Widen your view of gay history and be grateful

[evanrick]

we seriously need a new democratic party, this one really does not get it.

they are always throwing their biggest supporters under the bus,

labor, gays, etc. its really time for liberals to form their own party and wash out

these conservadems. give americans a real choice, not just republican-lite.

liberal isnt a dirty word in politics anymore.

and dang, how tall ARE you jb87? lol

 

[NickCole]

Now, same-sex marriage is the default Liberal position on gay rights, quickly becoming the de-facto Democratic position, and even some prominent conservatives and Republicans are coming around in favor of our rights.

Great thread idea.

Historically, until very recently, maybe the last ten years, the notion of same sex marriage was understood by many gays to be a conservative position; and I think it is a conservative position just as much as liberal if you really think about it, and I think gay marriage advocates should use that to our advantage. In fact Andrew Sullivan's book, Virtually Normal, published about a decade ago, is a conservative argument in favor of gay marriage. Also David Brooks, conservative columnist for the New York Times, wrote a strong conservative defense for gay marriage in that paper. And the two lawyers arguing against Prop 8 right now are top conservative and liberal attorneys -- they opposed one another in Bush v Gore.

Marriage, itself, is a conservative institution. And, as I was about to post in another thread wherein a poster has repeatedly written that Obama is all we have, I think gays are making a big mistake by aligning themselves exclusively with Democrats and the Democratic Party. By holding on for dear life to a political party that receives more of our money and support than ever before but with Obama as leader does not fight for us, and attacking the GOP rather than courting and publicly playing up and appreciating the conservatives who are on our side, we're effectively tossing banana peels in our own path.

Minorities fighting for rights are smart to find authentic allies wherever they are, conservative or liberal. Obama is the worst kind of ally because he's unprincipled and will sway any way the wind blows if it'll get him what HE wants, and what he wants has nothing to do with civil rights. Nowhere is that more easily seen than in his support for gay marriage a decade ago and opposition to it now. It's good when a politician changes his/her position because he/she has evolved, it's an indication of a principled thinker, but going from supporting gay marriage to opposing it is obviously not evolution. Not only is Obama not all we have, he's all but worthless to us. There are lots of elected officials who are on our side consistently, and those are the politicians we should be supporting with our dollars, our voices, our votes.

Kudos to you for the premise of your thread, that if we take a longer view of gay history we have much to be grateful for. As recently as when I was in high school, virtually nobody in high school was out of the closet. I had a secret boyfriend and we both had girlfriends (and a ton of guilt), which was the only option if you wanted any social place higher than outcast. That's only a few decades ago. I think you're right that gratitude for what we've achieved relatively quickly is the best view to take about gay rights - be grateful and use our past to help figure out what works and what doesn't. The main thing I've learned, as a gay man who remembers as far back as Stonewall and has seen many battles won and lost, is know how to recognize your true allies, don't embrace false ones because false friends drain you and then betray you, and support your supporters even if they seem an odd fit or aren't exactly what you want them to be.

Again, great idea for a thread.

 

[Zingerific]

Historically, until very recently, maybe the last ten years, the notion of same sex marriage was understood by many gays to be a conservative position.

When I was an undergraduate (maybe in '95 or '96), it was common to hear activists bemoan the cause of same sex marriage, or efforts to overturn DADT; they were concerned about the "movement" being "co-opted." I was never sympathetic to that -- the idea that being gay necessitated a radical ideology. That is as crassly essentialist and reductivist as anything the religious right has dreamed up.

I think it is a conservative position just as much as liberal if you really think about it, and I think gay marriage advocates should use that to our advantage.

Minorities fighting for rights are smart to find authentic allies wherever they are, conservative or liberal.

I completely agree with this.

 

[Kulindahr]

If certain JUBbers were still here, JB, you'd be getting pounded hard for this. The "We want it all now or it's not good enough!" school of thought used to thrive here. That's as idiotic for gays as for Libertarians; the main effect is that people shut you out.

It's nice to sit back and grab some perspective sometimes. Tanks.

 

[NickCole]

If certain JUBbers were still here, JB, you'd be getting pounded hard for this. The "We want it all now or it's not good enough!" school of thought used to thrive here. That's as idiotic for gays as for Libertarians; the main effect is that people shut you out.

It's nice to sit back and grab some perspective sometimes. Tanks.

Nobody ever said or suggested that.

That was a misrepresentation by Obamabots to shoot down any criticism of The One.

It wasn't what was "good enough," it was about opportunity. My point was that the window of opportunity doesn't stay open long and it's important we sieze the moments when they're presented, like pushing Obama to help us defeat Prop 8 late in the 2008 campaign.

I've been advocating for gay rights since the early 70s. There are times for action and times for patience. 2008/09 was a time for gays to push hard for action. We could've made some substantive headway. But that time's past, as far as Obama and Congress is concerned anyway.

 

[evanrick]

A new study found that states that ban gay marriage have the HIGHEST divorce rates in the nation. No surprise there. How hypocritical can people be?

 

[Kulindahr]

Nobody ever said or suggested that.

That was a misrepresentation by Obamabots to shoot down any criticism of The One.

