Marriage Equality

Now that the California Supreme Court (all but ONE of whose judges were appointed by Republican Governors, mind you) has declared marriage equality Constituional, we can congratulate George Takei (better known as Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek) and Brad Altman for their upcoming marriage.

Photo from George Takei.com.

I should note that when non-controversial (which often means "safe-seeming to your Average American) do controversial things, it breaks barriers better than when controversial people do controversial things. The death of Rock Hudson from AIDS made it acceptable in America to die of AIDS. That may sound strange to many, but before Rock Hudson died of AIDS, I remember many people who died suddenly "after an illness" and no one would dare speak the name of the illness. It may have been Magic Johnson who made it okay to LIVE with AIDS in America, but Rock Hudson taught America to accept AIDS as something we didn't have to speak of in mere whispers.

Rock Hackshaw has a piece on marriage equality up, here, that I'm going to have to comment on. He's wrong, in my considered opinion, but wrong in a way that is instructive.

First, we need to acknowledge that the opposition to marriage equality is not even, in that sense, about marriage. It is about the acceptance of gays and lesbians in our society. That's the often enough unspoken context of this debate; one eschewed by advocates, who prefer to merely address the charges made by opponents, and by the opponents themselves, who often enough make their case not with actual gays and lesbians, but with the depraved hordes that they believe lie in wait beyond our ranks: the polygamists, the bestialists, and so on.

So it is in this case as well. I'll say to the charge that marriage quality opens the floodgates to polygamy and what not else simply this: show me the people who are demanding that. Then demonstrate to me that marriage equality will have the consequences you point to. You won't be able to, for one very simple reason: there is no constituency arguing on behalf of, say, bestiality, and your argument essentially comes down to the assertion, unproven and unprovable, that any change in the institution of marriage will destroy it. That's a non-sensical claim; the institution will be strengthened, not weakened, when a new class of citizens joins it. Marriage has undergone significant shifts over the past century, beginning with the end of the idea of marriage as a life-long contract. Whether that's good or not is another subject; but the institution's continued vitality is demonstrated, I think, by the fact that gays and lesbians care enough about it to want to join in its practice.

(Xposted at TDG)

[Update] Watching the news right now, they're only mentioning a hatchet, and are saying two men are in critical condition. Here's a more detailed article from the Boston Globe. You can even see the suspect's MySpace page here....some disturbing comments from his friends near the bottom of a disturbing page.

--------------------------------

You've got to admit, it's not often you hear about a machete and hatchet attack in a gay bar:

NEW BEDFORD -- Police continued their hunt late today for an armed suspect who shot two people and slashed another inside a popular gay nightclub.

The incident occurred about midnight inside the Puzzles Lounge on North Front Street. A bartender, who asked that his name not be used because he feared for his life, said a man armed with a hatchet, a machete, and a handgun attacked patrons before he fled the bar.

[snip]

The bartender said the man came into the bar, ordered a drink, and asked if it was a gay bar. He was told that it was.

I finally got to see Kinsey tonight. In it, he wonders what this country would be like if the Puritans had stayed in England. Someone recently told me that the first white people were “the only ones here” so this has to be a Christian country. In fact, there were millions of people already here. There were thriving cultures older than anything that existed in Europe, with democratic governments, no prisons, no debt, no sexual guilt, no sexual repression and almost no spousal or child abuse. Then the Puritans arrived.

The Puritans brought disease, repression, slavery, hatred and violence. They persecuted “Witches” and were the first wave of what turned out to be systematic genocide and theft. America’s first fascists. Church attendance mandatory, and heaven help you if you ran afoul of the local clergy. The Patriots resisted, ushering in an age of enlightenment and drawing upon Native American democracies they created a free nation. Freedom took a little longer than they’d hoped, but the cycle had begun. American culture formed a spiral, moving forward, curving back around to an earlier, more repressive attitude, which creates the resistance needed to swing around and move the culture forward. Kinsey was the antidote to the last wave of fascism, when J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy were imposing their respective repression and suspicion on the creative (and therefore subversive) elements of the country.

Kinsey showed people that most of them weren’t as weird as they thought. He pulled back the curtain and saw the sex that went on everywhere but was never mentioned. His research was the beginning of homosexuality being viewed as a natural variation instead of an illness. It was the death of Freud’s mythical “vaginal orgasm” that had been used against women for a century. He looked at the reality of the human animal and stripped away the false structure of 5,000 year-old tribal mores that have nothing to do with our lives today.

