand! Discuss.
I can’t imagine a teacher pontificating on marriage where I live, because fully half of our parents aren’t married, or the children are cared for by relatives or others who are not their parents.
scav
Bah, things are moving. We’re getting to the point where we’re interpreting the steps forwards, backwards or sideways of a single private private as deep and meaningful omens of the final outcome of the entire war. The last five minutes of the Dow were up! The Recession is OVER! The last five minutes of the Dow were down! Buy glod, eat squirrels and worship/curse the giant squid! Somebody frowned at Obama! Failed presidency! Bah. This is going to happen, we’re haggling over the delivery date. A necessary haggle if we want some people to open their new toys during their lifetime, but I do believe it will come based on how much movement I’ve seen within my own lifespan.
diogenes
Open, honest education of “other” cultures and societies throughtout “civilisations” in our classrooms would go a long way to understanding that gays, even in this country were treated indifferently (see James Buchanan) at times or actually venerated as by some Native American peoples.
Until the G*d fearing puritans learn some tolerance nothing will change.
Zifnab
@Robin G.:
That would be ideal in my mind. Currently, NY and DC recognize out of state gay marriage. And there are a number of legal tangles – couples getting married in Mass or Vermont or with leftover marriage from California who want to get divorced, for instance – that will force states to either recognize marriages or start anulling them as people cross state lines.
The latter being far more controversial and difficult to implement than the former, I suspect you’ll see judges start siding with gay marriage just to keep everything straight (no pun intended).
soonergrunt
@Napoleon: Also, Loving v. Virginia.
The effect of the Loving case was to say, specifically, that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional and no state could have them.
canuckistani
Opponents believe that being gay is a choice, and that their children, if exposed to positive gay images, will also choose to be gay. Ask them when they chose their orientation and how they chose it and they shut up pretty fast. They don’t change their minds, but at least they shut up.
KCinDC
@The Grand Panjandrum, things may be looking shaky in New Hampshire.
The next battleground may be DC. The city council is set to pass a marriage equality bill by a vote of 11-2 within a few weeks. Opponents are screaming that the people need to be allowed to vote on it, but DC law doesn’t allow initiatives or referendums that violate people’s civil rights (including specifically violations based on sexual orientation), and courts have already ruled in a virtually identical question that such a ballot question would be improper.
Opponents only hope is that Congress will stick its nose in and overrule the city council (something we in DC have to put up with, which is not a possibility in the states). I hope the congressional Democrats can find enough spine to do nothing, but it’s hard to have confidence in that.
BrYan
Progress moves one funeral at a time.
Ron
@Robin G.:
The problem with your suggestion is that “If we lose, we’re no worse off than before” isn’t really true. In a vacuum, sure, nothing has changed. But what it means is that it’s far more difficult in the future to change it. Just look at the Sotomayor hearings. There was a huge emphasis on following precedent. Once the USSC sets a precedent it becomes much much harder to do anything about it.
r€nato
@Ann B. Nonymous:
the last thing I want is the Roberts Supreme Court issuing any definitive rulings on gay marriage.
PeakVT
I honestly don’t know where the gay rights movement goes from here.
Work towards gaining equality under civil union laws, and try again on the M-word in ten years? Boring but practical. Note that it took 9 years to go from civil unions to marriage equality in Vermont.
Robin G.
@Napoleon: Thanks. I’m really not sure how a challenge on behalf of the Full Faith and Credit could fail to pass SCOTUS. But again, if it doesn’t, no ground has really been lost.
Funkhauser
The lesson of previous rights struggles – civil rights in America, anti-apartheid in South Africa, de-colonization in India – is to make yourself a burden to the forces of repression, and to simultaneously win support from those who have a lesser stake in the conflict.
Having written the above sentence, I have no idea how the same-sex marriage campaign would accomplish these tasks.
jibeaux
@kay:
Right, I would agree with Incertus. Nate Silver said that the arguments ranged from the “literally incoherent to the sublimely unpersuasive”. It’s just one of the arguments on that continuum.
Robin G.
@Ron: Yes, but Full Faith and Credit already isn’t being enforced (near as I can tell — if someone knows more, I defer), so to rule on that would in no way affect rulings on gay marriage legitimacy itself, so basically we return to the slow but fairly certain “wait for them to die” approach.
Leelee for Obama
Who would choose to be different in a nation that touts individuality and rewards conformity? Are they really so blind that they can’t see the truth? Homosexuality is no more a choice than having blue eyes or blond hair or great legs. The choice made is to embrace who you are. The GLBT people who do that are courageous, and I for one am sick of that being marginalized. I’ve been thinking about a kid I knew years ago. He was 2-3 months older than my Baby Girl at the time, and so maybe they were 2 yo. I knew he was gay then. So did his Mother. The kink in the hose was the Dad. Eventually, there was a divorce and the kid was able to be himself. But, it was as obvious what his orientation was as his football player shoulders and his gorgeous brown eyes. People are willfully blind, and that is what needs to change.
r€nato
speaking of gay marriage:
Bob In Pacifica
I’d never say that equality for gays is moving too fast. I figured out 30 years ago that marriage equality was necessary for gays and I’m not that far ahead of the curve.
Meanwhile, the federal case out here in California over Prop. 8 is intriguing. Part of the case against prop hate is that it was the intention of the initiative to take away constitutional rights from a select group, thus intentionally discriminatory, thus unconstitutional.
That seems pretty clearcut on its face. Gay marriage was a fact in California. Taking it away should be ruled unconstitutional and that right should be restored. Seems to me that that ruling could be extended to Maine.
As far as funding these anti-gay marriage initiatives, I foresee the Catholic and Mormons will feel the pinch in the inflow and outflow. Plus, becoming the face of discrimination against a minority isn’t going to sell your religion to a lot of people who haven’t already bought into it.
Change will come.
WereBear
It’s coming. Not quickly enough, but the trends lines are clear.
Not that I blame anyone, including me, who gets angry and exasperated that we have to drag the troglodytes into each and every successive century while they kick and whine and grab at doorways.
Will they for the love of Galt just GO already? Nothing is stopping them from living their miserable little lives any way they want. But no! They want microwaves and antibiotics and the right to tell everyone else science is evil and we’ll all go to hell.
Hell isn’t Other People. Hell is These People.
Joey Maloney
Philosophically, I think the answer is litigate, because no one’s civil rights should be open to majority rule.
But be strategic. Challenge state laws based on individual state constitutions rather than the Federal one, so the current SCOTUS can’t spoil the party. Choose states where the initiative process is slow and cumbersome so that by the time a referendum can come before the voters gay marriage will have been in place for a year or two. Once people see that it doesn’t automatically turn their fair cities into Sodom and Gomorrah the anti forces lose steam.
soonergrunt
@Robin G.: The last thing you (or they) should want would be to give Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts the chance to change precedent and muddy the waters on this.
Precedent and Stare Decesis mean nothing to them. Going to SCOTUS right now would not be a good idea.
jibeaux
Strategically, I wouldn’t know where to go with this either. Sadly, if there’s a way to change things around quickly I’m not sure anyone’s hit on it yet.
The court approach seems to have better results, but tends to result in lots of nasty backlash. If progressive legislators fall victim to a whipped-up mob against “judicial activism”, etc., it could be counterproductive; and it can have the effect of delegitimizing same-sex marriage as a construct imposed by the courts. On the other hand, it is undeniably a civil rights issue and, as with Loving, the courts are where civil rights issues belong. Public opinion may (but may not, see also abortion) fall into line with court opinions.
There has not been as much luck with the referenda in various states, but at the same time I agree that we can all see who has the momentum. Take the same proposition five years from now (and, might I add, change the wording so that a “yes” vote supports same-sex marriage and vice versa) and I would bet you’d have a different result. Yes, I realize saying “wait five years” is not a great solution, but there literally may not be a mechanism for immediate change.
Completely anecdotally and don’t laugh at me, sometimes I think maybe the best thing to do, if you’re a gay couple? Go find some elderly neighbors and help them bring their groceries in from the car, just as sweet as you please. You can change people’s opinions and prejudices about entire categories of people by giving them a positive opinion about individuals.
RedKitten
The most ridiculous argument I’ve heard from otherwise intelligent people is: “If I’m out with my kid, and we see two men kissing, how do I explain that to them?”
First of all: that’s YOUR problem, not theirs. Part of being a parent is having to answer some questions that you might find uncomfortable. What if you’re out with your kid and you see a baby, and your kid asks you where babies come from? Are you going to try to institute a public ban on babies, just because you’re too much of a chickenshit to answer a question?
And secondly: It’s pretty damned easy to explain people. If you see a gay couple kissing, and your kid asks you why they’re kissing, you say, “They’re in love.” Easy enough, right? And if they ask about the fact that the couple are the same gender, it’s not so freaking hard to say, “Sometimes men and women love each other, like mommy and daddy. And sometimes men and men, or women and women, love each other.” And then the kid goes, “Oh, okay” and goes back to throwing pebbles into a puddle.
Kids are naturally open-minded. And I think this is what terrifies the hell out of some parents — the very thought of their kid not mimicking their every thought, word and deed freaks them the hell out. They’re trying to raise a clone, not a separate human being with his/her own opinions, choices, and identity.
So when their kid is exposed to something with which they don’t agree, instead of having faith in their own parenting skills to enable their kid to make healthy choices, they spaz out, fearing that their grip on their kid’s mind is so tenuous that even seeing something different will bring down the whole house of cards.
It would be akin to me covering Sam’s eyes every time we pass by a church.
Joey Maloney
@Robin G.:
Interestingly enough, a Texas judge (in Houston, I believe) just ruled that the state has to hear the divorce petition of a gay couple who married legally in another state. And because of some legal handwaving his decision is not appealable. So there’s now a precedent in TX to give FF&C to gay marriages.
r€nato
@RedKitten:
you mean you don’t have to graphically describe gay sex to your kids if they see two men holding hands?
soonergrunt
@RedKitten:
This. Over and over again.
The Grand Panjandrum
@KCinDC: Not shaky, but it will be necessary to defend the gains made here. We don’t have the same referendum process they have in Maine.
Jim Splaine, quoted in the article you linked to, has a great post up at Blue Hampshire about organizing support for marriage equality gains made this year. We are not sitting by and waiting for things to get bad.
jibeaux
@RedKitten:
Srsly. My daughter removed a tampon from my purse during church and asked me about it. I would rather explain two men kissing every day for a year.
jwb
@WereBear: Yes, I’m absolutely convinced that hell would be a very livable place if the Rapture just came already and took the crazies off to heaven.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
That is some impressive integrity you got goin’ there, Mr. Cole (and no, this is not snark). Thank you for constantly re-evaluating your positions. It gives me hope for mankind.
That said, I want to respond to some of the observations you’ve made in earlier posts regarding the LGBT community and our President, as well as replying to @LTMidnight: To wit: I don’t know what grand meetings of the LGBT community you attended that I missed, but apparently it included the one where we decided that a few gay bloggers/politicians speak for all of us, and have decided that Obama is a raging homophobe. I’m as qualified to speak for myself as anyone I know. I’m a veteran of the ACT UP/Radical Fairies movement of the eighties, helped lead the Fight the Right campaign in Missouri that defeated a Colorado-style Amendment II, and co-founded one of the most effective AIDS care & advocacy organizations in the Midwest.
