:( I don't see your posts as inflammatory, did I miss something? I thought there was constructive dialogue going on. If you bow out, how will I learn from the conversation?

A quick thought on assimilation vs. radicalization ... I don't really see it as an either/or. I think both have a role to play and they can complement each other, as long as there are at least some common goals or outcomes.

My personal frame of reference for this is my activity in Queer Nation in the early 1990s. Some people in the gay community complained that we were too radical, too marginal, but in a conversation I had with a lesbian who had just become Seattle's first openly gay city council member, she pointed out that without QN, she would be the fringe, the radical edge. But with us out there, pushing boundaries, she suddenly looked more mainstream to people. The combination helped push the center, if you will, helped reframe the concept of normal.

Actually the group doing this really effectively right now is the right wing. With the Tea Partiers out there moving the radical edge beyond the bounds of sanity, the "center" of the Republican party suddenly seems more mainstream, despite the fact that they are so conservative that many Nixon-era policies would be considered practically leftist by today's Republican standards.

Don't leave. I agree with much if what you say and am enjoying reading the discussion.

I don't see anything inflamatory about any of your posts.

I'm conscious - maybe too conscious - of causing offense where none is meant. I don't want to do that. And this particular issue is one that is deeply and intensely personal for some. I don't want to give the impression that I am not an ally.

Agreed. I'm rather more in favor of a both/and approach. It's the common goals idea that gets tricky.

LTD sorry, I posted and now there's a few posts - I see you are in favour of the right to choose and just addressing your ire with the phrasing. and I do understand that. Please consider the below a blather :)

LTD - I did non-marriage when I was striaght, refused to do it. didn't believe in it. that it was a bunch of hooey and oppressive bullshit. I didn't even want to be called a "girlfriend" because of the societal expectations it brings.

I've since changed my mind, at the age of 42. I got married six months ago, in the netherlands, and my wife and I will move to canada as a couple. We could have even without the marriage, actually. My hettie best mate who doesn't want marraige and has the privilege to refuse it as an option, imported her hump-puppet from england to canada without a hitch - marriage wasn't necessary. I'm very glad about that. I'm also glad that you can import your partner even if you don't live together and have decided to never live together. there's a separate section for that definition of a commited relationship.

That means, legally, you can have three different types of commited relationships wherein your rights are recognised in canada: Married, Domestic Partnership and Conjugal Partner.

There's no need to get married to have them recognised.

I would love it, if you could also get married to more than one person or at least have conjugal or domestic rights recognised for those who are poly. I think that would be fantastic.

I personally am not asking to be "as good as heterosexuals" because I got a civil marriage in the netherlands. How absurd to see my queering of bonding ceremony as a bid for "being as good as"! Of course I am. I don't want a mortgage, I've had double mohawks, been non-monogamous from the age of 14 until the age of 38, lived in communal houses until last year, I'm socialist, traveled most of my life and in no way consider myself mainstream. Yet I wanted to marry the woman I loved.

You know how the word queer has been taken back from our opressors - reclaimed? Well, that's what we did with our marriage. It's two women, no dowery, no one being given away, no vows, all home made food, my dress cost £10 and we had DJ friends from amsterdam, london and manchester DJ the music.

Our relationship is about equality. our marriage is that way because it isn't the 1800's. nor is it the 1950's. we get to define how we want out marriage to be in terms of our dynamics. And because canada recognised the rights of non-married couples, no matter what sex they are, we get to have that choice. Don't want marriage? totally understand it's not for you. I felt that way for many years. Didn't see how it could be reformed by personal acts. Now I do. And I feel very differently. And it has nothing to do with the Joneses or straight people. I do lots of things that straight people do and it has nothing to do with approval. Considering most of my straight friends are very alternative lifestyle people, most things I do are what straight people do.

Queering a ritual and a bonding legality is something my wife and I strongly believe in. we are making marriage a wider space for people to be in. And for those who don't want to be married, they are protected by laws too. However, if you don't belive in bringing the government into your relationship by registering your love on a tax form (lolz) then of course, you won't be able to claim those legal rights as easily.

I don't ever look down on people who choose not to get married. I was one of them for a couple of decades. Most of my friends are of that ilk. In fact, most of my mates rather than saying "congrats! I know it took you a year and a half to get all the paper work and you were both depressed as hell when you thought you wouldn't be able to get married, but you did it, and although I don't want it for me, I know how much it means to the two of you, so tons of love for your hard work towards a goal you've achieved!".... most of them said "oh. oh yeah. fab. so did you see the ____ movie last week?" (ok not that bad but it sure felt like it). Yet when they've had their choice to have a commitment ceremonies or hand fastings (rather than a wedding), I've travelled four hours off to the trees and stripped half naked for them, bought gifts, baked cakes, helped cook for 30 people, etc.

