Hey, homos? All your attention (your “over emphasis”) on securing marriage rights is ruining things for gay rights. That’s the position of Harvard gender-sexuality prof Tim McCarthy, who was a founding member of Barack Obama‘s National LGBT Leadership Council. This means he is a smart person to listen to.
“We have asked for a fight that we have now gotten,” says McCarthy about our marriage struggle. Look at California: We fought for marriage, and now we managed to get it banned. Or something. He advises picking smaller fights, winning ’em, and then going after big stuff like marriage. That is, of course, if gay Americans even want to go there — since marriage isn’t a big deal to plenty of them. (They’d rather get health care benefits, or adoption rights. Though it’s arguable those things would be secured with marriage rights.)
If you’re fighting for marriage rights, argues McCarthy, you’re probably a middle-class white guy who’s not so concerned trans LGBT youth of color who are homeless and fighting to survive.
ajax
I’m a middle class white guy and I want national marriage equality. Although I’ve never been a youth of color, or homeless, I imagine, if I were, I might like to get married some day.
Who is Tim McCarthy, how did he get to be such a tool, and how do we get him to STFU?
Jae
Unfortunately, over here in the UK, we have Stonewall (a gay rights charity with close links to our Government) whose Chief Executive doesn’t support gay marriage either. It’s a common theme, and a lot of gay guys I know seem to think getting the right to marriage is an insult to their “sexual freedom”.
It’s madness. I’m a middle class white guy, and I believe in marriage equality!
Chitown Kev
Acvtually, this man is completely wrong.
Other than a few couples, at least in the very beginning (1996 in Hawaii), we never pressed for marriage equality, the fundies actually pressed to ban marriage equality.
We have never put a referendum on the ballot for marriage equality (we may next year). The fudies always seek to ban it. So what the fuck is this tool talking about?
Rob
The discussion of marriage is in the first video starting just after the two minute mark.
Tim McCarthy says, “There are folks in communities in color and poor communities all across America for whom marriage is something that middle class white people who live in the suburbs want.”
People from the chattering classes keep telling me that marriage equality is widely perceived as a middle class issue. I’m not going to believe this until I hear it from some people who actually are working-class. Sure, homeless LGBT people probably aren’t thinking about marriage, but are working class gay couples uninterested in marriage? Really? Are there poll numbers on this?
I’m even more skeptical of the racial aspect of this remark. I find it hard to believe that middle class people of color in same-sex relationships are substantially less interested in marriage than white gay couples are.
Quinn
“If you’re fighting for marriage rights, argues McCarthy, you’re probably a middle-class white guy who’s not so concerned trans LGBT youth of color who are homeless and fighting to survive.”
Because we are focusing on and fighting only for marriage at the expense of all else? To quote Obama during his campaign: I can do two things at once.
This guy needs to GTFO.
jwalker666
Although I would love to see marriage equality across the board in my lifetime, I doubt it would come close to happening. There are too many right wing religious nut jobs out there that think that gay marriage will somehow affect them. However, I kind of agree with this article. I think we would have more sucess at least getting some sort of rights, be it civil unions, domestic partnerships first…then fight for marriage once we get those rights. Look at most of the states that passed gay marriage…Most of them had civil unions first. While I believe the northeast and west coast will have legal gay marriage the deep south and hard core red states will never allow gay marriage.
Timothy
“If you’re fighting for marriage rights, argues McCarthy, you’re probably a middle-class white guy who’s not so concerned trans LGBT youth of color who are homeless and fighting to survive.”
The bases of McCarthy’s comments are grounded in the presumption that middle-class white guys are less entitled to their rights than are trans LGBT youth of color. We middle-class white guys should step back from our quest for equality and turn our efforts to benefiting those who McCarthy deems more worthy.
McCarthy is an enemy of my freedom and equality.
Rick
I don’t listen to fat people or people with ear hair. He has both.
Chitown Kev
@jwalker666:
Don’t forget the Midwest. Iowa already has it and I think that Illinois and either Minnesota or Wisconsin will have it within….5-7 years (Illinois will have it within 3 years and will have civil unions first).