Those are my creds. I do not (amazingly enough) think Obama is a homophobic bigot, or that anyone who disagrees with that assessment is a homophobic bigot. I have noticed, however, that a lot of the well-intentioned straight folks who at least care enough to keep up with these topics (for which I, and many other LGBT folks are very grateful) have a tendency to confuse the loudest and (sometimes) most obnoxious voices in our community with those of the community as a whole. While this is an understandable response, it’s also an unfortunate and unfair one. Would any of you honestly believe for one second that Al Sharpton or Michael Steele is representative of “how black folks think”, or whether “those people” are good at politics? Oh, hell no, because you realize that that kind of generalization about a whole group of people constitutes prejudice. It’s more benign, certainly, than cross-burning active racism, but it’s still prejudice. Well, guess what?
Bill H
I think this is a sad example of what this nation has become. People who came to this land came here because they were not allowed, by the laws of their land or by the societies in which they lived, to practice their beliefs openly and in accordance with their own tenets. In other words, they came here to ecsape intolerance. They were unable to exercise choice, and now we will not allow the exercise of what is not even choice.
We are becoming the society from which our founders fled.
RedKitten
@r€nato:
Not until they’re 16, and then I’d do it just for the sheer fun of seeing how mortified they’d be at their old mother explaining what rimming is.
Joey Maloney
O/T – I submit the following for the Lexicon: Douched Earth Politics
Leelee for Obama
@RedKitten: This is absolutely true, Red Kitten. Kids are open-minded and have to be taught to close up. A gazillion years ago, Ringo Starr made a comment about inter-racial couples leading to a world full of cocoa-colored kids and that, then, there would be no uproar. It really was profound back when I was 14 or 15 years old. And, lo, look who’s in the WH! Things change too slowly and that sucks, big time, but they do change.
I’ve always though the right way was something mentioned upthread. Civil Unions for all citizens, regardless of orientation. We all have to have a Civil Union. Marriage is a Church thing-you do it if it’s meaningful for you, and there will be GLBT churches for that to happen in. Not necessarily concerning same-sex marriage, but I think that’s how France does it, since Napoleon was hating on the Catholic Church? Anyone know if I’m remembering right?
kommrade reproductive vigor
In the same way the only way to keep the white race pure was to maintain segregation.
I’ve heard arguments against this, but they amount to a handful of people get riled up when you compare the situation of one group to another. So … Fuck ’em.
scav
@RedKitten: Oh, can I just say you are a parent for the ages. Lucky Lucky LittleKitten.
John Sears
Americans are terrified of sex, and try to balance out this terror with religion. It works poorly, to say the least.
The only thing I can think of now is some kind of general strike. Going through the courts doesn’t work, going through the legislatures doesn’t work, going directly to the people absolutely doesn’t work, every victory is shaky and tenuous. Ultimately you’ve always got to have a fallback if being polite doesn’t get you your rights, whether it’s sit-ins, occupations, pickets, strikes, from movement to movement it varies, but there always needs to be a stick to back up the carrot.
I’m not sure who you’d target, though. The Mormon and Catholic Churches, for a start, I guess. Find conservative owned businesses from the various donor lists and make their lives miserable through the various legal means. Same with cities and towns that reject equality.
I don’t know if Americans really have the stomach for that sort of thing anymore, though.
NickM
@RedKitten:
Tell me about it. I’m afraid one of my kids is going to turn out Republican.
Cerberus
Gay rights in Maine? Mostly time. They did everything right, but they are only close. I suspect from the results, they’ll focus some serious outreach muscle in Augusta which went for the Yes side but had gone for the No side in defending a discrimination law 4 years ago. Beyond that, outreach, outreach, outreach, try again in 3-8 years (the anti-discrimination law took a decade and three tries to make it past referenda) and maybe pass some additional gay rights laws such as maybe a Ref 71 style dp law to highlight the lies of their opponent caring one whit about the word marriage.
Most critically will be the investigation. NOM openly flouted and pissed on Maine election law and that will likely open another can of hurt on the Mormon Church who is using them to launder money. It could also allow greater backlash and pressure against mormons so that it is no longer in their best interest to fund all these damn referenda battles.
Gay rights overall? Move on, keep fighting. This year we have added 4 states to the side of the Light, passed federal hate crimes law, elected some out gay mayors, and maybe will even see federal ENDA. What we are often forgetting in the chaos and emotion of losing was that 6 months ago, Maine was a throw-away state. It was a given that it wouldn’t pass legislature and if it did it would get vetoed and if it didn’t it would get trounced in referenda. It took amazing efforts to change that so radically that it was a final close with polls even suggesting a win. The fact that we even thought Maine would stick suggests something very positive with the rate of public change and that can only be kept up by keeping up with pressure on courts and legislatures until we can get enough states on the Side of Light that the federal government and Supreme Court have no choice but accept the reality of the civil rights struggles.
I’m expecting a handful more gay rights bills at various times in Obama’s presidencies, hopefully a victory or two stateside every year or two and something akin to a snowball down the hill in 5-20 years.
It’s really not as bad as it looks.
Mr Furious
@RedKitten:
Damn fucking straight. Perfectly put.
Unfortunately, that’s too big to fit on a mug or bumper sticker.
Bud
The momentum in the gay rights movement is as unmistakable as it is unstoppable. It is not about legislatures, judges or even churches. This battle isn’t being won in courts or marble hallways. It is being won at the kitchen tables of America. One person sitting across from loved ones saying, “I’m gay,” is more powerful than a thousand appearances by Maggie Gallagher on Fox and Friends.
It is incredibly insulting and dispiriting to have your most basic rights voted on by total strangers. But if you wonder what comes next for gay rights, there is only one answer: we must take a deep breath, pick ourselves up and keep moving forward. There is nothing else to do.
On April 15, I don’t get a “homo” box to check that gives me a tax break in exchange for fewer rights and that’s why gays will never stopped fighting.
I am heartened that the haters now loudly deny their hate. It’s ridiculous, of course – denying that there is prejudice against gay people animating people to vote against the rights of their fellow citizens is preposterous on its face and everyone knows it. When a movement relies on denying reality in such an obvious fashion it loses all credibility. Look at Sarah Palin.
Mr Furious
@NickM:
Well, in that case. Do whatever ya gotta do!
WereBear
@RedKitten: Right on. We hopefully do communicate manners, model compassion, and explain how traffic lights work. But this is the same kind of thinking the same people use that is summed up as: If we don’t tell teenagers about sex, they won’t know it exists.
Which just doesn’t work.
Funkhauser
@jibeaux:
Not much evidence exists for “backlash.” See, e.g., posts at LG&M.
RedKitten
I’ve heard that argument before, and actually disagree with it. Marriage has so much historical, cultural and societal significance (and yes, an element of romance), that the cold “civil union” term just doesn’t have.
I cannot help but feel that, if the churches were able to have sole domain over the term “marriage”, that there would be a “separate but equal” vibe going on, and those people with marriages would subtly (or not-so-subtly) look down upon those with civil unions — that it would be seen as lesser, somehow.
Personally, I see no reason whatsoever why it can’t be done the way it is here in Canada, where marriage is marriage is marriage, regardless of your orientation, who married you, or the locale of the ceremony. It’s really a lot less complicated than any other solution I’ve heard. The state issues you your marriage license, and you go get married by whoever is legally authorized to perform a marriage ceremony. If that’s in a church, a courthouse, a restaurant or a phone booth, it matters not a whit. You’re married, end of story. I think that any other option will only result in separate-but-equalness.
The Grand Panjandrum
@KCinDC: Jim Splaine, quoted in the article you linked to, has a great post up over at Blue Hamphire. It isn’t that things are shaky as much as we are preparing to defend this hard won legislation. I’ve put together a list of state senators and representatives who voted for the legislature that I plan to stay in regular touch with. The idea is too let them know we appreciate their support. I will also be blogging about the issue at my place and making phone calls to ask people to call their legislators and let them know they want them to continue to support marriage equality.
Basically, we are setting up some organizing efforts to keep the momentum and NOT turn back the page on civil rights.
One thing in our favor here is that NH does not have the referendum process to overturn legislation like they do in Maine. That makes it less subject to the whims of a fickle electorate. We have a layer of insulation, as it were. This state is a little less rural and a bit younger than the Maine electorate so those things are also in our favor.
It will be a fight, but I think the pro-equality forces in NH are organized and ready to stand with our friends, neighbors and colleagues.
jeffreyw
@BrYan: This is as concise an explanation as I’ve seen amid all the hand waving and arguments. It has been argued that paradigm shifts occur not because people are won over by the application of logic to facts but because the adherents of a particular world view die and are replaced by a cohort with a different view.
jibeaux
Is the gay mayor in NC Kleinschmidt? ‘Cause I’m not trying to bust anybody’s bubble, but he’s the mayor of Chapel Hill. Carrboro, which is essentially the same place, had a gay mayor years ago. And I’m very fond of Chapel Hill-Carrboro, but they don’t call it the People’s Republic for nothing.
LTMidnight
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: I believe it would do the cause a great service to make it more open that these people don’t speak for the whole GLBT community, because they sure as hell are acting like they do.
When you have guys like Dan Savage coming on TV saying that Obama, and African-American in general, are homophobic with no rebuttal, it sends a message that they do in fact speak for all.
Cerberus
@Funkhauser:
Interestingly enough, Maine was the test for that theory. Oh, you say it is the tyranny of the courts you object to? Fine, we’ll do it the “right way”. They still raised exactly the same fuss with the exact same lies substituting legislature for courts. The backlash is to acknowledging that gay people exist not to the method of rights and since gay people have no intention of going back in the closet or dying en-masse, it’s all about marginalizing the bigots more and more, and getting rights however we can. Again in the last year, two courts, three legislatures legalized gay marriage, only one was taken away from us and the rest didn’t have the sky fall and that will be highlighted on January 1 when NH allows its first gay marriage ceremonies to be held and when DC passes their gay marriage bill probably later this month.
Too many of my fellow queer activists are letting Maine blind them to the fact that this was a good year for the good guys and the momentum is still very much on our side.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Leelee for Obama: I figure being gay is more like being left handed, as I am. Sure, I could “choose” to be right handed, and live with everything being awkward and hard and constantly having to fight with myself to make sure I did the “right” thing (pun intended?). Or I can pick up the pencil with my left hand and write upside down.
The thing to watch out for with this Supreme Court is that Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and that other guy are more than willing to toss out the Constitution when they don’t like what it says. Liberals tend to be willing to defer to the legislature, or to individual liberties, even if they have to stretch the Commerce clause, or the tenth amendment to get this. Conservatives will just ignore it. If Roberts finds it icky, he’ll just write that it’s icky and that people shouldn’t be subjected to it. We’ll need to wait on the makeup of the court to get this changed.