So it did hurt a bit.

And personally I'm not striving for the status quo, thanks, I've been fighting for societal rights for a few decades (first strike I was allowed on was at 10 years old. lol. dad is a die hard socialist) and I've been fighting against multinationals - through direct action and protests - since I was 14. So the assumption that I'm being lazy and selling out because of marriage (accepting the status quo and not trying to to move beyond it) makes my nostrals flare a bit.

But perhaps you are only addressing the website that rankled you. And personally I find the catchphrase a bit lacking. but perhaps they are mostly addressing the mainstream straight people with that phrase? that's the jist I get. Addressing the mainstream straight people with "better than what you'd ever do with it" I don't think would win much support for the cause of people wanting the choice to be able to marry. Just a hunch.

It was a commitment ceremony. Oregon does not (yet) have marriage equality but I am hopeful. Consider, that when I was ~90 days old, the Supreme Court of the United States published their decision in Loving v Virginia ending, once and (hopefully) for all, anti-miscegenation laws after those being in force for well over a century in most states. We will have marriage equality one day and when we do, we're going to have another ceremony.

Cheers
Aj

Urvashi Vaid is one of my heroines. If you have not read her book Virtual Equality I highly highly recommend it. She has a website if you want to read more of her thoughts.

Here is a quote from a speech given Aug 16, 2010 titled Beyond The Wedding Ring: LGBT Issues in the Age of Obama

Fifteen years ago I wrote a book that described the path we had chosen of working for civil and political rights as a path that was leading us to Virtual Equality — a state of partial and uneven equality that is very far from the full human rights that we seek. I still agree with that diagnosis. Until LGBT people confront and challenge the moral opposition to gayness, until gay activists demand and command the respect of straight families, colleagues and friends, until LGBT people come out and claim their rightful place everywhere, until we stop believing those who defame, denigrate and deny our humanity and goodness – LGBT people and the LGBT social justice movement will fall short of being the transformative force it represents.

that is a very, very important thing to point out.

I, too, was involved with QN in the 90s and, quite honestly, the me from 1993 would probably be absolutely aghast at the me from 2011. I too think that we need a radical edge. The point I was trying to make in my post is that if we should not look down our noses at those who choose to take the radical path because we should not look down our noses at people and that they do some good (and they do) we should not look down our noses at people who assimilate for much the same reasons. I believe that not only did my parents make my sister and I's life significantly easier even though that meant not being as 'authentically black' as the Black Power movement would have had them be, they made a *difference* because when we moved into the house I grew up in, no one would have sought my parents out for advice thinking that they were intelligent or wise or had anything of value to offer the neighborhood . When I left home, people were seeking my parents out because they had stopped being 'merely black' and had become pillars of the community. A resolution that probably surprised all of the long-term residents of the neighborhood.

I think I actually do some good even though I'm assimilated and even though I work for a multinational corporation and even though I live in the suburbs and drive an Audi. There I am, every day at work, this dreadlocked butch woman who is unapologetic in her love for her partner. There are some *seriously* conservative people at my workplace and I have had to learn to get along with them as they have had to learn to get along with me. I have rattled their cages by pretty much shooting all of their expectations of me as a black, butch lesbian into deep space. Whatever images they might have held of black women or butch women or lesbians generally, I defy almost all of them and that makes them think. I've already had one person--a rather conservative Christian--come to me to say that they think their daughter is a lesbian and if they are right, they would like me to talk to her because they want her to have something positive to shoot for. I think that's progress.

Cheers
Aj

This. Exactly. Neither end of the spectrum is wrong or "less than". Yes, groups like Queer Nation help make others seem more mainstream. At the same time, groups like the HRC are constantly being criticized for being too mainstream, too assimilationist, but those are the groups who can actually get in to have a conversation with a senator. Yes, we're pretty mainstream as queer couples go. And that's one of the reasons why we were able to make friends with the devout Christian couple across the street. People like us are the reason that they and a lot of people like them, all over the country, are realizing that gay people aren't a bunch of weirdos, that we're really just people, and we don't actually want anything that's unreasonable. We need both sides of that equation, the radical and the mainstream suburban, to make any real progress.

So what happens to the weirdos who are not mainstream? What exactly is mainstream? I'm trying to grasp. What makes a weirdo?

Feminism isn't mainstream and neither was Harvey Milk. He also influenced Dianne Weinstein a Senator of California. I am not a fan of mainstream politicians that live in the closet. I think our community should aim higher.