Larry
Another one of those Jasmyne Cannick/Yasmin Nair types criticizing gay marriage as the sole preserve of the Gay White Male Establishment. Yawn.
People like this need to get it through their skulls that while caring for homeless transgendered youth of color is important, some of us have priorities of our own. That’s a consequence of the fact that some of us have become successful in our lives and want to settle down; and settling down and finding long-term partners means we need to have a way to pass our property on if we die, visit each other in the hospital, and so on without having to spend thousands of dollars on attorney fees.
Chitown Kev
@Larry:
Probably the same thing that happened in Britain will happen here. That is, the people that want to get married (and have wanted to do so for a very long time) for the reasons that you cite (property transfer, hosptal visits, etc.) will go ahead and do it then gay marriages will scale back dramatically.
schlukitz
@Timothy:
My thoughts exactly, Timothy!
Chitown Kev
@schlukitz:
Well not exactly mine! I agree with the presumption part of his argument though.
Now were you to ask me, say, whether our community should be spending $40 million on a marriage equality battle in California in a time of recession where the very social services that these young and homeless need are being cut (both government services and LGBT non-profits) then I would have a bit of a different answer.
Larry
@Chitown Kev: Probably… The reason why gay marriage is an issue here is because our ability to come out of the closet and be who we are has allowed us to settle down and form long-term partnerships. It’s a natural outgrowth of the Gay Liberation movement that started 40-50 years ago.
People like McCarthy, Cannick and Nair seem to be uncomfortable with what equality for gay people actually entails. Nair has a radical mindset that’s trapped in the 1970s, while McCarthy and Cannick don’t accept that the “rising tide lifts all boats,” even if some segments of the GLBT community might benefit more than others in the interim. For Nair, same-sex marriage means the gradual end of a bygone era of widespread promiscuity that only existed because we couldn’t afford to form lasting relationships that would require coming out; Cannick and McCarthy can’t stand the inevitability that some people will still have to catch up as gay rights move forward, just as the case has been with every civil rights movement in this country’s history.
Chitown Kev
@Larry:
Sheeeit, I just waitin’ to see “Gay Divorce Court”…
“some people will still have to catch up as gay rights move forward, just as the case has been with every civil rights movement in this country’s history.”
That’s true. Primarily at the weird intersection of race and class (defined as not only income but education, etc…).
Cam
Oh HERE we go again, the whole “how dare you fight for civil rights when there are homeless trans youth out there?” Well did it ever occure to people that full civil rights will help everybody because legally they must be seen as full equal citizens. And if we are going to play that game, then how dare he care about ANYTHING when children are being kidnapped and trafficed all over the world to be sold or work in brothels, women are being killed for not wanting to be sold in marriage etc… There is ALWAYS another issue out there that can be used by people that don’t agree with the current fight and can be throwin in their faces with the old “You’re so selfish, what about these people?” line. With this Ivory tower fool as one of his advisors, no wonder Obama is treating gays like a party guest who showed up with a hooker as their date. This guy deep down is trapped in the mindset of the sour grapes 70’s set. “You don’t want us? Well FINE, WE don’t want to be like YOU either! We don’t WANT to be a part of society.”
If only Middle Class White guys are interested in Marriage I wonder how he explains recent council votes in Washington DC by the majority black City Council.
Cam
@Chitown Kev: You said “Sheeeit, I just waitin’ to see “Gay Divorce Court”…”
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LOL! You know that Bravo and Lifetime would be fighting over THAT show!
Larry
@Chitown Kev: Yeah, I imagine there were plenty of women for whom voting wasn’t a top priority in 1920, but that didn’t stop the suffragettes.
For me, the big problem isn’t just marriage, but the fact that it’s being banned in state constitutions by popular vote, hence consigning us to constitutionally mandated second-class citizenship and the whim of voters. Constitutional amendments are very difficult to undo, and getting rid of the 30 that have passed could take years, even decades. The implications of this are profoundly disturbing, but the apathy of people like McCarthy, Nair and Cannick on the issue is no less disturbing.
Brian
What a jerk. It’s the same white gay guys with jobs who attend all the fundraisers for LGBT community centers and other agencies that help trans youth, but this tool thinks we should devote 100% of our resources to his favored goals — and he thinks it’s OK to demonize those generous “middle class white guys” who are actually supporting the kids he claims to want to help (I would be very curious how much of the professor’s generous salary goes to actually helping trans kids).