Now, about Obama. I fully expect that he will start a conversation about LGBT rights after health care reform, and I will be writing to him if I don’t start hearing about it. When that passes, he’ll have a better ability to start people on that track. Though, other than getting Congress to repeal DOMA and DADT, there’s not much that can be done by Congress. The Supreme Court will have to rule that states cannot discriminate. One of those features of separation of powers, especially between the states and the federal government.
BC
Well, duh, the whole anti-gay thing is to keep the gays marginalized. Look at the debate on the Shepard bill in the House – that’s pretty much what the Republicans were saying about adding sexual orientation to the list of hate crimes. Listen to any of the religious leaders on this issue – they just want to keep gays in the closet. Gays in the closet are no danger to anyone, they say, but if you let them out and let them show that they are just like other folks and can be happy and can grow old, then, well, all the straight Christian men will just be so enticed that they will leave their marriages and go join the gays. Never have understood how the people who believe in “personal responsibility” also believe that gays should be responsible to keep the Christian straight men on the moral path, but then I’m not of that party or that mindset.
jibeaux
@Funkhauser:
Send me something, I’d like to look at them. But, I mean, Prop 8 was backlash against the California Supreme Court’s decision. To me when you can get the State Constitution amended, that’s a pretty decent backlash — of course, I don’t live in the land of the eternal propositions, in California it may be that amending the Constitution is not much more difficult than ordering lunch.
If you had launch a proposition on same-sex marriage in the absence of any court decisions on the matter, I don’t know, but you might get a different, less backlash-y, result.
Leelee for Obama
@RedKitten: Well, Kitten, Canada is light years ahead and as I’ve written before, my Pop cheated me out of the opportunity to be one of your fellow citizens years ago. That being said, the USA seems to need to go slowly on major societal changes, and my idea would be a start. Always remember Churchill; “You can always depend on the Americans to do the right thing, after they’ve tried everything else.” We really are the adolescent nation, and we all know how long teen-agers are teen-agers. It seems like foreveh!
The Grand Panjandrum
Jesus Babbling Christ I have tried to respond to KC in DC three fucking times and my posts keep getting eaten the internets. Fuck Fucking WordPress.
Cerberus
@jibeaux:
50%+1 any referenda, same as any referenda. I don’t think 25% of the population even knew it was a con. amendment at all and the ones that did few really care all that much because the california constitution is tissue paper thanks to that law.
Yeah, the constitutional amendment hurdle is literally meaningless in California. You know, as the founders intended (bangs head on desk).
Betsy
@RedKitten:
That just made my entire week.
Ash
I don’t think there’s really anything left to do. Opinion has changed DRAMATICALLY in just the last 10 years alone. A few more and all those old bigoted geezers will die off and equality will win handily.
I know, I know, “Stop telling me I should have to wait!” but honestly, that’s the best way to get major change. Work toward the small stuff until then (which has been working)
scav
@Bud: how ’bout it’s not just being fought in the legislatures, courts or even churches but also over the kitchen tables, not to forget sidewalks, tv screens, personal ad newspaper sections and playgrounds. Hence the need for a variety of tactics et cetera. This is multi-front, ever present “politics”. So we’re back to the everything is political, the personal is political blah blah blah. Not to mention Churchill’s We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall etc etc etc speech as a pair to the MLK I have seen the mountaintop speech I seem to have been channeling earlier.
jibeaux
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
The law doesn’t have to be challenged as a violation of the US Constitution, it can be challenged as violations of state Constitutions, and SCOTUS doesn’t have any jurisdiction over those — what Joey Maloney said. It’s a state-by-state solution to be sure, but all in all a better approach. An unfavorable SCOTUS decision would be a pretty bad thing.
The Grand Panjandrum
@KCinDC: Jim Splaine, quoted in your link, has a great post up a Blue Hampshire. We are already organizing support for legislator who voted for this year’s bill. NH doesn’t have the referendum process to overturn legislation like they do in Maine.
(Lets see if an abbreviated response works.)
Allan
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: cosign.
And I too thank you John. As frustrating as some of your recent posts have been on this topic, you did a better job than I could in explaining what was so frustrating about them in this piece. Good work.
And the answer, John, is this.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
Actual LGBT people and their allies will continue to pursue a hundred different strategies on as many different fronts, based on their individual perspectives and what they value the most.
The great folks at Knights Out will continue to work toward the elimination of DADT. The wonderful people at Courage Campaign will continue training people to canvas door-to-door and advocate for same-sex marriage one conversation at a time. The often-derided national groups like HRC and NGLTF will continue to cultivate politicians. Talented writers will continue writing thoughtful pieces. Screeching bloggers will continue to write screechy posts.
There is no quick fix or magic bullet. It just takes all of these approaches plus time.
As a closeted gay teen in a small town in Texas, I hungrily devoured any news reporting or reading material I could obtain that let me know I wasn’t the only one in the world who felt like I did.
Now I’m a middle-aged married man and my husband and I are uncles and great-uncles to lots of wonderful young people who think the talking heads on their teevee ranting about preserving traditional marriage are retarded. My brother and sister-in-law picked us from all our immediate family as the couple they want to raise their children if something happened to them. And I get a phone call seeking advice and support each time one of the next generation comes out to his/her parents.
When we were rallying people to fight Prop 8 last year, the most dedicated and committed volunteers in my suburban town were straight high school and college kids.
Anyway, when you spend your life swimming upstream against the current, it’s nice when people who say they’re your allies don’t stand on the banks and criticize your form. Thanks again.
RedKitten
@Leelee for Obama:
True. And I apologize if I came across as scornful towards your idea. I guess it just gets so frustrating when the U.S. constantly debates the whole gay marriage “problem”, and we Canadians are like Horshack, waving our arms around because we know the answer, and the answer is so ridiculously fucking simple, and yet y’all have spent years talking about civil unions vs. marriage, and how to implement it, and what the church’s role should be, blabbity-blah-blah.
It’s like listening to a bunch of MBAs telling you how to pick your nose.
Chad N Freude
@Charity: It would make the people you’re referring to think that not only are gays immoral, they’re not good citizens as well. To the extent that such people are capable of any thought at all.
jibeaux
@Cerberus:
Yeah, California is pretty much a living illustration of the value of representative democracy, with its many flaws. And I take your points about Prop 8, and I guess the bright side is that if it’s easy to amend, it’s easy to amend back.
But still considering the hypothetical, if you introduced a proposition to allow gay marriage and the courts had never weighed in on the issue — do you think the results would have been the same? I tend to think it might have gone better, but of course I have no idea.
cleek
i just want to say “You Suck, Cole” for sticking that Alan Parsons Project song in my head.
jibeaux
@RedKitten:
I have a theory that maybe Maine just needs to be a little bit colder. If it’s cold enough, people don’t care about how anyone else is living their life as long as no one’s stealing their boots and firewood. It’s just my little amateur anthropological contribution to trying to figure out why Canada seems to be so relentlessly level-headed and practical.
slag
A better question: Where do WE go from here? Honestly, I think it’s time for more allies to get more deeply involved in this issue. I, for one, have been far too complacent as my friends and neighbors are subjected to institutionalized discrimination. But it’s hard to know what more is to be done outside of donating to various gay rights organizations. Do marches really do anything? Is there some sort of “Bring a Gay to Work Day” program we should be involved in? I just don’t get why people have such a problem with other people’s sexuality. It’s truly incomprehensible.
Ash
@jibeaux:
Representational democracy ain’t that bad (except when it comes to South Carolina, and Virginia, and Georgia, and parts of Minnesota, and….anyway….). It’s DIRECT democracy that makes my head explode.
RedKitten
@jibeaux: Hm…nice theory, but seeing as most of Maine is actually north of Nova Scotia…
slag
@cleek: I was thinking Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Leelee for Obama
@RedKitten: Word! I didn’t take offense, just wanted to clarify my thinking. I read a book when I was 12, called “The Lord Won’t Mind”. It was recommended by a friend of my Mom’s, believe it or not. It was my first introduction to same-sex couples and it set me on the path I’ve tried to walk since. The premise was, with all the hatred and misery in this world, love, any kind of love, would be something the Lord wouldn’t mind. My drummer has never been conventional, and for that I have always been grateful.
bemused
I have no doubt that the anti gay rights groups are fighting a losing battle despite the recent setbacks in CA & Maine. None of our kids or any of our friend’s kids in their 20’s or early 30’s would vote to deny equal rights to the gay community. It doesn’t matter to them if someone is gay or straight, people are who they are, unlike the antiquated beliefs of older folk. There is much more acceptance in younger people who have a ‘what’s the big deal’ view.
The anti gay brick wall has been up a long time but is showing clear signs of those chinks starting to crumble. People just have to keep swinging sledge hammers at it.
Ash
That’s a problem I have. I honestly have no fucking clue how or why these people think the way they do. Thus, when it comes to explaining how freaking stupid they are, it just ends up with a lot of frustration and yelling and, “wtffffffffff is wrong with you!?!?!?!”
jibeaux
@Ash:
Right, representative as compared to direct democracy. I don’t even understand why California voters would want a system that asks their opinion on ninety-seven different things every time they vote.
Hookers and Cocaine
Obama doesn’t appoint anti-gay judges to the Supreme Court.
Just words my ass. He’s laying the table for gay rights.
jibeaux
@RedKitten:
We don’t hold with your commie “geography” and “maps”. :)
LarryB
I’ll go the full Marxist here and say, screw marriage equality; go for benefits equality. Arguing against medical benefits, survivor benefits, and parental visitation rights is a harder sell than something as nebulous as “sanctity of marriage”. Over time, the “ideological superstructure” will follow the economic reality.
jibeaux
@RedKitten:
And the Scandinavian countries are also relentlessly practical. And Alaska has caribou too, so it can’t be that….
sam sorrow
Thanks for this post John. I have been a longtime lurker here and have been increasingly frustrated with your tone lately. The vote in Maine has absolutely crushed Maine. I know its a sprint not a marathon but no on 1 ran a damn good campaign. If we can’t convince them of our basic humanity than what hope to we have? I am tired. I am tired of having to have a box full of documents at the ready when my wife and I leave Vermont. The only way we win this is to throw sand in the gears. Married couples and couples in civil unions should file joint federal tax returns, or as some have said refuse to pay taxes at all. This is a war. The Catholic church and nom know this but it seems we don’t. We need to riot. We need to take to the streets and demand our equality. We need to fight. The trouble is we are so tired of fighting. We need straight allies who are willing to fight with us. We need media outlets that call out the anti-equality forces. We want civil marriage. It isn’t about marriage for them. They want us all back in the closet. We don’t win this in the closet. The single most important thing a gay person can do is to be out. They want us to disappear. We can’t dissappear. I am so tired of losing. And thanks again for this post John. I know we can seem shrill but when it appears that the Obama administration has dusted of the 1993 playbook, it gets frustrating. That’s another thing. We need republicans too, at least the sane ones. We can’t do this with one party.
Jack
Just want to take a moment to address the assumptions about progress and demographics.
