Last time we checked in with The American Prospect‘s Gabriel Arana, he was arguing that making Matthew Shepard the face of gay rights was a mistake. So what’s the liberal rag’s fag writer up to this week? Calling the National Equality March “incoherent” (which it might be), but also claiming that its very purpose — to give gays visibility — is irrelevant. Ugh.
Say what you will about Cleve Jones’ birthday party in D.C. this weekend, but one thing it will do is give LGBT Americans more visibility. Yes, despite Congress being out of session. And yes, despite a holiday weekend. The march, for all its problems, reckons to be a defining moment in the gay civil rights struggle. And yet, argues Arana (who is gay), the one thing gays don’t need much of right now is visibility.
We haven’t reached the end of the gay-rights movement, but the modern issues we are fighting for — achieving marriage equality, passing the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, and repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — aren’t really issues of visibility. People know we’re here and that we’re queer, which is to say that the public-relations war has been won in many respects. The most recent New York Times/CBS poll shows that 63 percent of Americans favor either gay marriage or civil unions. An even greater majority thinks gays should be protected from job discrimination. And young people, the best indicator of where we are headed, overwhelmingly support gay rights; based on polling data, 38 states would have marriage equality if only those under 30 made the laws. Of course discrimination still persists, but in 1990, few would have thought marriage would be on the table in a serious way. At the time of Stonewall, marching publicly as a gay person was a seditious political act. It’s just not anymore.
He’s right about Stonewall. What transpired that night, and in the years and decades since, has been a push to let every American know that they know a queer person. But the fight for visibility — a word that doesn’t mean “Will & Grace” — isn’t over. Not when the U.S. government forces gay Americans to hide in the military. Not when the healthcare debate forgets that untold numbers of gay Americans are struggling to find affordable care because the law prevents them from sharing benefits. Not when a supposedly gay-friendly president keeps pushing us to the periphery because he is too busy.
What we need now, more than ever, is visibility.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
But that’s not the only place where Arana is wrong.
Today, we are not responding to an immediate threat, like we were with the Anita Bryant and Act Up protests. Instead, the campaign billed as the Equality Across America movement, with its laundry list of things it is supposed to represent and associated workshops, is ultimately incoherent. The march has a theme but no message. Because of this, most of the press coverage — and talk among those in the gay community — has been about Obama’s speech at the HRC, or the fact that Lady Gaga is appearing. Visitors to D.C. mostly talk about what hotel to stay at over the weekend, where to go out, or what the best way to get into the city is. In other words, it’s a typical pride parade.
Anita Bryant was a threat, yes, but she was also a lunatic. What we face now — no hate crimes laws (yet!), employment anti-discrimination laws, marriage rights, adoption rights — are immediate threats for tens and hundreds of thousands of LGBT Americans who cannot make termination decisions and funeral and arrangements for their partners, for parents who face losing their foster children at the whim of a bureaucracy, for military personnel who face losing their jobs, benefits, and livelihood because of a government-sanctioned discriminatory law. Those are IMMEDIATE THREATS. As in, they are affecting us right this second, and will affect us tomorrow, and the next day. Anita Bryan was child’s play compared to the immediate threats to gay Americans’ life, liberty, and happiness.
It’s too bad Arana, for all his complaints, doesn’t even have a reasonable solution.
But with an administration in office that ostensibly supports gay-rights issues and a Democratic majority in Congress, it should be a watershed moment. It’s the first time in which gay-rights leaders are in a position to put real pressure on Washington. Instead of having a general “awareness raising” campaign where gays say they want equality, organizers could have instead presented the administration with a concrete list of demands — and a deadline for each. For example, Obama should immediately suspend Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell discharges and set in motion the formal process to repeal the law. In the next six months, he should campaign publicly for passage of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which would make it illegal nationwide to fire someone because of their sexual orientation. By the end of 2011, he should have a similar campaign to end the Defense of Marriage Act. Having these concrete goals makes for better slogans — “End Goal? ENDA!” perhaps? — and they also provide a metric for progress.
Deadlines? We’ve demanded Obama immediately suspend DADT; he won’t. We’ve demanded he do more to lobby Congress to pass ENDA; he hasn’t. We’ve demanded Obama help kill the Defense of Marriage Act; he’s done nothing.
We already have these concrete goals. And they’ve already been met with Obama’s stonewalling.
(The one smart thing Arana has to say? “Groups like the HRC could also threaten to withhold contributions to Democratic candidates until real progress is made. Instead, what we currently have is a weekend of glitzy events where politicos hobnob with donors and the rest of the gay community caps their weekend vacation with a feel-good march.” That’s true.)