The spiral continues. We had a push forward in the 60’s and 70’s, had our predictable conservative backlash in the 80’s and we’re smack in the middle of a current manifestation of the same old fascist forces that live in constant fear that somebody is having a good time. Always under the mantle of “morality,” these forces have a financial interest in keeping people repressed. It takes real repression to fuel persecution, and it takes persecution to control a population and to wage a war. War is a money-making machine for the wealthy. Guilt keeps church coffers full. Great power measures itself against those it holds powerless. Happy people won’t kill for your cause. Liberated women dare expect orgasms, equal pay, and won’t tolerate abuse or neglect. If a rich white man is to maintain his fortune, he believes he has to exploit the weakness of minorities, women and the poor so he can build his empire on their backs. It’s time for empires of wealth and oppression to fall. The myth of scarcity and the expedience of greed and corruption are un-American, racist, sexist, hateful hurtful lies that have lived too long.

America is at a crucial juncture. The confirmation of Sam Alito will give dangerous leverage to the Republican War on Sex. The demagogues of the Radical Right say our culture is sex obsessed when it is actually sexually repressed. They’re doing everything they can to destroy the social and sexual progress we’ve made in the last 40 years. We’re looking at a return of sodomy laws, the loss of access to birth control as well as abortion, prison sentences for normal adult sexuality, complete loss of privacy, and strip searches without warrants if they succeed. Women will be out of the work force and under the thumbs of their husbands.

Kinsey was the first to tell us that Sex is Good. It’s a normal adult activity in all its glorious variety. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going back into the closet or under the sheets. In a free country, no one should be afraid to be a healthy, sexual adult. Do you want the government in bed with you? Deciding when you can have sex, how you can do it, and with whom. Do you want the state deciding you must have a child that is unplanned and unwanted – after they’ve taken away the contraceptives you relied on to prevent that unwanted pregnancy?

Do you want George Bush making your most intimate decisions for you?
When you can have sex?
How you can live?
When you can die?

Kinsey isn’t here. It’s up to us to make sure we stay as free as we are, and that the social progress that’s dawning for the LGBT community isn’t stopped before it has really begun. Stopping Alito’s nomination is just step one, but it’s crucial. Europe laughs at us for our prudishness – don’t let them pity us our oppression.

Strip Search Sammy cannot sit on the Supreme Court!
Demand an appropriate, moderate Justice instead of a Right Wing extremist.

No Alito, No Way!

Apparently, supporters of a ballot measure to strip queer residents of Massachusetts of the right to marry are fussy over attempts by MassEquality to write and phone signatories of the initiative letting them know theit signature is on the petition and could possibly be invalid. I'm aware of their efforts because my home received notice.

The efforts of MassEquality are happening because signature gatherers for supporters of the amendment have done a few, well, troubling things. Tactics like telling people they're signing one petition--to allow alcohol sales in grocery stors--and having them sign the marriage petition have been noted in the Boston media. Indeed, the legislature even "acted" by holding a hearing on such tactics.

The mailing from MassEquality isn't the only way I found out someone had fraudulently used my address to sign the petition. I also found them on the site KnowThyNeighbor.org. Basically, she provided false information when signing the petition. I'll be contacting the Attorney General with this (and I've notified her of that--Google is wonderful). I know it's relatively minor and this one signature won't doom the amendment. They've got far too many signatures for this one to make a difference. I'm just pissed at this fucker for using my address...not cool, not cool.

In other news, GLAD has challenged Attorney General Reilly's certification of the petitions. The basic issue here is that the Massachusetts constitution bans any citizen-initiated petitions specifically to overturn Supreme Judicial Court rulings. GLAD is arguing that this amendment is specifically tied to overturning Goodridge v. Department of Public Health. Supporters of the amendment say that since those marriages already in existence when (if) the amendment passes won't be affected--it will only bar them moving forward into the future, along with any other form of family recognition--it isn't related to Goodridge. We'll see how this plays out.

Here's where things stand now. If GLAD's challenge (pdf) is rejected, the amendment will go to the legislature (or the General Court, as it is formally known here). It must then pass two consecutive General Courts with 50 votes (25% of the General Court--citizen-initiated amendments have a lower legislative bar than those coming out of the legislature). If it passes those two sessions, it will appear on the 2008 ballot for the citizens of Massachusetts to vote on.

We are also still waiting for a decision on Cote-Whitacre v. Dep't of Public Health. The SJC heard arguments in this case this fall. If the Court accepts GLAD's argument, out-of-state same-sex couples will be able to wed in Massachusetts.

Now, off to draft a letter to the AG.

In less than a week, I'll be heading back to Minnesota for nine days. Of course, I'll bring home work, very little of which I'll actually get done because it will also be "Old Home" week. I'll be running to spend time with folks I only see a couple times a year.

It will also be time to see my relatives. It's ok, I guess. But, many of them live in Iowa, and the ones that do are hyper-conservative. We're talking two uncles who were in the Promise Keepers. We're talking home deliver of Focus on the Family's monthly magazine. We're talking old school Dutch Calivinists, the folks my sister, the Methodist minister, says are like Dutch Southern Baptists--all of the rules but none of the emotion. (I often joke that the cool Dutch people stayed in Holland; their right-wing rejects moved to Iowa and Michigan.) At least they'll be coming to my parents' house, rather than us driving to Iowa (and I get to do some major cooking!)

