Quote:
Originally Posted by aishah
i feel like my words are being twisted here. it was a mistake to post in this thread in the first place; this is why i've stayed out of almost all of the marriage threads period. i thought that since it was relevant to the article, maybe it wouldn't be a terrible idea to post in here, and i was wrong. being called a privileged tosser who's completely ignorant of history and is setting the movement back has made me feel like shit, so thanks for that.
i understand, cheryl, that it carries emotional weight. what i am saying is that it doesn't seem to carry all that much legal or even political weight. we're still in the same spot we were before he said it - except now my facebook feed is blowing up because people think he's the second coming.
and yes, quintease, we all help out however we can - however, since the mainstream lgbtq rights movement in the united states has turned itself into almost a single-issue movement (gay marriage), those of us who work on other issues don't get heard that often (let alone funded). and the president is not going to make any grand, sweeping statements about issues other than gay marriage. and many straight people think that gay marriage is the only issue.
i still think that's a problem. and i still think that saying that's a problem is relevant to the article that snow posted. but i'm going to shut up now.
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Aisha, I'm sorry to have hurt your feelings with my strong language. When I get wound up, I speak my mind without couching my ideas in the usual niceties. I have no exposure to facebook, but the places where I do look for information have been full of people saying things similar to you. Some don't understand why this is important any more than you do, and I find that shocking. Your primary objection seems to be that it won't affect you because your relationships aren't structured that way. And because marraige equality supposedly doesn't help trans people.
Many trans people who are able to change their ID, (majority of U.S. states), still want to get married, often to people of the gender to which they've changed their ID. That means they want access to marraige equality. Period. Just like other lgb people. I'm having a problem figuring out why something that greatly benefits many, but not all, lgbt people can't still be thought of as a great benefit, even by those who may have been left out in the first round. All civil rights struggles follow this path. We take the best deal we can manage in the moment, and then we go back and keep working for what we didn't get the first time. It is, indeed, destructive to take the short view when we're working on major civil rights issues.
As for dismissing the signifigance of marraige equality because it doesn't pertain to your personal relationship models, the travails of lgbt soldiers pre-DADT, and then during that miserable time, are well documented. I am now, and in the past was, about as likely to join any branch of the military as I am to shave my armpits and win Miss America. I'm horrified by many things that go on in in the military, in particular how much money we spend on weapons and weapons systems. I have very mixed feelings about all things military in general. That didn't stop me from working to end DADT, and feeling a huge sense of euphoria about its demise.
Why is that? Because every time an lgbt person is told that they're less-than, or that our relationships are less-than, something within the precious spirit of a young queer person gets more bruised, and more twisted. (It doesn't do calloused, old spirits any good, either.) And those who look for victims to assault are given the green light to do so. Because we're less-than. Every time a person of authority maligns us, or even just promotes seperate but allegedly equal treatment, those wounds fester, and those who mean us harm are encouraged to harm us. Every time a person of authority speaks up for us, it salves the wound, and gives the bad guys pause. The person with the greatest authority on earth just applied a huge soothing balm.
I frankly don't care at all whether or not your personal relationships will benefit from marrige equality any more than a lesbian soldier cares whether or not I've ever been a member of the military when I contacted my lawmaker on her behalf. The end of DADT had no immediate effect on my life, but the immediate effect it had on the lives of perhaps hundreds of thousands of lgbt soldiers, past and present, is so huge that the ripple effect has already rocked our society. The U.S. military is our biggest expenditure, and the sheer numbers of Americans who serve or have served is stupefying. I have NO DOUBT that the fact that the military apparatus continued to operate smoothly, and that other soldiers mostly don't give a crap about whether they're in the shower or a trench with a gay person, had a critical effect on the rapidly changing outlook that many Americans have about marraige equality.
Social movements to win civil rights are waged on many fronts. There are those in advocacy orgs who do this for a living, and those for whom this is their primary extra-curricular activity. There are those who write an occasional letter and sign petitions, and those who show up to march and demonstrate. People work on projects that are personally meaningful to us. All your facebook friends are happy about marraige equality because it's meaningful to them. Why do you think that is? And those who worked on this issue up until this point do so because why? The last reason why this is taking up so much room in the lgbt activist world is because we're winning. We're really, actually on the verge of winning this one, and it's going to be a huge win. How do we know we're winning? Because the President of the United States just spoke up about it.
As for real, concrete change- the statement of support Obama made changes no laws. You're right about that. I take issue with the woefully short-sighted assertion that it's not meaningful because the affect isn't immediately felt with a Federal law that grants marraige equality. Going back to Civics 101- if the POTUS were to unilaterally make and sign a new law today, he wouldn't be the POTUS. He would be the dictator of a country where the leader can rule by fiat. This is the first step in a long process. We all know that. I'll wait and see how long full equality takes, but the first step has been taken. That's why your facebook feed lit up. That's why New Yorkers danced in the street when Coumo signed the NY State marraige equality law. Full marraige equality will change the lives of a huge number of our people. I don't care whether or not you're personally interested in getting married. I doubt that I'll ever avail myself of the benefits of marraige. If you believe in equality, you support marraige equality. Period.