Then again, maybe we shouldn’t be taking advice from a guy like Arana.
At the last pride weekend I attended in New York City, I awoke on the day of the parade dehydrated and with a headache. I had stayed up late the night before and drank too much. By the time I dragged myself out of bed, the parade had been going on for two hours. What a shame, I thought. But the shame was not that I missed making an important political point; I regretted missing the pridestravaganza of go-go dancers, baton twirlers, and floats passing by.
That’s not why we’re going to D.C. But feel free to have some bubbly back on our behalf. That is, of course, if you can’t make it to the NEM yourself, Mr. Arana, given that you live in D.C.
terrwill
When did Topher Grace (even though he is a Gay) and Barbra Streisand have a kid????????
Brian
It is not about visibility, acceptance or tolerance – it is about “equality.” We keep missing the target. More than half of our fellow citizens believe we are wrong – until we change that belief, everything else is a waste of time. Being “visible” in an effort to “normalize” homosexuality misses the point – it IS normal. We are “not wrong.”
GeoffM
I think this march for all it’s problems is vital because even though they know “we’re here and queer”….they need to be reminded we aren’t going away.
I’m going, and I did a local campaign w/friends and family this week to write AND call my state reps and Congressman and even the Gov to let them know I’m attending the event and to support gay rights legislation. We should all be doing that whether we can go to DC or not.
QL Dallas
I agree with Geoff – in fact, if our protest doesn’t work we should consider “camping out” until we get results. We’ll just stay there until we get everything we demand.
Steve
There really is only one demand:
“Equal Treatment Under the Law”.
Anything less is just a step on the path.
Obama does not seem to understand this, yet.
Paul
Geesh, can’t gay pundits do a cursory Google search before publishing their work? The National Equality March has a simple, easy-to-understand slogan:
“Our One Single Demand: Equal protection in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states.”
Not just marriage rights, not just job non-discrimination, etc. Full equality. Period. I’m as good as you. No qualifications or caveats, no begging for scraps, no having to argue about marriage as it relates to religious views or taxes or hospital visitations, and no debates about who’s good enough to be allowed to fight for this country. Just “I’m equal to you, and I deserve all of the same rights.” Simple to remember and explain. It’s the best single message gay rights advocates have ever had.
jason
Our rights will always hang by a thread because there will always be lunatics who want to take them away from us. If they could, they would.
Gay rights isn’t just a finite journey. It’s a journey that lasts forever. We need to be eternally vigilant.
Carl
Yeah I agree with Jason, that we have to be eternally vigilant. And maybe angrier, less comfortable. I actually interviewed someone who was very involved in the early days of ACT UP about many of these issues. The audio clips are short, but what I learned about the particular subject of motivation was really interesting. It’s here: http://twitterurl.net//K11577 if you want to check it out.
naghanenu
Why do people assume that generation is going to magik the gay rights movement?
I’m 21 and whle I’m to a large extent liberal..whts the gtee when I’m more mature..ill still have these views. H
Hell, I the sixties when people were wakn up they said the same thing.
Well the young folk then are the old folks now…and the progresscurve is?
This hope you people keep placing in the wrong places….
jason
There is no such thing as social evolution when it comes to gay rights. Our rights can only be won and maintained by constant vigilance. If we think we’ve won, that’s when our enemies are winning.
Old Timer
I think the march in Washington is a bad idea for all the reasons I gave in the comments in this thread, but I also object to Arana’s article.
I have two basic problems with what he wrote. First, he essentially argues that the battle for equality has been won. Well, Mr. Arana, I’ve got news for you. That’s not true. There is a long way to go on civil unions, marriage, equal treatment under the law, DOMA, and DADT.
Visibility is a big part of those battles. If the equality march had a better news peg — some event or process that it was tied to — then I’d be all in favor of it. My issue with the march is not the marches are a bad idea, but that there is nothing special about right now, and therefore it’s going to be poorly attended and ineffective. Also, these marches in general tend to be terribly organized, and the inclusion of a bunch of socialists on the main speaking platform tells me this march is even worse than usual on the organizational front.
Back to my objection s to Arana’s article. The second one was his citation of gay bar parties as a means of discrediting the event. That one really bugs me, because it plays right into the hands of the wingnuts who want to make us look outrageous.
So gay bars are going to be doing their thing this weekend. So what? They’re gay bars. They do their thing every weekend. Arana’s focus on this stuff reminds me of the early “homophile” organizations that required men to wear ties and jackets and women to wear cocktail dresses to the first gay rights march in front of the White House.