Assimilation is not equality. Those of us who live in the burbs, white picket fence, either furry or non-furry kids are accepted (for the most part) ONLY because we look and act like our neighbors. As long as we look and act like our neighbors it's all good in the 'hood. They will even tolerate a suit and tie wearing butch to our faces, but inside that home they still think we are different and will do the 'why don't you get a real man' and 'she would be so pretty if she would just wear a dress and make-up' stuff. I doubt they would be so tolerant if they saw me come out in full leather, packing a big stiffy, with whips and chains attached to my chaps..........it would scare the bejesus out of them and they would clutch their children to their legs. They only tolerate us when we look and act like them on the surface.

And don't ever be fooled into thinking tolerance is a good thing. It's not. The good thing is acceptance. I'm not interested in being tolerated. I am interested in being recognized and accepted because I am a human being.

Tolerance is a false equality. Acceptance is full equality.

Not sure. Not sure. Not sure. In that order. :)

Honestly, I'm not sure how to answer the first question because I'm not certain that I know what a weirdo is. I'm a nerd--as my signature and name show, I let my geek flag fly high and proud--is that mainstream? I would say no. My reading habits, my television preferences are not necessarily what I would call 'mainstream'. Even my choices of recreation--I am a player in one D&D game and I'm the DM in another, for instance--aren't mainstream. So am I a weirdo or am I mainstream?

Do people in the mainstream get all excited because there's some new book on, for instance, the ongoing battle between string theorists and proponents of loop-quantum gravity? Do people in the mainstream own *multiple* copies--in different formats--of just about every word Terry Pratchett has ever written? Do people in the mainstream have a shower curtain that is the periodic table of elements and a poster showing the entire electromagnetic spectrum in the same room as a poster of Audre Lorde and another showing the entire history of the Universe as a single year?

Are the favorite tee-shirts of someone in the mainstream ones that read:

98% Chimp
Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies.
Stand Back, I'm going to try Science!
May the Mass Times Acceleration be with you


I think mainstream and weirdo are rather nebulous terms. To the woman I was in 1991, I would probably appear horribly mainstream (I would still most likely have wanted the toys and would've thought the EMF poster insanely great and would have done just about anything for the tee shirts while feeling guilty for doing so). To most of the suits (read that as our marketing, sales and legal staff) at my employer I look so far beyond the mainstream that I am at the outer edge of what many of them consider to be human behavior!

Do *I* think I'm in the mainstream? No, for all of the reasons above. Would someone who is more radical than me think I'm mainstream? Probably not and might even put me somewhere in the neighborhood of, say, Dick Cheney on the scale of acceptability.

Cheers
Aj

Personally, I don't think anyone is a weirdo. What I'm talking about is the perception of the average straight suburbanite. For them, meeting people like us means that the community as a whole doesn't seem so weird anymore.

Learning.
 

Thank you Aj I'm finding my brain grabs certain words so I need to read stuff more than once.

Toughy:

So what does acceptance look like? How do we know when we're equal? Since it's not a function of where we live, it can't be because we have a house in this or that neighborhood that isn't being egged, burnt to the ground or having a cross burnt on the lawn. Okay, so abode and location are no indication that we've made progress, got it. It almost certainly not where we are employed and/or where we are on the food chain. Even if the new CEO of Apple is gay (and the rumor mill is that he is) that's not enough so we can't use whether or not one can be employed as an out gay X so let's strike that. It's not whether or not people will talk to us civilly because they might be talking behind our backs. Check. Maybe we can tell by how we are treated in school? Probably not for much the same reasons as our living, employment and social situations aren't indicative.

So, since we have ruled out where one lives, what kinds of relations one has with one's neighbors, if one is treated equally in the workplace, what's left. How do we know that we are being treated equal?

I also have to say that there are generations of immigrants who might strenuously disagree with you that assimilation isn't equality. If assimilation is being able to live in the house one chooses without fear that the neighbors will make it clear that you stay in that house at your own risk, then assimilation is leads to equality. If assimilation is being to apply for a job and your only concerns about whether you will get the job is if you have the right skill set and your personality is a good match for the team, then that is a form of equality. If assimilation is being able to be in school and to have your work judged by criteria relevant to the field of study as opposed to, say, whether one is gay or black or what-have-you, then that, too, is a form of equality. We have a president who is only a shade or two darker than I am named Barack Obama because he and his wife (who is two or three shades darker than me) assimilated. Unless that black person is in entertainment every black figure you have heard of is assimilated to a greater or lesser degree. If they aren't, then you haven't heard of them.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell?Assimilated black woman. Eugene Robinson? Assimilated black man. Michael Eric Dyson? Assimilated black man. Mae Jamison? Assimilated black woman. Thurgood Marshall? Assimilated black man.

What does acceptance look like, Toughy?

Cheers
Aj