The idea that society is in a constant state of social liberalization is false. The historical record leaves no room for dispute, on this matter. Periods of tolerance are often enough followed by periods of reaction.
Extraordinary economic decline and hardship is also often a presage of religious revivalism, and the accompanying holiness movements, with their emphasis on purity of thought and deed.
Which means, with near exclusivity, sexual purity.
The RCC and the LDS are gaining converts. The SBC is strengthening its regional power. Latter Rain and less openly vicious charismatic movements are growing in the west, midwest and northwest. Christian maximalism (as mentioned elsewhere) is the dominant theological development in the American Christian tradition, forging for its adherents a unity across once opposing sects and denominations.
And the schools are not safe battlegrounds. We count on our public schools as incubators in tolerance, even with the meanness of adolescent rage and confusion.
And that accounting doesn’t always move in favor of tolerance and acceptance of expanding norms of love, friendship and sexual freedom.
The assumption that “the next generation” will pick up our slack, because its members won’t care if gays marry, is fraught with self delusion.
They learn what we teach them.
And even then, imperfectly.
Without vigilance, constant pressure and even agitation, the culture could just as readily swing far into reaction.
Especially as people weigh out the benefits of conformity against the struggle to survive in an increasingly hostile economic environment. Our struggle must be comprehensive – social tolerance is not divisible from economic justice.
The conditions of one provide the ground for the other.
Zifnab
@RedKitten:
That’s very romantic, but it doesn’t change the true meaning of marriage, which is a state-authorized legal agreement conferring a set of rights and responsibilities on both parties.
When you’re going through a divorce, or you’re trying to see a loved one in the hospital, or you’re adopting, or you’re setting up a joint bank account, or filing on your spouse’s insurance policy, the cold terms work just as well as the flowery ones.
The argument – from a civil rights angle – is all about equality of opportunity. And that boils down to cold, hard legal facts. I’d much rather give everyone civil unions and leave it at that. Let the churches handle the churchy stuff.
Jennifer
There was a similar discussion yesterday over at S,N! with one commenter holding forth on the idea that these state initiatives both pro- and anti- gay marriage have made the situation worse. I don’t see that. In states where anti-gay marriage referenda or amendments have passed, gay marriages are no more un-legal and unrecognized than they were before, and in some states, gay marriage is now legal. You have to keep pushing the issue to keep it moving forward. And in these types of things, when the push starts, the majority is usually not on board. It’s the years of pushing that brings them around (plus, of course, the haters dying off). I wish it wasn’t that way, but it is.
But look at this – we’ve just finally gotten a federal hate crimes law that extends protections to gays targeted for crimes on the basis of their sexual orientation. Folks, that’s a battle that took 15 years, and fights in many of the states, to finally win. It’s going to be the same with the gay marriage issue. 10 or 15 years from now we won’t have the same Supreme Court. At some point, this issue is going there, and if it gets there while the Roberts majority is in place and gets turned down, upheld, whatever, it will be back again. At some point in the not-to-distant future, we’ll have a Supreme Court ruling that says you can’t deny gay people the same rights, perks, etc just because they’re gay, and then it won’t matter how many states have enshrined bigotry in their constitutions – in the blink of an eye, they’ll be overturned. And in the meantime, a lot of these states will reverse course on their own. So all is not lost, though I cannot say I blame anyone whose rights are being trampled in the here and now for being enraged that this hasn’t happened already. It will. The tide of history is on our side.
Also, what RedKitten said. I’ll never forget explaining to my 5-year-old niece what it means when someone is “gay”. She had overheard her mom on the phone with me, saying, “why are you going to a gay bar?” the night before (hello! because they’re…fun?) and so the first words out of her mouth when I picked her up from my mom were “Aunt Jennifer, you went to a gay bar last night!” Mom was not amused. But after I got the kid loaded in the car, I asked her, “Jocelyn, do you know what a gay bar is?” And with typical 5-year-old bravado, she replied, “yes.” “Ok,” I said, “tell me what a gay bar is.” She said, “it’s a bar, and gay people, people who are gay, go there, and they listen to music, and they dance, and they drink drinks with lots of bubbles on top.” I said, “you’re right – that’s exactly what a gay bar is. Do you know what it means to say a person is gay?” Blank look. So I went through the mommies and daddies, and how some men and some ladies love other men or other ladies and want to live together like her mommy and daddy, and then said, “you know my friends Brian and John who went to Riverfest with us? They’re gay.” Her only response? “Which one was Brian?”
Kid is almost 18 now, and has been free of homphobia her entire life.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I don’t have any peculiar insight into this, but I will just observe that the civil rights movement took a principled stand of (mostly) non-violent civil disobedience which eventually pricked the consciences of northern liberals and moderates to the extent that the federal government started enforcing civil rights. Our current bunch in Washington aren’t exactly falling over themselves to enforce gay rights, but if you want relatively rapid change that’s where I’d take the battle. If you take it state by state it’s still a decade before you pick off a few of the more liberal ones, and a century before you get Oklahoma.
But even after civil rights legislation was passed the movement knew that the entire society still was in a long process of transformation. That’s takes time. No, that’s not me counseling patience, that’s a plain statement of fact. It’s one thing to have a law for gay marriage, it’s another for people to take for granted that the couple next door is gay.
Kryptik
The most insufferable thing that’s going to come of this crap?
WaPo will probably feel obligated to do another damn puff piece on the ‘wonderful strategists and leaders’ at NOM.
Cerberus
@jibeaux:
Would have been the same if not worse. What people seem to forget about California is that the coast is the coast, but the middle is Oklahoma. My partner’s family is from a small town in the central valley and we’re wondering how to work me coming out to them as trans because she is worried they might literally try to kill me (I’m not as afraid, but I take her point well). That and we’ve got Orange County which breeds the “smarter wingnuts” by the truck ton.
I’ve seen little evidence that the wingnuts and “moderates” much cared how the vote came to be in front of them.
It’s much like their “defending traditional marriage” thing. It’s a cover for underlying issues, not really the issue itself. It just sounds better than, “ewww” or “what, they aren’t like real people.”
slag
@Ash: Exactly. It really does put a strain on one’s capacity for empathy. I guess maybe a more holistic view is required in order to even remotely understand it. Maybe people aren’t really afraid of gay people as much as they’re just afraid of change? Or is it the general feeling that, as Jon Stewart put it, “Things Used to be Better in Many Ways”? If that’s the case, then psychology suggests one good way to change people’s attitudes is to make them confront their fears. Studies have indicated that if you interact with gay people, you’re more likely to support gay rights. Which is why it seems like a deeper gay-straight alliance could be the gateway to more meaningful progress.
matoko_chan
to court.
Loving vs Virginia redux.
I have always that that is the way this will end up.
Gays are citizens….they are entitled to citizen rights in a democratic republic.
jibeaux
@Jennifer:
Well, the California Supreme Court had ruled that denying marriage benefits to same-sex couples was unconstitutional, and in Maine same-sex marriage had passed legislatively, which is what led to the referenda in both cases, so in that way same-sex marriages ARE less recognized than they were before (albeit briefly). But I think the reality you have to confront is that the judicial and apparently legislative roads to legalizing it are very likely to encounter the referendum hurdle if it’s possible to throw up that hurdle — not every state Constitution is as easy to change as California’s — and thus far the referenda don’t seem to be going too well. So I guess I’m saying, no, the referenda don’t seem to be helping, but they may be unavoidable. I like Joey Malone’s idea of strategically going for states with sympathetic Supreme Courts and a long down time before you can get it to a referendum, so people have time to get used to the idea. I don’t know what states those would be, but I like the strategy.
Jack
@matoko_chan:
The Roberts Court is unlikely to rule as you might please, though.
koolaide
@Cerberus:
You said:
“Most critically will be the investigation. NOM openly flouted and pissed on Maine election law and that will likely open another can of hurt on the Mormon Church who is using them to launder money.”
I haven’t kept up. How likely are election law investigations on these folks? Are the rules pretty clear?
mak
@r€nato (47):
Somehow, your question brings to mind my favorite Mencken quote:
Which brings us back to the whole notion of legislating by referendum raised earlier in the thread. As the California experience has demonstrated repeatedly, it results in monumentally bad lawmaking, and seems to run counter to the idea that the Courts, and not the occasionally tyrannical majority, decide what the law is. Unfortunately, as has also been raised here, any decision by a state supreme court finding referenda unconstitutional would also invite an ultimate decision by the Roberts’ Court — bad idea.
asiangrrlMN
@LTMidnight: Well, that would be the media for you. They are the ones who are deciding whom to put on TV and whom not to put on TV. I would say ninety-seven percent of LGBT folk do not think Obama is a raging homophobe. And, quite frankly, if you think we all do, then you are self-selecting what you choose to hear and see from the communities (and we are not a monolith, any more than any other group is).
Cole, just wanted to add my deepest appreciation for you for this thoughtful post. One thing I like best about you is that you do think about things and you will change your mind if you see reason to do so. You also have a very kind heart, despite your gruff layers.
Marriage: It’s difficult for me to say because this is not my issue at all. I don’t plan on marrying ever for various reasons, but I passionately believe in equality. All the hatred surrounding this issue and the well-meaning advice from non-queers have been quite disheartening. I have stayed away from these threads mostly because I have been dealing with some personal shit, and I really didn’t want to get into it over this issue. However, I just had to peek my head in here to metaphorically shake your hand, Cole. I like the way you man up.
jibeaux
@Cerberus:
Well, you’d know better than me. North Carolina’s only push is people who want to go ahead and amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage even in the absence of any identifiable threat of recognizing it any time soon. (although mercifully it probably isn’t going anywhere either.) It’s the only prophylactic they wholeheartedly embrace!
RedKitten
I don’t know why, but the bit about the drinks with the bubbles…that just slays me.
scav
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): and, to back off the reification, there were a diversity of civil rights organizations and individuals which adopted a variety of techniques and they no doubt squabbled as much as any of us. c.f. suffragettes and feminists. Also. Too.
Ash
@matoko_chan:
Uhm, do you REALLY think it’s a good idea to put this issue in front of Roberts, Scalia, et. al.?
Jack
Perhaps an unpopular sentiment, and with no disrespect to any BJ Mormons – but can there be any real dispute that the LDS is an adversary, nay, enemy of tolerance, liberty and justice?
Jennifer
@RedKitten:
You and me both :) It’s one of the reasons that conversation has remained so memorable to me for these many years.
Leelee for Obama
@Leelee for Obama: Looked in Wiki to find out if that book is still available. It is-I may get it, for my GrandBabies. Turns out, I was older, it was published in 1970, so I was 19. I thought I was younger….shows you how naive I was, thinking like a 12 yo at that advanced age! Still, it was a great book.
Cerberus
@koolaide:
Maine secretary of state will be beginning one later this year and Californians Against Hate has been basically dogging them for their books and following the money trail pretty religiously. There was also an impending investigation I think in Iowa based on some fundraising they were doing or are doing for an anti-gay governor candidate I think. Plus, last I heard there was still an investigation in California over some Prop 8 chicanery after it was found that the mormons donated more than they disclosed and people are trying to find exactly what.
gex
Thank you, finally, for seeing our frustration.