So, let’s be “presentable,” Mr. Arana? Funny you should go there in an article that also paid homage to the riot at the Stonewall Inn, a bar in Greenwich Village that catered to gay transvestites. The two signature events of the early gay rights movement — the Stonewall riot, and the election in 1965 in which a drag queen polled second in a board of supervisors race in San Francisco — were launched not by the “presentable” but by people with nothing left to lose.
I’m uneasy about the HRC’s tactics these days, but I’m willing to give them and Obama some more time. I don’t think the march is a good idea right now, but the idea that we’ve somehow won our battles and can now safely blend back into the woodwork is just wrong.
Jane
I’m still confused as to how equality equals marriage rights? Why are gay people demanding entrance into an ultimately flawed, classist, misogynistic institution?
Silly mos.
ckjarvis
I have to say, anyone at this point who thinks “visibility” is an issue, is way behind the line of action. Like it or not, we no longer have a problem with visibility. I know it’s hard for some younger people to grasp this, but it’s true. In the last two years alone LGBT Americans were a dominant force on news broadcasts, from one end of the country to another. Trust me, they know we’re here. Now can we move on to the next step in attaining our rights?
ckjarvis
And no, although the lack of rights, etc today is an awful thing, they are not “immediate” threats, not in the way Arana meant. Anita Bryant was supporting legislation which would have further restricted the rights of LGBT Americans and with a vote coming up, that’s pretty immediate. ACT UP was working to get drugs to people with AIDS, who were dying at an alarming rate, which was also “immediate”. You can’t just change the definition of words in order to call them out. The issues today for the most part are not immediate, they are ongoing.
Old Timer
@CKJ, I hear you, but I also think that visibility is probably one of the perennials with our crowd, because heterosexuals have a build-in tendency not to see us unless we remind ’em that we’re here. Question is how and when, and what we say once they see us.
ckjarvis
@OldTimer – I agree that we all need to as out as possible. I see your point, and agree that heteros tend to be blind to us without our reminders. But I think those are now one on one issues, and should be abandoned in large scale politics. It was one thing in the 60’s 70’s & 80’s. But there’s no visibility problem now, on a large scale. If we don’t move on to more effective strategies, we may truly become invisible.
Old Timer
@CKJ, yeah, I agree about more effective strategies than foolish “mass demonstrations” like the one in Washington this weekend that will draw a few thousand stragglers. Couldn’t agree more. But I have to pretty strongly disagree with Arana’s complacency. To think that these battles are somehow won is wrong.
Patrick
“I’m still confused as to how equality equals marriage rights? Why are gay people demanding entrance into an ultimately flawed, classist, misogynistic institution?”
Whatever. Jargon is nice but marriage is huge. Not being married makes building a life together way harder and more expensive. IF you can. My husband is European and I will have to move over there when his visa runs out in the near future.
If our marriage were recognized federally, I could keep my job here and we would not have to uproot our lives.
Jane
Fortunately for you Patrick, you’ll have to uproot. I’m glad too. I’d rather have people leave who don’t want to really sit down and critique things, and fix them.
You just want things the easy way. Won’t happen. Go to Europe.
Patrick
Please don’t be offensive. I have been fighting hard for YEARS. What about that is the easy way? there are no options left for my husband to stay. We can live our lives separately, or I can follow him abroad. What about that is easy?
And for the record, I will continue to fight when I’ve moved away. I can critique things all I want… doesn’t change deportation laws.
Joe Moore
We should never be complacent and think that we don’t need to continue being visable to the general public. We need to keep marching until we have full equality. I hope for a day in the future when HRC will no longer be needed, gay pride will be a thing of the past, and I can go out to a bar with my boyfriend, not just in West Hollywood.
Long shots maybe…but it’s a goal. And if you watch the footage of the march, you’ll see there is a clear message:
Equality.
What more does this guy want? Compared to the last march on D.C. our message is pretty dang clear.
Brian
Equality = “same.” We are no where near that. Every other person we meet thinks we are “wrong.” Until that changes, we can’t be equal. Laws will never accomplish that – we need to change minds.
cheri
Laws will change perception and acceptance will come. We have been patient enough. How long will we allow ourselves to be subjected to this unfair treatment? Take advantage of the momentum and keep the ball rolling. And BTW, the god clubs have meddled for far too long in our civil business. It is time that they be exposed for this activity. I say hit them where they will feel it most…tax them. They are screwing with our rights and doing it from the pulpit. I don’t think that is something Jesus would do. They should lose their tax exempt status for sure. Times are tough and the government needs that god money.