It seems like every time there is new momentum for marriage equality or another LGBT civil rights issue, "gay rights groups" are criticized for their "laser" focus on marriage equality. Sometimes, it takes the form of "Hey, there are other things we should also focus on". Other times, its more of an underhanded attack on "privileged" white, gay men who are reaping all of the benefits of gay rights activism. Some of us who've actually been the victims of job discrimination, hate crimes, bullying, and social or family rejection for our sexual orientation take exception to being called "privileged" or "racist," especially by upper-class, straight, white people trying to play hall monitor on the internet.
We like to call this a reality-based community, but we tend to do that only because we believe in evolution and celebrate criticism of religion. For some reason, it is acceptable to attack the gay rights movement and accuse its leadership of "white, gay male privilege" without actually backing any of those claims up with evidence. For example, in this diary, Is marriage equality good for the whole community or mostly just gay white men?, the author claims that
Who benefits the most from marriage equality is, unsurprisingly, the people who already benefit the most in our culture
But he provides no evidence to back up his assertions. He doesn't describe the 1100+ benefits of marriage and provide evidence that they disproportionately benefit gay white men. For that matter, he doesn't define the term "benefit" -- social benefits, monetary benefits, relative benefits, etc. How can this kind of fact-free attack on the gay rights movement be tolerated at a community that likes to call itself "reality-based"?
So forgive me for injecting some actual data into this conversation.
Read More