Because for us, the rule of law (courts) was not enough. And the representative democratic process (legislation) is not enough.
The only thing this country will use to decide gay issues is mob rule. But first, let the Catholic church, the Mormon church, and every other tax-exempt freaky sex club religion bankroll ads discussing how marriage leads to gay sex demonstrations for kindergartners.
Cerberus
@Cerberus:
Note that the what these investigations will mean is a bigger issue. Some say it will be a slap on the wrist, some say they could have at least NOM dissolved and maybe even if there is enough backlash a removal of tax exempt status for the Mormon Church.
What’s most important will be that there will be a big spotlight on the Mormon Church and they’ll be forced to own Maine and California and the skeevy campaigns won there. They’ve been trying to do this funding the battles but denying an active force or agenda or even bigotry in general and instead act like victims of the gays.
But the mormons aren’t really liked all that much. Liberals hate them for their views on women, black people, and gays, and bigots hate them because they are viewed as a cult and really sqwaked when they received national attention, so it might at least end the endless pocketbook ad-blitzes and church organizing aspects of the referenda battles which when it’s not profitable to fight us, I suspect we’ll see less motivated enemies.
bloodstar
I know this may be cold comfort, but I think the reason gay marriage was rejected comes down to simple turn out and enthusiasm of the base. I think the same issue bit the Democrats in Virginia and New Jersey. In an off year election, an enthusiastic minority can beat out an apathetic majority. And the forces opposing gay marriage used this to full advantage.
Had Maine had this referendum on an Election year, I think Gay Marriage would still be on the books. If course I could be wrong, but that’s my current read of the situation.
MikeJ
@RedKitten:
I’ve never heard anyone say churches should have sole ownership of the word “marriage”. I would envision that states only recognizer civil unions and anybody who wants to uses the word marriage. If your church says you’re married, good for you. If you and your partner say you’re married, just as good, just as valid. There would be no controlling legal authority.
gex
For what it is worth, I don’t think change will come as quickly as many of you here predict. Sure the haters will slowly die off. But the “not now, there are more important things that actually affect me” demographics are going strong.
Mnemosyne
@Cerberus:
Well, any referendum that doesn’t require raising taxes. That’s right, folks: in California, you can amend the state Constitution to take away the legal rights of gay folks with a 50%+1 majority, but if you want to raise taxes or sell a bond, you need a 2/3rds majority. Is anyone still confused about why our state is so fucked up right now?
MazeDancer
Homosexuality = Sin is still the Anita Bryant PR win in too many ways. (Including African-American churches). Has to be assaulted. Theologically dismantled. Prominent Christians have to start attacking that, much more loudly, and with scripture. Let it be exposed as coming from those who say the Bible cannot adapt to the times, never changes. And is literal forever. Perhaps high visibility debates?
Like that episode of The West Wing, where Sorkin has Christian Prez Bartlett flatten a right wing gay hater by quoting the Bible. Saying if you use Bible to support gay is sin, then also have to believe slavery is okay, and selling daughters for good bride price is fine, and a whole slew of Old Testament ideas even the Vatican can no longer support. And are mentioned way more often in the Bible than the few and not always clear citations about homosexuality.
Same PR win of Homosexuality = Lifestyle Choice – and having PR win over it’s innate genetic makeup– must be prevented. People are born on a sexual spectrum. Born, not recruited.
PR positioning game counts. PR wise, anti-abortion side won early on by making abortion equal murder. And making abortion, for too many young people today, feel like a “moral” choice about whether or not a woman has a right to commit murder. No science about what is viable life involved. No ad with “It’s not Murder.” headline push back ever ran early on.
Of course, time will change everything, as ignorance, literally, dies.
aimai
I want to put bans on “hetero-sex” and “opposite sex” marriage on every ballot, and bans on divorce and illegitimacy as well. And I want to put my own opposite sex marriage up for review and allow the good people of Maine to vote on it. I think someone should hold a public auction and ask Maine and any other state that is voting down equal marriage to poney up money to vote on *everyone’s* marriage.
aimai
Ron
@Robin G.: It’s not just not being enforced. The DOMA expressly violates it since it explicitly states that states are not required to recognize marriages from another state. My point is that until the USSC rules, you have the chance that a particular court might rule against DOMA. Once the USSC rules, if they rule it constitutional, all challenges are dead.
Zifnab
@Jack:
I’d toss in peace, fiscal health, and sanity for good measure. Any group that regularly votes for some of the most vile and irresponsible government officials on the sole grounds of religious-party affiliation is really just an anchor around the neck of the nation as a whole.
John PM
Just my two cents on this: Propose a Federal Constitutional Amendment (1) defining marriage as a civil union between two consenting adults over the age of 18; (2) prohibiting either the Federal Government or any State Government, or any of their departments, agencies, etc., from banning or restraining the right to marriage on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.; (3) any Federal laws or State constitutions or laws currently banning the right of two consenting adults from getting married are hereby declared null and void; and (4) there shall be no time limit to the passage of this Amendment. Also, a potential point (5) – Anyone who is divorced or has committed adultery shall STFU about the supposed “sanctity of marriage”!
Society currently accepts the concept of inter-racial marriage, but there is nothing specifically in the Constitution about it one way or the other. I could imagine a truly reactionary Supreme Court (hand-picked by President Palin) overturning Loving v. Virginia. More importantly, combing sexual orientation with race and religion would make it harder for some people to object to the Amendment.
Frankly, the Civil War would have been pointless without the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Similarly, while state-by-state action is important, as are the repeal of DOMA and DADT, everyone who supports LGBT rights should really think bigger. If the momentum is there, and it appears that it is, go for the gold.
maye
Doesn’t all the polling show this is a non issue for people under the age of 30? Civil rights battles will be won in the courts, then the general populace will come around eventually as older bigots die out.
Re Obama: he has said for years he favors civil unions over gay marriage. Maybe we should believe him.
Jennifer
Also, what someone upthread said about having conversations with your neighbors and people you know – it IS important. I’m only aware of one full convert I’ve made on the issue – she was one of my clients when I was in the remodeling business. A really nice older woman who I enjoyed chatting with on any number of things. One day the conversation somehow turned to gay rights, and it was apparent that her inherent goodness was running up against the teachings of her church. I started from the point of my personal opinion being that I don’t know it all, and maybe God really doesn’t like homosexuality but…Jesus said “love thy neighbor” not “love thy neighbor…unless he’s a fag.” I went from that to the point that God doesn’t make me responsible for other people’s behavoir, and that I was sure that if he did have a problem, then he was the one most qualified to deal with it in the manner and at the time he feels most appropriate, and that it’s not my place to be in a position of punishing people for things that I think maybe God doesn’t like. Next I went to “homosexuality is an identity, not a lifestyle” – that a person who is gay will be no less gay if they never have sex – that underlying attraction to members of the same sex will still be there, and it’s not a choice, any more than she or I ever went to a party and saw an attractive man across the room and consciously thought to ourselves, “I choose to be attracted to that man.” I said, you and I both know it doesn’t work that way – you’re either attracted to someone or you aren’t, and it’s not a conscious decision. Finally she said, “so, if a person is gay but they’re not having sex, then it’s ok” in so many words, and I said, think about what you’re saying there. Sexuality is such a huge part of being human – God made us as sexual beings. Can you really deny a person access to that part of their humanity, just because it’s expressed in a way that you don’t understand? I can’t do that – and I really don’t think that’s what God wants from me or from any of us. By the time we finished talking, she had really come to a new perspective.
Of course, I never bothered to tell her I don’t believe in God. I find it most useful to speak to people in a language they can understand. But talking to people about this stuff can really make a difference.
Kryptik
@matoko_chan:
As others have said, the Roberts court is likely to take it the way we want. Which perhaps means that the only way to do it nationwide, and hopefully avoid the infuriating state referendum processes is something like a repeal of DOMA.
Unfortunately, that seems like just as much a longshot.
Ron
@Cerberus: Forgive my ignorance and/or my inability to see you respond to this point earlier, but what election laws in Maine were violated by NOM? (Not that it could change the outcome now)
Dave Ruddell
Mark Kleinschmidt, good guy. I was on Student Congress with him lo those many years ago at UNC (Okay, it was like, 9 years ago). Mind you, this is Chapel Hill we’re talking about, and given that Carboro (right next door) elected a gay mayor, Mike Nelson, and re-elected 4 more times, it’s not a huge deal.
Mnemosyne
I’ve been thinking about this and I do think it’s a problem of strategy, but it’s not the one people think.
Look at the two states that had referenda this year. One state said, “Vote yes if you want gay people to have more rights.” The other state said, “Vote no if you don’t want gay people to have their rights taken away.” Which one is more straightforward?
In Maine — and not incidentally in California — the state asked people to vote “no” if they supported something. I have an IQ of 130 and I followed the California election pretty obsessively, and even I had a moment in the voting booth where I went, “Wait, am I supposed to vote yes or no on this thing?” Now imagine if I was an average voter who’d kinda heard about this initiative but hadn’t really been paying attention.
It may be dumb but, let’s face it, people are dumb. If you confuse them, they’ll tune out. Telling people to vote “no” if they support something is much, much more fraught than people seem to think.
(Which is another reason why the No on 8 people here in California should have immediately turned around and submitted an unambiguous proposition for the ballot along the lines of, “Should same-sex couples be allowed to get married in California?” But they’re a bunch of fucking idiots, so they haven’t.)
gex
Oh for facks sake! Who fucking cares how precious religion wants to be over a fucking word. It would be much better if the people who support gay folks could rally around advocating for equal access to the existing civil institution (“marriage”) rather than fracture the support by hemming and hawing over civil unions and domestic partnerships or Lifetime Fitness couple accounts or whatever the fuck. If you are going to make something equal, then you have to give the same thing. Creating a separate institution just to keep excluding us from your special thing isn’t “equal”. It’s not like the right hasn’t been opposed to civil unions as well.
Leelee for Obama
@Mnemosyne: I said something like this yesterday. It’s still teh suck, but I think the wording may have caused some problems-counter-intuitive-and fiendishly evil.
Cerberus
@Ron:
Basically, they appealed for the right to ignore donor disclosure laws and it was denied to them, so they need to disclose not only NOM’s contributions, but all those who funded NOM. They also did a last minute money dump they didn’t disclose, which I think was against the rules of no big donors after a certain date though I may have that confused with their investigation in Washington for similar financial games and petition fraud.
Basically, NOM is under a lot of fire to disclose who’s funding all these measures and how they keep doing last minute ad-dumps of “oh noes, your children” from funders they keep not wanting to disclose (the mormon church).