Anyway, you would think a Harvard professor would know what a false binary is. Supporting marriage does not mean ignoring anything else.
jwalker666
@Chitown Kev:
I know that Iowa has it..and hopefully they won’t overrule that ruling. I live in Indiana…and all of my news comes from Chicago (which I see you probably see the same news I do)…so from my understanding civil unions have a good shot of passing…but I think the political and judicial makeup of Illinois does not look good for gay marriage there. Same for Wisconsin, where it has already been banned by an amendment. I’m not too sure about Minnesota. In Indiana, we are just happy that they have not banned it, but Ill never see it legal in conservative states. That’s was my main point…that progressive states will probably pass gay marriage, but for alot of people living in red states..they will have to move if they want to get married. I think if the gay rights movement would focus on civil unions and equal rights besides marriage, it would get to marrige being legal alot sooner.
Personally, I don’t really care about the actual marriage title. As long as I can have something that gives the exact same rights as marriage and not be discriminated against because I am gay, I’ll be happy
Chitown Kev
@jwalker666:
well, I put it on a timeline. I think we get civil unions within a year and marriage in 3-5. The opponents here already know that civil unions is a stop gap measure, we’ve been pretty upfront about it.
Thing is, in Illinois it will never come up for a binding vote.
vlucca
i think what’s getting lost here is the fact that being denied the right to marry is not a threat of violence or death. even though it’s not pleasant to hear for those who would like to get married, there are still very serious issues of safety––mental and physical––for the entire community that need to be dealt with. this is one of those issues that, like the use of “under god” in the pledge of allegiance, has far-reaching ideological implications (and is pulled out by fundies/pundits who seek to profit from being divisive) but needs to be tabled until we deal with iraq/more tangible instances of human suffering.
@Brian: it’s pretty crass and paternalistic to claim that without middle class white males at risk teen trans fundraisers would fail. trans supporters i have personally known worked within larger outreaches to at risk/homeless teens, and run the gambit from straight latin@s to non-gendered asians. it also proves his point––if the more visible community (ie: the ones that are economically stable and not living on the street) actually gave a damn about those kids, it wouldn’t seem that way.
AlwaysGay
Let’s move ahead on marriage equality.
More racism and ignorance directed toward white gay people. Gay people are not the ones putting heterosexual-only marriage amendments on the ballot. GOT THAT! Non-discrimination laws have been pushed for more than 30 years by gay people. Because of haterosexual politicians and haterosexuals placing anti-gay referendums on the ballots there is a log jam of issues still to be addressed. Gay people need to fight in every arena.
F U to McCarthy and the bigtots that think like you.
schlukitz
@AlwaysGay:
Even Charlie McCarthy (or Mortimer Snerd, for that matter), would ever had made such stupid comments. LOL
Chitown Kev
@AlwaysGay:
We can do more than one thing at a time, I agree. To the best of our ability.
And, yes, I do feel that in some instances (not necessarily this one) racism is thrown at white gay people (being as white gay people have little or no power in this society, pretty much).
MoHoTo
@Chitown Kev: The “dispossessed” gay youth facility in the Castro, which is very well funded, has so few gay youth to claim for its finding that it has extended its out reach to, as some locals have termed it, nomadic straight male youth with a very troubling attitude toward gay people.” Go to the Castro, see what the reference is about. On any given day you would think you were in a detention facility. Very scary.
In my experience, gay youth are especially handy at taking care of themselves, and when they need help, they know that our community above all others supports its youth, whenever, and wherever they need it.
To argue that supporting the fight for gay marriage undercuts a more important need to fund questionable government funded non-profits who claim to help gay youth, is like saying that the civil rights movement should have focused on funding support programs for black youth instead of the voting rights act.
Its absurd on its face.
Chitown Kev
@MoHoTo:
well, “dispossessed gay youth” can be pretty good at finding sugar daddies. Or at least I was.:) and I ain’t all that cute.
But the Castro is not “the gay community” either. You can see dispossessed gay youth in Chicago. And in NYC (and I used to be a dispossessed gay youth, I know what they look like).
