I hear it. I'm gay, and I want to get married someday too. I want to adopt kids - I've always have wanted to be a father and start a family. And its hard to see a loss like we've just seen in California.
But there's good news - we're going to win. Maybe not right away, but the tide has already turned. America has changed, and though there's going to be setbacks, marriage - and hopefully better adoption laws - will happen in the next few years. Whether it be through the Supreme Court, federal legislation, or state by state, its gonna happen. I think as soon as Massachusetts legalized marriage and people saw the proverbial 'sky didn't fall' right afterwards, it punched a hole right through the myths perpetrated by so many on the right.
But I'm worried. I'm worried that we're going to lose something in all this, something very important. I'm worried we might miss an opportunity to get something more than just marriage equality. More below.
Many of the activists fighting for marriage rights are young, and for many of them, this is their first political fight. To many who weren't political before, this was your entry into politics, protests, campaigns and rallies. Which is great.
But its easy to protest when people discriminate against you. What's hard is to protest and fight for others. And I think at this time of hetero allies like Charlize Theron or Rob Thomas who have recently come out in support of gay marriage. I also think of a set of hetero friends of mine who have decided not to get married until everyone in the country can get married. And I think of all the white activists who took place in 'freedom rides' and various other protests to help gain rights for African-Americans in the South during the Civil Rights era. Many paid with their bodies, and sometimes their lives, to contribute to this fight.
Will we learn to be like them? I'm worried. I'm worried that so many young gay and lesbian activists, after they get marriage rights, might go back to being what they were before. I've heard many young queer folks say over the last few years, 'oh, I'm apolitical' - particularly during the Iraq war.
Is the right to marry all that we came here for?
I think if we don't see that discrimination against one is discrimination against all, we lose the opportunity to gain something much, much bigger. Lets face it - many of us fighting for gay marriage rights are relatively privileged. Despite the Bush legacy, we live in the richest country in the world, and have other benefits, like citizenship and the ability to speak English, which put you in the world's de facto upper-class. Gay men in particular have an enormous amount of economic clout in this country.
Which isn't in any way to say being queer is easy. Particularly if you're a queer woman, well, then you've got two rather than one way society discriminates against you, and if you're a queer person of color, there's not only the regular racism to deal with, but the many ways in which racism pervades the queer community - in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. And so many queer folks are thrown out of their house at a young age, or end up having emotional or mental issues related to the difficulties of growing up gay, or end up abusing substances as a way of dealing with these difficulties, that we have such higher rates of suicide. Being queer ain't easy.
But as the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari have argued, there's two types of oppressed groups - what they call a 'subjected' and a 'subject' group. The first is political because it's angry that they've gotten screwed over. And history is full of those. But those of the second category learn a deeper lesson from getting fucked over by power. That is, that you need to fight the structure that screwed you, rather than the agent. That is, you need to fight discrimination AS SUCH. Otherwise, you haven't learned the deeper lesson of what's at stake.
This is why I worry. I see so many activists, particularly young, queer activists, who are so into protesting for marriage equality - and of course you're right, and I'm glad your doing it. I want marriage rights too! But to paraphrase a commenter in another diary, our struggle isn't 'the only one in the world.'
And so I worry that until we begin to raise awareness about the plight of our 'illegal immigrants' - that we haven't learned the deeper lesson of the marriage equality fight. Or that until we draw attention to conditions people of color are subjected to continually in this country - we haven't learned the deeper lesson of the marriage equality fight. Or that until we start talking to our friends about what global capital does to the poor around the world - we haven't learned the deeper lesson of the marriage equality fight. Or that until we try to get our families to see how American military might fucks up other countries in the world, or how our penal system and drug laws work to create a cycle of perpetual poverty and disempowerment to whole swaths of our society - we haven't learned the deeper lesson of the marriage equality fight. And that until we see these fight as ours - we haven't learned the deeper lesson of the marriage equality fight.
I mean, let's face it - the guy from Ecuador doing the dishes for peanuts at my local restaurant has it a hell of a lot harder than I do. And while I know just how much marriage rights would do - in making the straight community take our relationships seriously, in getting us all sorts of legal and social benefits - I think he deserves healthcare and social services for all the work he does in this country. And I think that if we only fight for marriage, what happens to him? I mean, most immigrants here can't legally drive a car, and we're worried about who we'll invite to the reception. I realize marriage is very important. But I think we need to view marriage as part of a larger set of fights - for healthcare for all, against illegal wars of aggression, against what global capitalism is doing to our country and this world, against the systematic impoverishment of people of color in this country via underfunded schools and overfunded prisons, etc., etc.
And I know that when you try to get into the fight of who is 'more or less' oppressed, it always gets messy. But let's face it - especially if you're a white gay male, like so many in the marriage equality fight are - there are many, many else in the world who have it harder than you and me. And we need to keep that in mind, I think, everytime we argue for marriage equality, and find ways to link our fight to those of others. Like the transgendered, like the immigrants, like people of color. Its not just about marriage, its about equality for all. At least, I think it should be.
But what if a million screaming queers showed up at immigrant rights rallies? Yes, in some places, the immigrant and queer communities have worked together - particularly in the Bay Area. But if we start showing up to 'their' protests, guess who might start showing up to 'ours'? "Cross-activism" is what I call it. Or just simply solidarity, as they called it in the old days. The right wins every time we're divided.
I think we as a community need to tap into how we feel when we're discriminated against, and use it as a foundation with which to try to imagine what happens to others. And then have them teach us, as we teach them what its like to be in our shoes.
Cross-Activism. Otherwise, I fear we may not learn the lesson that oppression can teach us. Cause if we just get rights for ourselves, how does this make us any different from any other group in history that was oppressed? I mean, if you take rights away from George W. Bush, I have no doubt he'd be the first to be out there picketing too.
Anybody can protest when their own rights are taken away. But to be a Cross-Activist? The only reason why the right wins so much of the time is that the left is divided into small groups. But what if we learned to come together as a group of Cross-Activists? Of course, the first step starts with us. It always does. But this is I think what we can really learn, what we need to learn, from the fight for marriage equality.