It’s all pretty legally complicated and I can’t keep much straight other than the mormon church is starting to sound worried about being revealed as the group nearly 100% behind prop 8 and question 1.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Cerberus: The Roman Catholic church has played a part in this as well. The current Pope has also basically forced gay clergy back into the closet. You’d think that after all the child molesters they protected for the past many decades they would want to stay out of the klieg lights of politics.
itsbenj
There needs to be some way to ban the practice of putting people’s civil rights up to a popular vote on ballot measures. Ballot measures are generally stupid in the first place. We should be all-in on either representative democracy, which is what we supposedly subscribe to as a country, or the direct democracy of these ballots. We have a stupid, contradictory mish-mash of both right now, and it’s just stupid.
Senyordave
The Roberts Court is unlikely to rule as you might please, though.
I don’t think I’d be going out on a limb guessing that Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts would not rule in favor of any gay rights. Scalia could dress up for Halloween as the Grand Inquisitor from the Spanish Inquisition and the only question people would have is what took you so long.
Tsulagi
@RedKitten:
Eeewwww. Thanks for that visual of my mom telling me the ins and outs of gay sex.
WereBear
I don’t see this as such a problem with individuals, which, as Jennifer illustrated, can be dealt with case-by-case. This is huge organizations deciding what everyone else should live by, whether they are a part of that organization or not.
Because people can change. My mother grew up in a tiny, most hidebound, xenophobic little place imaginable, and one of her friends hung herself shortly before high school graduation.
It wasn’t until forty years later my mother found out why. Yes, her friend was gay, had no help, no one to turn to, and committed suicide.
Now it’s a story my mother tells to promote tolerance.
celticdragon
@Incertus:
Dick Durbin in the Senate yesterday said that there was no room for consideration of DADT in the Senate calendar in 2010…and didn’t give any clue as to whether it would picked up in 2011.
Xenos
@Ron: Marriage has always been considered an exception to the Full Faith and Credit Clause, though.
In that regard DOMA sits clearly within precedents, the same precedents that allow, e.g., Massachusetts to refuse to recognize a first cousin marriage from Rhode Island or the marriage of a 13 year old from Arkansas. Those marriages are considered contrary to the public good here in Mass, and consummating them involves the crimes of incest and statutory rape, respectively.
DOMA may have problems constitutionally where the Federal government, for the first time, strips Massachusetts from having the power to say some people are married. The Feds do not fail to recognize the marriages of cousins in Rhode Island or 13 year olds in Arkansas, although it may very well criminalize marital relations for those couple in federal territories, where it acts with the police powers akin to that of a state government.
RedKitten
@gex:
Exactly. That’s the point I was trying to make. Marriage for me and civil unions for thee is NOT equality.
McDevite
Well, I can trust not the legislatures, not the courts, not the state governments or the federal government to defend my tax-paying rights against a bunch of loony bigots, so….
Shoot mormons, stab Catholics?
They’re both cynically bashing gays to grab a little right wing political street cred. If we are a great terrible threat, let’s actually be a great terrible threat; they take my civil rights, I’ll take their eye teeth and then they’ll stop bullying us? It worked at Navou.
I don’t think that it bears well to tag Obama as a homophobe, but it does bear well to push a series of news stories about the Fierce Audacity of Whenever. Rex Wockner’s idea of taking out gay money seems about right; punish the wicked and reward the good, especially on a statehouse level, in order to preempt future Michelle Bachmanns but also to push the state parties from tepidly pro-gay to engaged, and thus eventually, the congress.
Other than that, any future state legislation (Wisconsin, Oregon, Illinois, Michigan) legalizing gay marriage includes an amendment requiring a 3/4 supermajority to overturn it and a 36 month waiting period.
For a while I toyed with running constitutional amendment campaigns in the South stripping the Mormons of their not-for profit status, but gave up on that. But closing the IRS loophole so that getting Mormon/Catholic cash is harder.
But in the mean time, riots. No one wants their shit burned down, and since we’re locked out of the political process, we might as well.
Leelee for Obama
@WereBear: This is how my support for abortion rights began. My Mom was a student nurse back in the late 30s. A girl was brought into the hospital after a botched abortion. The nurses treated that girl like slime and said she deserved it. Mom sat with her and held her hand until the end. I don’t remember how old I was when she told that story, but I never forgot it. I never considered an abortion for myself, but I supported the right to choose when the opportunity arose. Same with inter-racial couples, same with gays and lesbians. Mom was so compassionate and inclusive, it was a no-brainer as to who I’d turn out to be.
Hope
I dunno either. Of course, I’m still waiting for the Equal Rights Amendment to pass.
inkadu
@McDevite: I like your idea. If we can start a move to yank religion’s tax-exempt status, the bigots will have less energy to be bigots.
celticdragon
@sam sorrow:
Word! Amen, brother.
Shade Tail
We keep plugging on, that’s what we do. Two steps forward one step back is still a net gain of one step.
I don’t talk about this much on the political blogs I visit/lurk at, but this is my passion for all kinds of personal reasons. We *will* have equality for sexual orientation and gender identity. It is going to happen sooner or later.
And Mr. Cole, don’t you dare stop taunting gay rights activists when they do transparently stupid things. You might be abrasive, but you’ve been right far more often than wrong. And our movement needs that. When someone is doing something foolish, you should say so. They can still act foolishly, but at least the truth is out.
sstarr
GAY MARRIAGE JUST PASSED AS A STATEWIDE REFERENDUM IN WASHINGTON STATE.
Yes, it’s not called marriage. It has all of the same legal rights and responsibilities as marriage. You can visit your partner in hospitals. You inherit your partners property. You have to split property in a “divorce.” You get visitation rights in a “divorce.” The only thing that is different is the word, and the fact that it – unlike marriage – is not recognized in other states. However, the DOMA makes that irrelevant.
I think it’s the first time a statewide vote has affirmed any gay rights at all whatsoever. It’s a big deal, but nobody is even talking about it.
So, does the word “marriage” matter?
Michael D.
One thing that ALWAYS heartens me, no matter how much I seem to get angry here sometimes, is this: You guys generally talk about gay issues in terms of WE – as in, “we’re all in this together.” So, I might get upset at some of you sometimes, and I might write things to counter you on various points.
But I know were your hearts are.
Thank you for that.
celticdragon
@sstarr:
Yes, especially in hospitals and employers and agencies that have no policies for “civil unions”.
I have heard some horror stories from California on that front. The civil union law was toothless and useless. It was ignored by all the people we needed to be observing it…including the hospitals.
gwangung
Makes my blood boil.
And makes me want to use those stories as a bludgeon to get the real thing passed. Hit the assholes in the face with them. (And sad to say…it may take something like that to strip away the illusions to make people confront their bigotry).
Kilkee
@kay: Yes, the specific ads they were runing on Maine TV claimed that if the law were upheld, teachers would be “forced to teach second graders about gay marriage.” They backed this up, such as it was, by claiming that this had happened in Massachusetts. Among other things, the Maine Attorney General then specifically denounced the ads as false, and denied that any such thing would be required, in part because of differences in how schools are run in ME versus MA. That didn’t stop the ads, of course. They’ve never told the truth, whether it was 15 years ago and arguing against a basic anti-discimination law protecting homosexuals from being fired or evicted, or now. I don’t expect they ever will.
Papa Tony
John, I honor you for saying this. I’ve insisted all along that you’re a good man, even though we sometimes (vehemently) disagree about the gay thing.
Now, I see that the goodness goes deep down, and to the bone. You’re able to admit when you can be stubborn, and it takes a grownup to do that. Any four-year-old with a hammer can destroy – It takes a grownup to build something that lasts.
Thanks for the blog, thanks for sticking with it, and thanks for renewing my hope that we’ll all get to some better days together, maybe within our lifetimes.
Mnemosyne
And yet that was one of the claims that the Yes on 8 people used very effectively here in California: that since we already had a domestic partnership law, it had all of the same rights as being married so gay people didn’t really need marriage.
Honestly, what the No on 8 campaign needed was horror stories about domestic partnerships. People who’d lost custody of the children they’d raised. People who had to sell their house after their partner of 30 years died because of inheritance taxes. People who weren’t allowed to see their partner in the hospital because they weren’t really married.
And instead, the campaign was all, “It’s okay to hate gay people as long as you let us get married!” Idiots.
Robin G.
See, on the civil union front, I kind of thought the idea would be that EVERYONE had a civil union, gay or straight. You don’t get a marriage license, you get a civil union license. If you want to call yourself married then, great. If you don’t want to call yourself married until a pastor says so, that’s fine too. Call it whatever you want. But it’s the same title and form for everyone, as far as the government is concerned.
I’d also like to point out, by the way, in defense of the religious folk: a lot of churches would be honored to perform gay marriages. Mine would.
Persia
@jibeaux: My daughter asked me why my breasts were bigger than hers the other night. Oh, what I would have given for a question about lesbians.
Leelee for Obama
@Robin G.: That was my idea as well. All the same for legal issues. Marriage is a religious thing. It may be semantics, but I think it’s the way to get ahead on this issue. If we, all Americans, have a Civil Union, then there’s no question of FF&C.
tammanycall
@RedKitten:
And why do they think denying LGTB rights means the scary yucky kissing will stop? Single people kiss in public, too.
Total logic fail in the h8 movement no matter how you look at it.
Jason
The Maine development is heartbreaking, heartwrenching and does all sorts of other things to the heart, but the only answer is the same answer that has existed all along: organize, organize, organize.
kay
@Kilkee:
Thanks so much. I keep wondering where this marriage law discussion comes in, in the standard public school day. I was in a first grade yesterday with an older teacher and she was laughing in a sort of manic, hopeless way about how much test prep she has to do. Our first graders take a proficiency test in third grade and she’s prepping them for that.
I’m not sure she’d have time to indoctrinate in the “gay agenda”, quite frankly. She’s running them through their recitation paces at an alarmingly fast clip.
ruemara
This may be unpopular or not very nice, but neither am I. We’re waiting for many old people in power to die and much more tolerant current 20’s to 30’s to take their place. And we are most certainly not waiting for that godforsaken Roberts court. They have a funny originalist bent that depends on the outcome they want to have.
@RedKitten:
And this is gold.
Xenos
Various commenters have made the trenchant point that it sucks to constantly be playing the defensive on gay marriage. While non-violence is generally and properly agreed upon as a given, it really is time to go on the offensive.
There are two main institutional actors funding the organized reaction to marriage equality. The LDS and the RCC. These are heirarchical, powerful and wealthy organizations that need to be take down a notch or two. Or three.
A good part of the reason the Catholic Church could not stop gay marriage in Massachusetts was because they were compromised, morally and financially, by the molestation scandals. There is plenty of creepy stuff that still goes on with these churches, and we liberals have to accept that these churches have decided to be our enemies and so we need to hurt them. Publicly humiliating the financial supporters of the referenda is a good start. It should be done quite thoroughly and effectively.
Then we need to target the real enemies – churches that foment bigotry in order to consolidate their power and finances.
ruemara
@sstarr:
it matters because when you get on one knee and look up into the eyes of the person you love, “I want to civil union with you” just doesn’t have quite the gravitas.
gwangung
@Xenos: Wonder if it’s a good idea to replay the “papal conspiracy” card?