And let’s not even talk about in the South…
Now if it’s not a California problem, then you have a point…but then you will be asking for money from everyone in the country for California, riiiiight?
And as for the civil rights movement comment, BOTH needed to be done. Now black youth feel dispossessed and don’t feel a vote a necessary. In short, you need to be able to do both.
MoHoTo
@Chitown Kev: I don’t agree. Simple as that. The presumption that we can’t fight for basic rights UNLESS… argued by people who clearly have their own ax to grind, whether excuse making or griping… is just grandstanding. Sorry, my opinion.
MoHoTo
And if you chose a sugar daddy, as opposed to someone sincere, to rely on, then I’m sorry. But there are lots of supportive gays out there who aren’t predators, because so many of us know what it was like to strike out on our own and want something better — without exploiting sex to get it. In fact, since our sexuality was often the source of our issue, we went out of our way to avoid exploiting it.
Chitown Kev
@MoHoTo:
I never said that. In fact, I think that we can (and in fact, must) do both.
Although that can be difficult sometimes. In the case of black civil rights, for example, FDR was blocked from doing civil rights for the black community by the Southern Democrats so he did it through economic empowerment…the civil rights piece (voting rights, etc.)started after black economic empowerment was improved. Even President Obama has criticized civil rights organizations and the black church for forgetting about the economics piece.
For the gay community, we have the economic empowerment (by and large) but not the civil rights piece.
Chitown Kev
“And if you chose a sugar daddy, as opposed to someone sincere, to rely on, then I’m sorry.”
What makes you think that he wasn’t sincere? The situation was what it was and we were honest about what each of us wanted and needed out of the relationship. In fact, A. told me, “I don’t care if you use me as long as you use me in the right way.” Andrew was very sincere and forthright, otherwise, I would not have stayed in the situation (I had other offeres, mind you). Now me and A. had other issues but his sincereity wasn’t one of them.
Of course, there were gays around me that weren’t predators, in fact most of them weren’t.
Rowen
The problem with GLBT homeless youth as an “issue” is that it’s not just one issue, for one community to sort out. When we talk about gay marriage, there is already an infrastructure that can be easily adapted to allow gay marriage and all the stuff that goes with a legal marriage. With LGBT homeless youth, you have the issues of trans- and homophobia, homelessness, retraining, drug addiction, prostitution, mental disorders, the list goes on. And many of these issues are affecting the general homeless population across the board, old and young, gay and straight. It’s not an issue that the gay community can solve by itself, because it’s a much deeper reflection on our society. Granting some legal rights is, relatively easy. Breaking someone of a debilitating drug addiction while addressing the accompanying mental disorder while attempting to acclimate this person to a work and home environment is . .. well, fucking difficult, and way too is beyond what our society can do.
Does this mean that the gay community shouldn’t do anything? No. But, until a lot of changes and breakthroughs can be made in many different fields, there’s not too much more then what we already are doing.
Though, if I am wrong, I would love to know what CAN be done. (in a civil discourse, of course)
Jim Pickett
Of interest, an item I wrote for RH Reality Check – Say “We Do” to LGBTI Health
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/08/31/say-we-do-lgbti-health
Sam
@Chitown Kev: “Other than a few couples, at least in the very beginning (1996 in Hawaii), we never pressed for marriage equality…”
Not that I agree with McCarthy, but your statement just isn’t accurate. We’ve pressed for (and won) marriage equality in Massachusetts (Goodridge), Connecticut (Kerrigan), California (In re Marriage Cases) and Iowa (Varnum). Plus, we’ve unsuccessfully pressed for marriage via lawsuit in at least a half dozen other states, pushed for it legislatively in more, and are now going after it in the federal courts (Smelt, Gill and Perry).
So we certainly are putting effort into passing marriage equality. Which we should continue to do. We should also be pushing to pass ENDA and state non-discrimination laws. We can do more than one thing at once (though lately, we don’t really seem to be doing so).
I think the only situation where he might have a point is the Caligays who are insisting on putting their time, money and effort into a 2010 Prop 8 repeal which will NOT be successful. Gays across the country gave to help stop Prop 8 and we lost. 2010 NEEDS to be about all of us, even in California, giving our time, money and effort to Maine and Washington State. Then, in 2012, California can get another shot.
