Quote:
Originally Posted by aishah
... i suspect it was an election stunt...
...so despite his support, even he still believes we should be treated as separate and unequal...
... these laws extend a few more rights to monogamous same-sex couples...
... the attempts to push the idea of a "normalized" gay person has set up the dichotomy of "good queers" (those who are most easily able to conform to a heteronormative society, to the best of their ability, usually but not always middle/upper class white gays and lesbians)/"bad queers" (the rest of us)....
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Apologies for cutting up your post. I pulled out some quotes that I wanted to directly address.
Election stunt? Do you seriously think that Obama thinks he's going to gain votes from anywhere with his statement of support? He already had the gay and liberal vote. He almost certainly lost some centrist votes, and energised the evangelicals who are lukewarm about the Mormon candidate, but white hot about denying us full civil rights. All the indicators are that this WILL hurt him at the ballot box. Apparently, Obama had come to his decision a month or more ago, and decided to announce his position prior to the Dem convention to avoid a divisive floor fight during the convention. The CW on this is that it would have been far better for his campaign if he had waited until after the election.
"Seperate but unequal" would have been Obama's previous position in favour of civil unions. Supporting marriage equality means equality. Period. Yes, I would have been far more impressed had he not said he thought it was a states' right's issue. On the other hand, he's laying the groundwork for the repeal of DOMA. The reality is that once DOMA is repealed, states will no longer have the ability to discriminate against a person who has been legally wed in another state.
Why on earth do you assume that marriage means monogamy? I have never been monogamous, nor would I become monogamous if I were to marry. Many married couples are non-monogamous, and I don't mean cheaters. The government can't legislate monogamy, and frankly doesn't care to despite the efforts of all the, (probably cheating), tea baggers. Additionally, when you assert that marriage equality only provides "a few more rights", you expose tremendous ignorance about the real legal ramifications of marriage, which is odd when you're so passionate about this subject. There are more than 1,100 specific rights and privileges granted to legal spouses. For someone so invested in the welfare of poor people you seem to be willfully ignoring the plight of lgbt elders who are, on average, far poorer than their straight counterparts because they are denied their deceased partner's social security benefits. This is a very serious hardship since many poor people rely on social security as their sole support in old age.
I'm an avowed pervert, non-monogamous biker leatherdyke, hippie artist. I just went out to look at a pro dungeon where the Lesbian Sex Mafia might decide to throw our Leather Pride party, which I am organising. There is not a soul in my community who suspects that I may be "normalized", or a "good queer". This pervert is just as happy about the prospect of full marriage equality as I am about the advancement of any other major civil rights issue. And I'm that much happier because
many people that I care about stand to gain
more than 1,100 specific benefits when their relationships are recognised as equal. Oh, and many of those friends are not white or middle class. It would be OK to care about their wellbeing even if they were, though.