Xenos
@kay: Here in Massachusetts it comes up in the elementary schools because the subject of families come up. Just like some families have single parents, or have kids being raised by grandparents, some have same-sex parents. It is normal. And there is no way for bigots to remove their kids from every possible occasion when normal families are treated like they are normal.
If this is indoctrination, so be it.
Xenos
@gwangung: There is no need to be explicitly anti-catholic. Some priests stay out of the issue, others stir it up deliberately. Those priests, and their supporters up the hierarchy, deserve to be targeted by some protests. Deserve to be denounced in public. Deserve to know that the people they condemn as disordered perverts have their own opinions about them, and are not afraid to speak those opinions.
gwangung
@Xenos: Given the anti-gay animus from the current Pope, I’m not sure it wouldn’t come out as anti-Catholic. And it’s unsettling to me to think that it wouldn’t be bigoted to desribe it as a papal conspiracy…
But as it is, the monstrous hypocrisy involved in the Church should be highlighted. That’ll still get portrayed as bigotry, but that only would play to the 27 percenters….The rampant secrecy about abusive priests juxtaposed against any substantial funding of anti-gay political movements would not go down well with many people…
tim
Semi apology to Bareback Andy. Hmmm…he must have gotten to you behind the scenes, John. sad, again.
ChrisZ
The LGBT community should start holding mass public weddings. Get outside and get married right in front of everyone, with liberal kissing and dewy eyes. They should hold sit-ins at insurance companies that don’t offer them the same rights as married couples. They should hold sit-ins at companies that don’t score 100 on the Corporate Equality Index. They should stop asking nicely and just start insisting.
Persia
@Jack: I actually have LDS friends who have separated from the main church– it’s more complex than it looks at first glance. Things could get interesting if more light and heat gets on the national organization.
asiangrrlMN
@BethanyAnne: I forgot to say, I hear you. I have thought about it many times over the years for various reasons. However, I know that I would pretty much be an outlier no matter where I went, which makes me fatalistic, I guess. Sorry. I’m not much help. I just wanted you to know you aren’t the only one.
kay
@Xenos:
Yeah. That’s a different approach than here, where the subject of families is avoided, in deference, I believe, to the various meanings of “family”, and for precisely the reasons you mentioned: the fact is, “family” is a big word. They don’t want to get into the definitions business, so they skip the whole issue. I’m more comfortable with that approach, because, here anyway, any inherent bias would run the other way. In other words, a less traditional family might be presented as less desirable, intentionally or not.
gex
@Mnemosyne:
Fake Play-Skool State Marriages for gays won’t fix this anyhow.
PhoenixRising
We’re making enormous progress. 22 years ago, I recall strategizing through how we could use adoption laws to make our partners into next of kin.
I’ve been married for 5 years. Most of our friends who are same-sex couples with kids are also married, because you’d be irresponsible not to do everything possible to protect the kids. Because we’re responsible parents, our options are limited for sticking the gears of a government that has made political solutions impossible for us.
But it will happen. One of these times, we’ll re-enter the US in Houston or LA, and the Customs officer who is confronted with our insistence that we be permitted to travel as a family will panic at having his authoriteh defied, and actually arrest me instead of just threatening to.
And then my secret identity is gonna be blown, because you’ll all be seeing us on CNN. We will find ways to dramatize the moments in which semi-tolerant-at-the-whim-of-some-drone just won’t cut it, publicize them, and disrupt the conscience of this country.
Time itself is neutral, but actions that take time are required.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
I don’t think it would take ten years, probably four, plus you can bet Scalia, Alito, and Roberts are just waiting to take a precedent-setting dump on the GBLT community, and a consistent record of gay marriage being overturned or banned at referenda makes it easier for them to do so.
Four years also gives more time for Scalia, Kennedy, or Thomas to have to vacate a seat, which would increase the chance of a gay marriage statute passed or not overturned by a referenda not being struck down by the SCOTUS, because as soon as referenda aren’t working for the right, they’re going to pick an Appeal circuit stuffed with Federalist Society hacks during the Bush I and II years and try to strike it down.
ChrisZ
The court challenge that is likely to go to the SCOTUS is already being brought for those who haven’t seen.
matoko_chan
Again, where do they go from here….
Right here.
Obama’s long game is always to let the Know-nothings shoot themselves in the feet.
He was willing to wait and see, but in the background the inherited genius of the Framers is coming to a boil.
The Know-nothings will scream judicial activism, but the System is WAI (Working As Intended).
gex
I do not mean to be rude. But those of you straight people who are kindly offering us civil unions (whether retaining marriage or forcing straight people to get them too), can take your offer and walk away.
No offense. I know you think you are on my side. And I know you think you are reasonable. But I don’t want anyone, on my behalf, ceding to the haters that gays do not deserve marriage. Non-religious straight people get a state honored marriage every day.
gwangung
@gex: The only way I’d be offering civil unions is as a necessary step along to full marriage.
I’d be happier if we went straight to the main event, but if it takes the incremental approach, I’ll take it.
(And I don’t think it’s an either/or approach–if it worked in New Hampshire, let’s see how we can make it work elsewhere).
MNPundit
Well he’s right. I would rather my future kids not be gay. Of course whether someone gets married or not has absolutely ZERO impact on that which is where the “logic” dies.
Allan
In addition to what gex just said, I would like to point out that this strategy you are proposing would do precisely what opponents of same-sex marriage claim we are trying to do, which is fundamentally change the definition of marriage.
You are suggesting that the ever-so-popular gay minority should sell the straight majority on why they’re no longer going to get a “marriage license” from the state.
Yeah, that’s the easy way to go. Why didn’t we ever think of that? Thanks, everyone!
Leelee for Obama
OK, I’ll yield to all of the knowledgeable people here about Civil Unions. I can’t know what it feels like to be denied a right based on my sexual orientation, so I shouldn’t make decisions for those who are so denied. Tell me where I can help, and I’ll do it.
Ron
@Xenos: I’m aware of the exceptions with marriage. That has been the argument that the Justice Dept. has used to defend DOMA. My main point was that if the USSC rules in favor of DOMA it will be very difficult to undo it.
Ron
@Michael D.: I guess I think in terms of “we” because to me the whole thing is not a ‘gay rights’ issue as much as it is a civil rights issue. I’m not trying to downplay gay rights, I’m trying to say that it’s about civil rights in general. If we can declare marriage is okay for group X, but not for group Y, that is such a clear violation in my mind of the idea of equal rights and equal protection that it is a no-brainer to oppose it. And civil rights are for everyone, so its a “we”.
McDevite
@Persia
It’s really not. Mormon families only left the tax fraud organization after ten years it conspiring to take my civil rights because they got some bad press out of CA. I’ve never done anything to hurt Mormons, but boy, would I ever like to now.
Softail
Just wanted to say “Thank You” to all of you. Reading this has been a great help after a very depressing morning after.
Nick
@canuckistani: Rep. Carol Shea-Porter of New Hampshire did this at a DADT hearing. She asked a woman on the panel opposed to repealling DADT when she chose to be straight. No answer.
LoveMonkey
We are talking about a country that had a meltdown over a one second flash of bare tit on television. There is no way that this country is ready for a frank discussion of any kind of sexuality issue that exists in real life. Gay or otherwise.
And that’s why “where do they go from here” can only be answered by having LGBT (my all purpose, imprecise label for a diverse bloc) learn the art of politics. Which was the general topic of yesterday’s thread on this subject.
LGBT chose the frame for the current political struggle by deciding foolishly that it could grab the M word for itself instead of focussing on actual equal protections that it could get without the M word. And did this in the country that can’t handle one second of bare tit on tv. A total misread of the political reality. Of course, this reality is changing, slowly, and will eventually get to the desired state, but mainly out of a loss of interest in divisive issues, not because any particular argument out there is winning.
Eventually the scolds and the fearful will be outnumbered by the people who don’t really care enough to vote with them any more. By then the Moral Minority will have come up with some other way to divide the country on “values” issues, because that is what they do. This is a divided country, and the politicians are very skilled at leveraging those divisions and using them against us.
If I were LGBT and wondering, where do we go from here, I would be advocating for strategies that narrowed the divisions, and not sitting around and calling people who disagree with them bigots and homophobes. We used to have an actual bigot here, named Darrell. Some of you will remember the juicy flame wars he and I mounted for days at a time on the subject of his bigotry. Whatever you think of Darrell, the real lesson of Darrell was that he was just one guy. He was outnumbered five years ago. And out-argued on every front. The bigotry is not only in the minority, it can’t stand up to any kind of examination or exposure in a medium like this. What I’m saying is, the contest against bigotry is already won. The contest now is not against bigotry. It’s against stubbornness and intransigence and the use of language.
I disagree that anger advances the cause. I assert that American politics moves on the power of coalitions. Widen your coalition, and win sooner. Or, wait ten years for it to widen by itself. I don’t think there is another alternative.
Nick
@Ron: they’ve already indirectly voted to uphold DOMA by resisting any challenges to it.
gex
@Leelee for Obama: Start by offering up arguments for marriage instead of civil unions.
kay
@Softail:
Amateur pundit stratergizing aside, my heart just sank when I saw the totals. I’m so sorry. It’s gut level wrong, isn’t it?
docrailgun
This may seem strange, but the “openly gay mayor elected in North Carolina” is not really a surprise. Chapel Hill is more blue than the Smurf Village.
matoko_chan
Look….this is EXACTLY the same as civil rights.
You betcha the majority of the country was against blacks and whites marryin tooo.
That is why this is going to happen by judicial fiat.
In general, Obama is going to let the system work as intended.
It sukks for Sully and every other gay citizen that is being denied their citizen rights….but it will happen.
Judicial fiat FTW!
Stevious
The Maine legislature should pass a marriage equality law again next summer, but pass it so that there isn’t enough time to qualify a ballot measure to repeal it in November 2010. After the law has been on the books for a year, maybe it would be less likely to get repealed.
Ruckus
@Bill H:
Did they really come here due to intolerance? They were Puritans, they wanted everyone to follow their beliefs and were told to fuck off. They came here and got what they wanted. They got to tell everyone else how to live. And the concept still holds. And they got to tell the story so everyone hears only one side. So now groups, especially religious groups, get to tell everyone else how to live and believe. And we struggle to overcome that. It’s what civil rights is all about. And that struggle should have fixed this entire mess, you don’t have the right to suppress someone because they don’t look or act like you. Narrow minded fucks. The Puritans, screwing up a country for centuries. Maybe they should get an award.
Mnemosyne
@Robin G.:
Here’s the tricky thing that the anti-gay nuts are concealing from you, though: every married person in the United States has a civil union right now. There is absolutely no requirement — none — that you have a religious marriage ceremony. A couple who gets married at the courthouse by a judge in a completely atheist ceremony is equally as married in the eyes of the law as a couple who has a full Catholic wedding mass. In fact, there are many couples in the US who have had a full religious wedding but are not allowed to legally marry, and the state does not recognize those marriages.