Come on California… we helped you once, we’ll help you again, but this time, it’s someone else’s turn.
Sam
@Sam: Oops. Forgot to close those last italics.
Cam
@vlucca: You said “there are still very serious issues of safety––mental and physical––for the entire community that need to be dealt with. this is one of those issues that, like the use of “under god” in the pledge of allegiance, has far-reaching ideological implications (and is pulled out by fundies/pundits who seek to profit from being divisive) but needs to be tabled until we deal with iraq/more tangible instances of human suffering.”
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The problem with your reasoning, is that there is ALWAYS something else going on. Ok, so we get Iraq taken care of…well then there are human trafficing issues, then there is runaway issues etc…. The thing that this professor seems to miss, is that many of those issues, will clear up when gays have full civil rights. Just the fact of being seen as full human beings with rights will empower gay youth. Aren’t people like this professor always talking about self esteem and empowerment? Well having legal gay couples publically sanctioned will allow those youth to know that there IS a future for them.
Chitown Kev
@Sam:
No, I’m talking about at the very beginning of the gay marriage debate in the early to mid-1990’s (actually there have been courtcases regarding gay marriage since the 1970’s). There were individual couples that brought those cases and the religious right actually put the issue out there: hence DOMA. “Our leaders” never really devoted a lot of time and money into the issue until the late 90’s. You woefully neglected my qualifier “in the very beginning” I know very well that we are pursuing marriage equality now.
Chitown Kev
@Sam:
Other than that, I kinda sorta agree with you
Bill Perdue
There are solutions to all of our problems (except maybe for have a good tuuck, a great apartment, a good bf and a good job all at once. That never happens.)
Solving the other problems is relatively simple.
1) Repeal Clinton’s DOMA and DADT.
2) Enact a tough ENDA.
3) Institute socialized medicine and pay for it by confiscatory taxes on HMOs, insurance companies and Big Pharma.
4) Institute a crash program to defeat the plague, here and worldwide featuring free Meds, zillions of condoms and mandatory sex ed.
Jail advocates of abstinence as accessories to manslaughter.
5) Enact constitutional amendments guaranteeing decent wages, benefits, housing, and education.
6) Enact laws providing for easy prosecution and harsh punishments for bigots who commit or encourage violence.
7) Organize the immediate, total and permanent withdrawal of US forces and interference in the internal affairs of nations from Palestine to Pakistan.
All of that can be paid for by confiscatory taxes on the looter rich and predatory lenders. All of it’s eminently reasonable, needful and doable. But not if you write trillion dollar welfare checks for the rich. That has to stop and we have to recall those loans with the same interest rate charged by credit card companies.
Does anyone imagine that Congressional Democrats and Republicans, toadies like Tim McCarthy or the White House will ever support that, much less do it?
Think again.
McCarthy is a jackass in an expensive suit who took off his school tie to look like ‘one of the masses’. He opposes campaigns to defend or expand same sex marriage for one reason, and one reason only. Because his bigoted boss Obama does.
His attempt to counterpoise SSM to other needs of our community is one of the most disgusting pieces of hypocritical patronizing garbage to come the pike in a long time. That’s because Tim McCarthy is a first class scumbag and a member of the Jackass Party.
sydneyfamous
I demand, but I’m willing to wait for our rights to come to us.
M Shane
Initially it’s important to take acount of the fact that marriage is not a right, in the way that education, and freedom of speach are. Someone reminded me the other day that it is nothing more than a social contract. So the 14th Amendment which applies to rights very often ; ‘separate but equal’ has nothing to do with marriage I guess that there was a kind of ‘uncle Tom ‘ movement at asssimilation by convincing straight people that we were monogamous like them. Hwever, since then we discovered in the urban areas that we could happily develop community’s.
As someone who’s had a happy sex and social life and no need to get married or be in a relationship other than friendships., and no particular dependancy issues, the developement of partnership options is a concern to me but not nearly as important as employment, care of gay children, laws against hate crimes , development of community
I the first place it would be a far more sensible approach to build a concensus of people who want to take the religion out of our Goverment and establish secular forms of recognition for everyone. Let the people who want marriage fight with the churches and quit making things worse for the rest of us.