???

You need to refresh your memory: it was an attack on Obama, and on 'older' gays for not having gotten everything done for the younger generation, so darn it they have to do something for themselves,

 

[Kulindahr]

A new study found that states that ban gay marriage have the HIGHEST divorce rates in the nation. No surprise there. How hypocritical can people be?

Oh, quite hypocritical.

Take, for instance, the ReligioPublicans, who say they're fighting in God's name -- but verse after verse from Jesus in the New Testament condemns them.

 

[DanikShade]

This thread is a very thoughtful discussion rather than a screaming match, what a pleasant surprise. I find the idea of courting new voices and votes to be an outstanding idea. Broad minds have a broad appeal, especially if they can have JockBoy's elegant phrasing to lead them. This approach makes me want to know if I can do more to help where as the more stereotypical approach, mentioned by Kulindahr, "The "We want it all now or it's not good enough!" school of thought used to thrive here." is and was a turn off. I'd really like to see more of this type of discussion please! Well done JB!

 

[Centexfarmer]

It is 2010, but only that much is readily obvious.

Why?

Because memories fade, and we forget the rock solid reality of the past. We are so frustrated and angry, rightfully so, but more so than we would be if we took a minute to appreciate what has happened in recent years. One does not need to even look in the distant past to gain a perspective of our relatively elevated position.

Let's have a look at January 2005: Maine, the state that we successfully lobbied and got a marriage bill passed this past year, did not even have any anti-discrimination law. In fact, it had been introduced and passed twice already only to be defeated in referendums, in 1997 and 2000. Just one state actually married gay couples, Massachusetts, and only one other state even had something similar to it, that was Vermont's Civil Union law of 2000. A few states granted rights similar to marriage. We had very few allies on the marriage issue just five years ago, and only one state legislature looked even amenable to passing a marriage bill, California, which was summarily vetoed by Arnold Schwarzeneggar. In hindsight, this may have been to our advantage as a "proposition 8" in 2006 would likely have been even more successful than in 2008.

Now, same-sex marriage is the default Liberal position on gay rights, quickly becoming the de-facto Democratic position, and even some prominent conservatives and Republicans are coming around in favor of our rights. We have anti-discrimination laws in 21 states, and Congress passed the first ever gay rights legislation in 2009 and was signed by the President. Five states now marry gay couples with one recognizing those marriages, one having done so previously, and one having passed the law only to have it defeated in a referendum. Also, a DC law is about to come into effect allowing same sex marriage.

The future is even more promising than the past

Even in 2010 we should expect major victories. First of all, we anticipate victories in the Liberal-minded US District Court of Northern California, and the 9th US Circuit Court in overturning proposition 8. Democrats have promised movement on repealing Dont Ask Dont Tell and the passage of ENDA, a non-discrimination act. Lawsuits to overturn parts of DOMA have been lodged in Boston by the State of Massachusetts. We expect to be able to fend off a constitutional amendment demand by conservatives and Republicans in Iowa.

The decade ahead of us promises even more.

Yeah well...don't start finger diddling yourself until any number of the things that you've pointed out become a REALITY!

Your post illustrates bluntly what's wrong with the LGBT movement!

We're too willing and too quick to give up the fight for the promise or the hope of what might come.

You've failed to illustrated any understanding, or even respect, for how far we've come, or any understanding for "Gay History" for that matter.

Show the rest of us how "wide" your knowledge is of how far many of us reading this thread have gone so far, and maybe some of us might care to share how far we've all really gone, and with some humility YOU might actually learn something.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yeah well...don't start finger diddling yourself until any number of the things that you've pointed out become a REALITY!

Your post illustrates bluntly what's wrong with the LGBT movement!

We're too willing and too quick to give up the fight for the promise or the hope of what might come.

You've failed to illustrated any understanding, or even respect, for how far we've come, or any understanding for "Gay History" for that matter.

Show the rest of us how "wide" your knowledge is of how far many of us reading this thread have gone so far, and maybe some of us might care to share how far we've all really gone, and with some humility YOU might actually learn something.

It's necessary to remember as well that the fight involves a lot more than banging on legislators' doors and rallying voters.

The Pink Pistols have helped make progress for gay rights in two ways: where they're active, people realize that they'd darned well better respect gays, and some do in fact respect them for standing up for themselves so boldly/baldly. And that leads to another place we've helped: when we go shooting at open ranges, rednecks get a change to find out that there are gays who can carry on a conversation about guns in as much detail and knowledgability as any NRA member. That -- and the fact that some of us sport rainbow flags on our NRA jackets -- makes serious inroads on prejudice.

 

[Centexfarmer]

The theme of this thread is humility, in that the original poster understands that generations before us have brought us enough change to be very grateful for.

There is nothing to be angry about, and even my most ardent detractors have come around to agree here to a bit of peace and mutual agreement about at least something concurringly truthful.

As a volunteer Moderator/Contributor to this Forum, I'm still looking for the "humility" aspect.

So far all that I've seen is someone who's willing to pounce the instant that he encounters someone who doesn't support his view of the world and how things should be.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

 

[Centexfarmer]

And that would make me so unique


Thank you all who contributed to this peaceful and amicable thread.