Jack
@gwangung:
It’s probably worth nothing that it worked here in NH for very specific reasons: the libertarians in the GOP’s Liberty Caucus bolted the GOP on this subject, the Democratic governor really thought it would stop at civil unions, Dem politicians promised to inside trade on broad based taxes and guns (which is easy in NH, since no members of any party stay in office long if they try to enact gun control or broad based taxes), the GOP was divided between Ted Gatsas and Tom Eaton, and the two groups went at it quite publicly, leading to the near bankruptcy of several state and county GOP orgs as NH rank and file Republicans dropped the (R) and re-registered as (I).
With sweeping majorities where it mattered, the Dems in the General Court were able to capitalize on GOP disarray and a Dem governor who misread the resolve of the equality minded members of his own party.
Furthermore, I think it’s important to note that NH Republicans are generally fiscal conservatives before all else. This is the same party which worked with Shaheen to remove nearly all state abortion restrictions, reluctantly criminalized prostitution (it was neither legal nor illegal until only about 20 yrs ago) to retain highway funds and overcame its own firebreathers to kill a law which would have explicitly prevented hospital visitation to gay partners, traveling (it was argued) from Vermont to Massachusetts via 89 and 93.
Lessons: first, get the factions in the GOP (the Zealots and the Bankers) to savage each other. Then, hold your ground against even members of your own party. Finally, pick states where the population groups are already disinclined to bedroom meddling.
Mnemosyne
@gex:
So letting gay people get actual marriages with all of the same legal protections that straight couples have — including spousal inheritance rights — instead of only allowing them to enter into unenforceable registered domestic partnerships is giving them “fake Play-Skool state marriages”? What, pray tell, do you call the domestic partnership system if actual equal marriage rights for gay couples is just “fake Play-Skool state marriages”?
I guess we may as well just keep forcing gay couples into domestic partnerships here in California instead of letting them get married on the same basis that straight couples do because, hey, giving gay couples equal marriage rights is just giving them “fake Play-Skool state marriages” anyway so why even bother to try and include them.
Darkrose
@David:
Are you talking about Flash Forward? I love Janis, and the actress playing Maya’s pretty cute, so even if it’s a little tepid, I’ll happily watch more of that.
Chuck Butcher
Trying to express myself in comments would take a lot of space, so I give the interested Another Loss Of Humanity.
Darkrose
@jibeaux:
I don’t even understand why California voters would want a system that asks their opinion on ninety-seven different things every time they vote.
The sane ones don’t. I hate the fact that every election comes with a guide that’s thicker than the manual for my car. The first year I was here, I tried to research all of the ballot measures because I felt that I had a responsibility to make an informed decision. It’s a good thing I was unemployed at the time, because that was a full-time job. If the voters are going to have to sort through all that crap, then why do we have a legislature?
…though in California, “why do we have a legislature” is actually a really good question.
Chuck Butcher
Re calling everyones marriage a civil union, it already is that church wedding was just trappings, what counts is the papers signed afterwards – the ones the State wants.
There may be deliberate obfuscation of this, but everyone whose been married knows it because they signed those papers.
Chuck Butcher
crap, edit, “whose” should read “who has.”
Chuck Butcher
@Darkrose:
Oregon used to have a Constitution, it now has a giant paper pile of special interest bullshit.
Jess
@Ruckus:
No kidding. Within a generation they were burning Quakers on the Boston Common.
Tax Analyst
Ron said:
“@Michael D.: I guess I think in terms of “we” because to me the whole thing is not a ‘gay rights’ issue as much as it is a civil rights issue. I’m not trying to downplay gay rights, I’m trying to say that it’s about civil rights in general. If we can declare marriage is okay for group X, but not for group Y, that is such a clear violation in my mind of the idea of equal rights and equal protection that it is a no-brainer to oppose it. And civil rights are for everyone, so its a “we”.”
Yes, “we” (or maybe even “We”) are all in this together. If one accepts an injustice because that particular unjust instance doesn’t seem to involve or affect our particular situation the bigots who push this type of intolerance will grow bolder and more presumptuous in their intolerant demands. How can one truly have peace of heart or mind when all around you people are being denied the same basic privileges you enjoy just for being who they are? At what point do your precious “privileges” become so tainted with shame that you would prefer not to employ them? I first learned about the Jim Crow laws and “customs” of the South when I was about 10 or 11 (1960-61) and I remember wondering why anyone would think denying someone a seat on the bus or a drink from a water fountain or use of a bathroom, seat at a diner, etc., could make someone feel superior. I mean it’s just so damned small and bottom-of-the-barrel-mean-spirited. If one understands the implications the water could not serve to refresh, but only leave the bitter taste of bile.
Even though great progress has been made it’s always incredibly frustrating and heart-wrenching when final victory seems at hand…only to be blocked by the fear and doubt and small-mindedness projected and spread with malevolent fierceness by cynical weasels under the guise of “religion”. It’s so incredibly sad, especially because we’re not talking about a “victory” or cause that would do harm to anyone. here…only one that achieves a decent level of justice for those who have had so very little of it to this point.
gex
@Mnemosyne: Tax law is also federal. And all the state SSM marriages that exist are not real marriages because the Federal government doesn’t recognize them. But since it doesn’t affect you, I don’t suppose you could be expected to know the difference between these fake marriages and real marriages. There is a difference between the marriages CA or IA or MA or VT are issuing to straight people and gay people, as they do not confer the same rights depending on which group you are in. I call the lesser one by a demeaning name because this situation is intended to demean. I’m sorry if that offends you. Straight people can be so touchy when we don’t just act thankful for the current state of affairs sometimes.
ds
I hope this is a learning moment for all the mushy moderates who claimed that gay rights would face a backlash if they went to the courts to defend their rights.
No one, and I mean no one, thinks “I’m fine with gay marriage but I don’t want those damn courts telling us what to do. Fuck them married faggots.”
Courts are just as legitimate part of our government as the legislature, and they’re designed so that groups that might be unpopular still can have their legal rights defended.
In the 60s, there would have been massive majorities in referendums to overturn civil rights laws. The only thing that prevented them was that discrimination was outlawed by the Supreme Court.
Obviously the federal courts are clogged with right wing ideologues, so if you take cases there you’ll probably end up with a crazy ass ruling written by Scalia that bans gay sex and turns Fire Island into a concentration camp.
But favorable state courts are legitimate game. Mainers supporting gay rights should immediately take it to their state Supreme Court. Since Maine bans anti-gay discrimination they have a strong case.
And I’m pretty sure that unlike California, passing a constitutional amendment takes more than 50% +1 of the votes. So overturning a ruling would be extremely difficult.
ds
Oh yeah, and anyone who thinks Dan Savage or Andrew Sullivan are representative of gay public opinion is a fucking idiot.
The vast majority of gay people have not spurned Obama or other possible allies and gone into hissy fit mode. A few influential pundits have.
gex
@gex: As a side note: real marriages don’t disappear if you cross state lines. If your marriage disappears when you cross state lines, you have a PlaySkool pretend marriage.
cdmarine
John, I just want to say how much I appreciate this thoughtful, self-reflective post. It does mean a lot.
Mnemosyne
@gex:
You know, you’re right, gex — until marriage law in the entire country conforms to exactly how you want, no gay person should be allowed to get married in any state. I’m going to be putting my money behind the initiatives to ban gay marriage until DOMA is repealed because, after all, there are absolutely no marriage benefits that anyone can gain from being married in the state they live in.
Thanks for clearing that up for me, and I’m going to continue your fight to ban gay marriage until it meets every one of your requirements by sending a check to NOM today!
Xenos
@Jess:
and in four generations a great many had become unitarians and deists. Traditional trinitarian protestantism badly needed a revival by the 1730s.
This stuff comes in waves. I hope the current wave finishes petering out ASAP, because the revivals are becoming increasingly based on ignorance, superstition, and a debased theology steeped in authoritarianism.
Chuck Butcher
@Tax Analyst:
Thanks for stirring something in my head
Water Fountain
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Bill H: I know that I’m getting in on the tail of this but when I read
I threw up a little. People came to North America for a lot of reasons. Some came to seek a fortune, some were transported, some were slaves. There were very few groups that had “religious freedom” at the top of their list, and of those, most defined religious freedom as “you’re free to worship the way we do.” Religious bigotry in the US was just as pronounced as it was in Europe, it was just different groups leading the pack.
Escaping intolerance was never on the table; just ask Native Americans, the Irish, the 3/5’s, or any other local minority group.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Or I could read all the way to the end of the thread before I comment.
sunsin
@jibeaux:
Not quite. In Canada, for some reason still being debated, the Christian church hit a rock around 1965 and began rapidly sinking. One major factor was the series of sex and abuse scandals that have turned “Catholic priest” into a synonym for “pedophile” in many people’s eyes, but the Protestants haven’t fared much better either. Priests have lost both authority and respect — they are seen as irrelevant, and if they make comments on public affairs, the frequent reflex response is “what the f*ck does he know?” The congregations have left at a run. The United Church, probably Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, had more children in its Sunday schools than it can muster in all its churches now, even with a very optimistic count. By church figures, only 20% of Canadians show up even once a week; some smaller studies that have counted cars in the parking lot suggest that the true proportion is closer to 15% or even 10%. Organized religion is the source of more evil than good. Diminish and demean it, and society will make progress faster.
Mayken
@Leelee for Obama: I don’t know about France but in the Netherlands, all marriages are officiated over by a Justice of the Peace and then if folks so desire they go to church for a religious ceremony. They do call it marriage though. There is a separate and slightly lesser institution called civil unions but I think that is a hold over from before SSM was legitimized.
toujoursdan
@sunsin:
It was the United Church of Canada, progressive Anglicans, Reform Jews and Muslims affiliated with the Muslim Canadian Congress that led the fight FOR same sex unions in Canada. Not all organized religion is a barrier to societal progress. There are many allies within organized religion who believe that LGBT deserve equality because their faith compels them to believe that.
chrome agnomen
@BethanyAnne: @21
wish i could say i disagree with you, but i’ve been thinking the same thing since about ’94. (i’m a slow mover)
mai naem
I don’t remember the dates but AZ has had gay rights related propositions on the ballot 3 times. The first one failed. The second one which was pushed by GLBT folks as a health insurance deal passed and then the bigots had a got at it again last year and ofcourse the gays rights people lost. I still feel running it as a healthcare/benefits issue is the best way to getting the stuff passed.
Chuck Butcher
@BethanyAnne:
So, when the next place lets you down, what’re you gonna do? Political process is slow and marked by fits, starts, and back slides – everywhere. You might want to take a look at the last 30 yr history of these places to understand right where they can go back to again.
This country has jerked right and left repeatedly through its history and it always seems to come up a bit more left than where it started at the end. I don’t that history is a determinant, but it is a guide book. All countries have their problems, you trade some for others – you decide if that’s a net gain.
I’ll leave as ashes in a box, no pin heads can drive me out.
Nick
@mai naem: Arizona’s failed amendment in 2006 was very draconian, banning any domestic partnership. In 2008, it was narrowed to basically just marriage.
Jess
@Chuck Butcher:
Well said, Chuck! Thanks. I feel more hopeful now.