The people who have their minds singularly set on marriage are no more than victims of the ass hole attornies and creeps like Solomnese and the people who would benefit fro divorces etc.
The people who think that they are really fighting for gay rights are just doing the opposite. There is no way that it is Constitutional or even sensible to go for marrige . It will just make things hostile and horrible for everyone.
Marvin
Like people sit around calculating, “Well, I think this fundamentally unjust, but I won’t push for it now because that wouldn’t be strategic.” You push for what you can push for without paying whatever you find to be too great a cost. Marriage isn’t going to be something we have wide wins on in the immediate future, but does that mean we should shut up about demanding it? The more gay folks live out and proud lives and speak out about their rights, the better for all lgbt folks, including low income trans folks.
Ray
Wait. Has everyone who’s posted so far taken the 6 minutes to view McCarthy’s video? Queerty does many things well, but filtering someone’s opinion in an non-biased manner isn’t it.
Certainly Queer Marriage/Marriage Equality isn issue for the LGBTI communities to rally for, but it’s not the only one, nor is it necessarily the most important one.
The essence of what McCarthy is saying is that there are broader issues that impact a larger segment of our communities. And they deserve to be spotlighted in the media, in blogs and within discussions and exchanges that we have with one anther.
To distill our entire movement into one issue, i.e. Queer Marriage is troubling and challenging. And it indeed alienates us from one another. But a bigger concern is that it potentially allows the “enemy” to dictate the course of the dialogue for our social/political movements.
Some of you have posted that we can indeed multi-task in our activism. Agreed. But that particular skillset hasn’t really been highlighted so far with Queer Marriage work….
schlukitz
Ah yes. The old “there are far more important things to be concerning our selfish, self-important and indulgent selves with,”
How cavalier of you to tell me and my some 36,000 brothers and sisters that the desire to re-reunited with our families is of lesser importance than other issues.
The only thing “troubling” here, is YOU! How do you get like that?
Ray
Oops, it looks like this article is no longer popular enough to be spotlighted on the front page of Queerty.
Oh well.
I wasn’t sure if it was directed at my comments, but I thought I might reply to @SCHLUKITZ in any case.
I wasn’t indicating that what’s important to you is NOT important at all to the LGBTI movement. I was really just arguing that as much as it is possible for all our communities to work together, that we approach the issues that impact us with multi-tiered vantages.
Queer Marriage in itself is not all that hinges our rights in our communities. It has potential to have deeper impact than is being discussed. My right to marry a man (I’m a guy) is not just about a piece of paper that enforces the viability of our union in the eyes of our government. It can generate dialogue on issues of immigration, adoption, tax and class — all things that affect our communities as well. The commercial media doesn’t do much to cover this, so it’s up to us o dig deeper and have those complex conversations. To limit the dialogue of Queer Marriage to just “I want to be just like Hetero John and Jane Doe next door” is so… well, short sighted.
We must be smarter. We must be quicker. And we must be thoughtful and honest with one another. That is the only way we can all move forward.
schlukitz
@Ray:
Yes. My comments were, in fact, directed at you.
Sorry, Bub, but you are lecturing the choir.
As a gay man, approaching 73 years of age, I have been active in the civil-rights movement since Stonewall (1969). I very much resent your cavalier insinuation that I am a “I wanna get married faggot who cares about no one but myself”, which is what your comments seem to suggest.
We are talking 50 years of my life as a gay-activist. And it is only recently that gay civil-rights (including the right to marry the partner of my choice) has been on the front burner.
I suspect that long before you were even born, I and other people of my age, were protesting and marching for some of the rights and privileges you currently enjoy and no longer need to wait for or plead for as we once did?
And just FYI, Queer marriage, as you so deprecatingly put it, is not just about two people of the same sex being allowed to tie the knot. It’s about civil-rights, in case you have not taken notice. Please do a little research before you toss your hat into the arena for the purpose of telling us how “short-sighted” we LGBT folks are.
Nor am I interested in being “Just like Hetero John and Jane Doe next door”.