There's a first for everything!

 

[NineOfClubs]

My contribution to this "history" thread, since I lived through much of it.

When gay marriage was first proposed, the gay mainstream (think Larry Kramer) almost totally was opposed to the idea. They, we, even myself, thought gays were somehow "different", why should we want to be like straights, why assimilate?

The first most prominent proponent was Andrew Sullivan, who was way more conservative in those days than he is now. He wrote on the subject in essays and magazines and in a 1995 book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtually_Normal:_An_Argument_About_Homosexuality

I'm still only a reluctant supporter of marriage. Hell, I don't even approve of straight marriage, it's an antiquated, patriarchal institution devised to enslave women, if you ask me.

Still, I have always supported gay marriage (or anything like it) when it was on the ballot...

 

[NineOfClubs]

^I think I support both.

Though I expect most personal gain from supporting equal rights (ENDA?), since I never envision a future that would include marriage. But I want others to have that option...

P.S. I miss the "Us vs. Them" attitude. I do think we (gays) are special, different, gifted, evolved, etc..

 

[construct]

Well, I think it is occasionally good to remember the evil days of the past and how far we've come, but I would not limit it to the last five years. To me, that's almost "current events" rather that gay history. We need to remember the tremendous repression and oppression that prevailed when this movement started back in 1950. We need to remember the groundbreaking work of people who would not be satisfied until there were tangible changes in public attitudes and behavior toward gay folk--Harry Hay, Frank Kameny, Barbary Gittings, Troy Perry, and many more.

That's not to say that there isn't still work to be done. It is only to recall that we have heroes of the past sixty years to model.

 

[construct]

My contribution to this "history" thread, since I lived through much of it.

When gay marriage was first proposed, the gay mainstream (think Larry Kramer) almost totally was opposed to the idea. They, we, even myself, thought gays were somehow "different", why should we want to be like straights, why assimilate?

The first most prominent proponent was Andrew Sullivan, who was way more conservative in those days than he is now. He wrote on the subject in essays and magazines and in a 1995 book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtually_Normal:_An_Argument_About_Homosexuality

I'm still only a reluctant supporter of marriage. Hell, I don't even approve of straight marriage, it's an antiquated, patriarchal institution devised to enslave women, if you ask me.

Still, I have always supported gay marriage (or anything like it) when it was on the ballot...

Larry Kramer was most certainly not part of the gay mainstream. Faggots was not mainstream in its attack on the bar and bathhouse culture of the late seventies. His insistence on committed coupling as a model came about as close to gay marriage as anyone seriously considered in the early eighties. ACT-UP was quite divisive in the gay community with its disruption of mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral in the late eighties. He has often pointed out the inadequacies and dangers of the radical ideology prevalent in gay culture of the post-Stonewall era.

I should add that Kramer voiced an important critique, and we are richer for it.

 

[Kulindahr]

As a volunteer Moderator/Contributor to this Forum, I'm still looking for the "humility" aspect.

So far all that I've seen is someone who's willing to pounce the instant that he encounters someone who doesn't support his view of the world and how things should be.

I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

I don't see this in the thread.

And I'd say JB only appears unyielding since certainv ery unyielding persons who couldn't be civil with anyone who disagreed with them have fled.

Would you then describe yourself more like a supporter of equal rights than a supporter of gay marriage?

That describes me. It says quite well why I don't like the idea of laws that add gay marriage to the list of privileged types, rather than just getting the government out of the discrimination business.

^I think I support both.

Though I expect most personal gain from supporting equal rights (ENDA?), since I never envision a future that would include marriage. But I want others to have that option...

P.S. I miss the "Us vs. Them" attitude. I do think we (gays) are special, different, gifted, evolved, etc..

Of course we're evolved. If we could somehow adjust the race to have one in five folks gay, the population problem would be over.

 

[Kulindahr]

Though I think pursuing something different and settling for being different actually hurts us, while institutionally removing marriage from civil law would hurt our image and be counterproductive.

Nonsense.

Most Americans think marriage is religious; giving it back to the churches would be an excellent move -- gays could portray themselves as understanding and generous even to the people who despise us.

Then we could replace it with something that actually involves human rights, i.e. letting people define their own committed relationships and requiring the government (supposedly our servant, after all) to recognize them all equally.

That kind of argument would actually appeal to a lot of Republicans I know -- especially the last part, about making government our servant.

 

[construct]

The movement for greater acceptance seems to have gone from conservative to radical to conservative again.

I think it's the radical stereotype that hurts us so badly.

Unlike Kramer, I think that the celebration and exploration of sexual and relational alternatives as well as the radical theorizing that supported it in the seventies was a predictable and probably necessary phase of our community's development. I would view it as the adolescence of the movement. Kramer is right in pointing out that it ultimately led to the rampant spread of AIDS. "Most of those people are dead now," he mordantly observes. Nevertheless, the intellectual underpinnings of that phase have provided an important stream of thought seen even today in our movement.

Besides that, can you name anyone more radical than Harry Hay (who founded the Mattachine Society in 1950)?