I certainly hope this doesn't come up (for the sake of a peaceful day), but it might:

Two retired Urbandale teachers said Tuesday that they are challenging a state law banning gay marriages because they believe they're entitled to the same kind of committed relationships that they grew up with during the 1950s.

Larry Hoch, 63, and David Twombley, 64, were one of six couples named as plaintiffs Tuesday in a Polk County lawsuit fighting an Iowa requirement that marriage must be "between a male and a female" to be valid.

Yup, that's right, the fight for Marriage Equality has landed right in the middle of The Heartland. Queers are trying to get hitched in IOWA, of all places!

"You mean there are queers in Iowa?!"

The first gay bar I ever went to was the Brass Garden (now it's just called The Garden) in Des Moines. I also marched in my first Pride Parade in Des Moines. I was the first openly gay Resident Assistant employed by ISU's Department of Residence, and was one of the student leaders in a fight to open campus family housing to same-sex couples (a fight we lost). I got my first death threat as an activist in Ames. All of this was over a dozen years ago. My connections to the state, other than directly via family and relatives (yes, I make a distinction between the two) have pretty much been severed, though.

In the part of Iowa where my relatives live, the northwest corner, this move is going to be incredibly unpopular. But, activists have made sure to target that part of the state (remember, the couples involved in these lawsuits are selected based on a number of criteria, one of which is geographical diversity within the state where the law is being challenged--these couples are more than just plaintiffs, they're also public spokespeople, and activists want to have some kind of presence in the different parts of the state--to humanize it, to give it a "local angle," etc.) and one of the couples suing Iowa lives in Sioux City, the largest city in the northwest part of Iowa.

[An aside here: I just loved the box directing people to info about the couples on the Des Moines Register:

The couples listed as plaintiffs in the case have been together for several years. Click here to read about their families
(emphasis added)

The italicized language alone will be enough to drive Iowa wingnuts crazy. They hate it when you admit we have families...now back to the rest of the piece.]

It might surprise folks to find out that Sioux City is no stranger to queer legal controversies. Two years ago, a judge in Sioux City granted a divorce to a lesbian couple who wanted to dissolve the Civil Union they had obtained in Vermont. So far, the divorce is still in effect. The Iowa Supreme Court threw out a challenge by several conservative legislators, and others, because they lacked standing; the Court didn't say whether or not the judge erred in his decision.

Who would have thought that Sioux City, Iowa would be a center of the Marriage Equality struggle? Actually, we should anticipate that every part of the country will be involved (since we queers do seem to be everywhere), but it still seems odd to have Sioux City as a hotbed of activity.

My relatives get their television and newspaper news from Sioux City. They'll probably be aware of this. I sure as hell hope they don't want to talk about it.

My grandmothers are probably the only two people who have ever come into contact with me and haven't figured out I'm gay. My mother has specifically asked me not to tell them. ("It'll make everyone's life easier if they don't know.") I only see them once or twice a year, and they really don't play a significant role in my life, so it's not that big a deal (other than keeping me from talking about my academic work, my activist work, my relationships, my friendships...actually, much of my life). Luckily, we've mostly managed to avoid talking about any issues that involved gay stuff (has any family in America actually managed to do this?) I dunno if I can keep holding my tongue, though, and I'm afraid something not very nice might come out of it.

Wish me--and, of course, the couples in Iowa--luck

[Addendum: I wanted to add this, but forgot. With the shock that might accompany all of this going down in Iowa, it's also useful to remember that the Iowa Democratic Party's platform endorses marriage equality (424-435):

REPEALING THE DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT
We support:

• Repealing the Defense of Marriage Act which defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

MARRIAGES/CIVIL UNIONS
We support:

• Legal recognition of domestic partnerships and same sex marriage.

We oppose:

• Any constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage

The were one of the first two state Democratic Party's (Colorado being the other, as I recall) to include such support in their Platform. There are progressives in Iowa folks. (I guess, living in New England, where I just saw Wyoming referred to as "Midwestern," and where they assume everyone in flyover country is an inbred bigot who's thrilled to get indoor plumbing, makes me a little more sensitive to things like that.)]

From the BBC:

South Africa's highest court has ruled in favour of same-sex marriages, which are banned under current legislation.

The Constitutional Court ordered that parliament amend marriage laws to allow gay weddings within a year.

The constitution outlaws discrimination against gays and lesbians, but social attitudes remain more conservative.

The court ordered that the definition of marriage be changed from a "union between a man and a woman" to a "union between two persons".

If the Supreme Court's order is carried out, South Africa will join the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, and Massachusetts in allowing same-sex couples to marry.