My interest is being allowed to legally bring my hubby of some six and a half years to share what little remains of my time here on this planet. I’ve waited for 73 years to see my civil-rights.
Do you have some sort of problem with that?
Jim Pickett
Are all of you marriage advocates working on health care reform? Just a question.
schlukitz
@Jim Pickett:
You betcha. That matters to all of us, irregardless of where we stand on LGBT civil-rights.
We can, after all, walk and chew gum too…which makes some of us wonder if Obama is capable to doing the same?
Ray
1) Why is this article so hard to locate on Queerty? If I hadn’t bookmarked it already, there would be almost no way to access this. Odd.
2) @schlukitz, I completely appreciate your points. And I understand why Queer Marriage is important to you and to so many others. I eat humble pie if I indicated otherwise. And if you are someone who has been in the movement for so long, I indeed thank you for trailblazing so that the generations that followed are able to enjoy the limited rights we have gained as part of the LGBTI communities.
I think maybe the misunderstanding we might have is perhaps in regards to the perceived tone of my missives.
I think it’s dangerous to frame all our communities’ politics around one issue, in this case, Queer Marriage. AND it’s incredibly limiting that we don’t openly discuss this particular issue with multi-tiered analysis. Much of the dialogue around Queer Marriage is only about government recognition of gay monogamous couples. But that’s not all that it’s about! It has implications on taxes, on immigration status, on class systems. It certainly affects adoption rights, medical/life insurance benefits and work HR policies.
As LGBTI communities, we can elevate the conversation so that we don’t get stuck on just wanting to emulate hetero-normative behavior or whether Jesus thinks this is okay or not. That’s essentially how commercial (and Queer, I guess) media has boiled this down to.
As Jim asked: Are we (LGBTI communities) working on health care reform? Isn’t this a gay issue as well? It all intersects and it all matters.
Jim Pickett
If we can walk and chew gum – I would like to see proof. LGBT people have specific health needs, and experience disparities in the delivery and quality of health care due to their sexual orientation and gender identity. Gay black men in the US are experiencing HIV rates similar to sub Saharan Africa. So — where are all you marriage folks in pushing for adequate, culturally competent health care for our communities?
Chitown Kev
@Jim Pickett:
Because that would require being involved with the straight black and churched community which is more focused on the plight of black women w/AIDS than it ever has been for gay men.
Black gay men can get many of the testing and treatment services that they need, really, if they stayed informed. But many in the straight black churchified communities would resent it if white gay men were to go there and, for example, include comprehensive sex education, which would include homosexuality.
In many ways, this is a no win situation…
Jim Pickett
@Chitown Kev
I disagree. This is not simply about awareness and the black church. In a recent Chicago study – the majority of gay men – including black gay men – had been tested twice in the last two years. It showed that 1 in 5 gay men ini Chicago are infected (all races) and that black gay men, in fact, had less risk behaviors compared to white gay men – despite a much higher prevalence.
It is complicated – but it is not a no win.
It is just that sort of defeated attitude that we need to fight against.
Chitown Kev
@Jim Pickett:
It’s not a defeatist attitude…but reality. Does the black community really care about the black gay men in its’ midst who have HIV? By and large, no; many in the black community never really gave a good goddamn until black women started coming down with the disease.
I have lived in Chicago for nearly 20 years. If you come out (and off of the DL), there are plenty of HIV/AIDS services available (though affordable health care is a signifcant issue).
I agree that the white gay community could do a better job but but so can the straight black churched community.
Jim Pickett
There are homophobic and racist structures in our country that make it harder for ALL gay men to get the services they need. These problems can’t simply be laid on the doorstep of the black church. We could look to our state and federal governments who have not allowed us to talk freely about sex and have directed more money to other populations in terms of HIV/AIDS – despite gay men always making up the bulk of infections here.
Chitown Kev
@Jim Pickett:
True, first of all, by and large, is my distaste for “the black church” that obvious? 🙂 And I was raised in the black church.
Much of the problem as it specifically concerns much of the black community, though, is that many in the political structures are also churchified (there are a lot of ministers in local chapters of the NAACP, for example)
will clemens
So this speaker is already in a marriage or in a state that allowes marriage ? If so, then of course he can say we are over emphasizing marriage, he is already safe.
