I don't know why women's groups are so enthused over Hillary Clinton possibly being our next president. Sure, she's a pro-choice woman with a 100% rating by NARAL, but that's the extent of her progressive credentials, as far as I can tell. She carries only a 60% approval rating by the ACLU and has repeatedly come out against gay rights or stayed silent when her activity was desperately needed. She's never even spoken out against the odious Defense of Marriage Act that her slick husband signed into law. The most positive thing she's ever said was that she wouldn't stand in the way of a gay marriage bill in New York. When it comes to gay rights, Hillary is not a woman you can depend on.
But she has the support of women's groups like Emily's List.
So why should pro-women's groups care what happens to homosexuals? Well, other than the simple human decency and the fact that there are gay women, it is simply impossible in our age to advance women's issues while letting gay issues stagnate. We have reached a point in our national conversation about gender where gay rights are one and the same with women's rights.
Opposition to gay rights comes from the same psychological space that opposition to women's rights do. Ultra-conservative religious dogma accounts for part of it, and a xenophobic fear of non-traditional gender roles comprises the rest. I am always amazed by women's advocates who insist that women's rights aren't, or shouldn't be, a religious issue. Be realistic! The opponents of women's rights -- all women's rights, be it choice, equal pay, job discrimination or what have you -- consider their fight a religious one. Advocacy of women's rights becomes an issue of religious freedom. To say that women have equal rights with men becomes the same as saying that no religion has the right to use the government to enforce their narrow views.
In this sense, it becomes hypocritical to advocate for women's rights and not gay rights. One's position becomes: "You can use your religion as an excuse to oppress this group, but not this group."
The xenophobia is harder to deal with, because it must be dealt with universal. The same psychological space produces discrimination against women and homophobia. We live in a difficult time, a time in which gender roles are being completely rewritten. World War II saw women enter the workforce in record numbers, and that was a difficult rewriting of gender roles. Women began to realize that the only thing standing between them and finincial equity with men was . . .men.
Today's rewriting of gender roles is even more radical. Sex, gender and sexuality have become completely riven apart; they no longer depend on one another. It's still fine to be a straight, dominant male, but it's also possible to live a normal life as a gay male-to-female transexual who takes on masculine roles. We live in a time in which any combination of sex, gender and sexuality is permissable and feasible. Because of that, we have a greater burden than ever in being forced to define our own sex, gender and sexuality. Also because of that, if we truly believe in gender equality, we must be honest and realize that there are, in today's world, not merely two genders.
To focus on women's issues to the exclusion of gay issues is not progressive: it's regressive. It shows a desire to return to the simpler times of the 1950s and 1960s, where the only fight you had to fight was against men in favor of women's rights. We don't live in so simple a world, and trying to fight that fight actually helps opponents of women's rights, who also want to take us back in time -- to the 1930s, when women barely dreamed of rights. We have to fight for freedom in today's world, not the world of yesteryear. If we do not, we lend weight to the very idea of regressivism, which seeks to move us backward, whereas we should be advocating progressivism, the desire to move forward.
That is why Hillary Clinton is not the candidate for those who believe in religious freedom. Ignoring any and all other hits against her religious freedom creds, this issue and how she has dealt with it shows a self-defeating political oportunism. Sure, it may get her elected to the White House, but what could she possibly accomplish once she's there? She won't assist on gay rights issues and can't do anything on the real issues facing women today. She certainly won't help out the 15% of the country who doesn't practice Christianity. At best, she's a populist, not a progressive.
We deserve better.
(originally posted at my new blog at interfaithleagueofvoters.blogspot.com)