J. Clarence
He isn’t suggesting that we should push the fight for marriage-equality to the back burner, merely realize that in addition to that there are other queer issues at the table that need to be addressed.
Marriage-equality is very important, but there are literally other bread and butter issues that would trump it for a lot of LGBT people and their needs; and we should have a more diversified portfolio of issues that would bring more people to the table and give them greater sense of ownership. Because, lets be frank, not everyone is going to want to get married, at least not right now.
rudy
All this name-calling is ridiculous.
The man wants all the same things we do – he’s just talking strategy.
Didn’t most of the pro-marriage states pass workplace antidiscrimination laws and civil unions first?
Miss Dee Cooley
The fact is that equal means just that; Equal. If one American is denied any rights given to another than no American has any rights at all. Freedom, and the liberties that accompany it must be given to all Americans or none of us have said freedom much less the liberties that come with it.
If one group (Heterosexuals) are allowed the advantages, and disadvantages of marriage than all Americans, including Gays, Lesbians and Transsexuals should also have the same privilege, the wording of the documents written by our founding fathers requires it.
To assume that most “homos” don’t care about marital rights is far from the truth an the person making said statement hasn’t been to any gay marriage or commitment ceremony. I personally have been to 3 ceremonies this year alone and have had 4 other couples go to other states or even Canada to become married despite the fact that my home state of Louisiana does not recognize their marriages, much less our right to even hold a job.
In conclusion, if we don’t stand up for all the rights and privileges we deserve we will receive none.
Dee Cooley
Jeton Ademaj
begone with this idiot. here in NYC i actually get to talk to trans youth of color, and other more disadvantaged subsets of the Queer community…many look forward to a good life MARRIED TO THEIR SPOUSE someday. they look forward to being EQUAL, and we should let them speak for themselves, rather than letting this fool (whose task is to do his Master’s bidding, and perhaps get the Queer community to abandon a fight that gives his boss a headache) pretend to speak for anyone besides his boss, who sells us out more easily than Bill Clinton did in his first term.
the God-forsaken nerve of this guy!
schlukitz
@rudy:
he’s just talking strategy.
Strategy???
Sounds more to me, like he is tip-toeing through the tulips!
rudy
@schlukitz: Maybe your ukelele’s too loud.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/gay-marriage-state-by-state-tipping.html
schlukitz
LOL at Rudy.
Interesting article. Thanks for the link.
Jason
Middle class white here.
I agree with the guy – the legal benefits are the only things most of us actually want. And more over, there are many who don’t even support traditional exclusive monogamy as a paradigm in the first place, myself included. To try and force the marriage issue so hard is mind boggling.
Jeton Ademaj
@Jason: LOL!! Good God@! you really are all over the place…are you the same Jason exuding his prudery about what is and isn’t “really a gay issue” in the forums about bathhouses and leather street fairs? If so, and now you also decry gay marriages in a literally short-circuited manner, I think you should back away form the keyboard…seriously.
oh, fuck it…i’ll bite. can u please explain to us how we’re supposed to get the legal benefits of marriage (or any other gay-excluding institutions) without actually fighting for them? I’m morbidly eager to see how you’ll square that circle…and of course, curious about any ripostes you might offer. 🙂
Jim Pickett
Here’s a square circle for ya Jeton. Why should legal benefits be dependent on marriage – for anyone?
Jeton Ademaj
@Jim Pickett: huh? splain, lucy…are you making some back-door Libertarian argument that “Government should not be in the marriage business at all” ?
if not, please elaborate your question fully and coherently.
Jim Pickett
@Jeton – lucy hear. I am no Libertarian – I think govt has a lot of potential good to offer, i.e. health care, police, fire, education, etc…. But why should LGBTs accessing the rights they deserve hinge on whether they can get married or not? Why shouldn’t I be able to see my lover in the hospital period? Why can’t I have all those 1000+ benefits extended to married people and still be single? Or be in a couple/relationship formulated in some other way? Getting married won’t protect people from being discriminated on the job, or thrown out of the military. It also won’t cover them if they get sick and have a “pre-existing” condition…