It's a fair question to ask -- what are we really willing to sacrifice to call attention to the severity of the discrimination that profoundly our day-to-day lives?
Nadine continues below the fold.At a recent speaking engagement, I asked a group of people what the world would be like if from the day they were born prejudice had never touched their lives.
No homophobic bullying in school. Supportive families at homes No trans-bashing humor on TV. No workplace discrimination. Equal treatment of all families regardless or orientation or gender identity. No closet, ever, because you had never, ever needed one.
Most of the people responded by talking about new laws that would be in effect but they struggled to name the deeper, more personal impact on the texture of their daily lives. A few talked about what they would no longer fear but struggled to articulate what affirmative would replace those fears.
And one man wept and said it broke his heart that he could not imagine, even for a moment, what his life would have been without the constant presence of bigotry and hatred he'd endured for more than 60 years.
I encourage everyone to try this exercise because it is surprisingly difficult, and because I believe it is the pathway to our most potent tools in response to government-imposed second class citizenship:
A Sense of Urgency and the >Willingness to Sacrifice to harness the transformational power of living "as if." "As if" the laws had already changed. "As if" society were just.
Sitting at a lunch counter that bans your presence is living "as if". Keeping your seat when ordered to relinquish it to someone the law has designated your superior is living "as if."
As a child I was told that Rosa Parks was tired and fed up one fateful day and decided right then and there that she would not give up her seat. I was impressed by her courage.
Later, when I learned that her protest had been contemplated at len gth with the consequences fully measured, I was inspired even more deeply by her willingness to intentionally sacrifice her freedom and safety to make the country confront the ugliness of Jim Crow.
So where are the places where we contemplate the consequences of living "as if" equality had already arrived. Housing discrimination, workplace discrimination, adoption/ custody issues and hate violence are constant threats in LGBT lives, but not in inevitable or predictable ways. Where are the "sit-in" opportunities for the LGBT movement that can expose the contradiction between what our fellow Americans believe they stand for and what they allow to be done in their name?
Certainly discrimination in marriage laws and the military provide the most direct opportunities. These are the places the law defines us specifically as unequal, where we can make a reliable appointment with discrimination and be certain it will show up rightright on time.
Servicemembers who come out while on active duty and fight for the right to continue to do their jobs are a model for this kind of personal commitment and sacrifice. They decide not to participate in their own discrimination. They and the organizations fighting for them are shifting public opinion in dramatic ways.
What is the civilian equivalent? What can we do that demonstrates not only the rhetoric of equality but the personal sacrifice that will awaken the conscience of a nation?
What if those of us who are married lived as if our marriages are universally legally recognized? What if we literally refused to deny our spouse on any form, under any circumstances -- ever?Is our movement more about talk than action and sacrifice? Are people willing to risk their livelihoods by civil disobedience -- and I'm not talking just about attending a rally and getting arrested -- it's about whether we are willing to suffer publicly in a very visible way to make equality happen faster.When the government asks legally married couples in Massachusetts to file as 'married' in their state and then mark 'single' on the Federal Tax form, they are asking that couple to participate in their own discrimination so that the government doesn't have to dirty it's hands.
They are literally demanding that we lie, to tell an untruth about our marital status, so they can avoid confronting the difference between the hate-based discrimination they impose on us and the reality of our loving families.
Imagine the ripple effect of government issued letters to married gay couples ordering them to deny their spouse on federal forms.
We have to compel these moments by deciding that our lives will be about honesty and self-respect. Even if it comes at a price.
Rosa Parks showed us that even a one family refusing to participate in their own discrimination will have an impact.
But thousands of us, all of us, can decide to leave the discrimination up to the other side. We can refuse to collaborate in our own discrimination.
* If we refuse to deny our spouses even when the law tries to force us to lie.* If we insist on paying our taxes as married couples, even though the Federal government assessed our taxes as though we were single
* If we risked being detained at the border by customs agents who insist we mark single on Declaration forms despite the marriage certificate we hold.
With growing frequency I hear from people who are weighing the consequences of refusing to deny their spouse ever again. I find myself asking the same questions as well.
Even with expert legal guidance detailing the risks, a good dose of uncertainty would be inevitable for anyone taking such a stand into uncharted territory.
Am I willing to take that risk? Are you? Are we all?
We march, we lobby, we educate, we protest and we should and we must. But it seems increasingly clear to me that we must now do what civil rights movements have always done: with forethought and solemnity place oursel ves visibly at odds with an unjust law to provoke the consequences that can prick the conscience of our country.
* Are we willing to pay the price that civil rights movements require at this critical moment when a reinvigorated national dialogue is raging about our place under the law?
* Are we willing to compel the government be as ugly as it will have to be to enforce its determination that we are not married?
* Are we willing to say we are married, regardless of the costs?
'No excuses, no delays' is a fine rallying cry, but it's one that has to cut both ways.
When we call our on our government to take action we must also call upon ourselves to do more.
In focus groups we hosted several years ago, a panel of straight people who knew gay people said they did not believe discrimination was real or nearly bad as we described it because their gay friends or family would have told them these things. Then, in the all-gay focus gros groups, participants were asked: Do you share your fears and experiences of discrimination with your straight friends and family? They said "NO, if they cared they would ask." They don't ask, we don't tell and rarely are they required to see with their own eyes the deep harm and real pain inflicted by laws that tell us we are less than our neighbors.
Every civil rights struggle in this country has required people to sacrifice and make institutionalized discrimination so visible no one could avert their eyes.
People stepped forward knowing they could lose their homes, lose their jobs, their safety, They walked willingly toward hateful mobs and police with snarling dogs.
They turned a proposed one day bus boycott into 381 days of solidarity. They sacrificed and the country watched and changed.
Every civil rights struggle in this country has required people to sacrifice.
The country is watching. Are we ready to do the same?
Are you willing to come out of the closet in a hostile state and take a stand for your rights? Time and again we have said "come out if it is safe to do so." Is that too safe a course of action if we are serious about achieving civil equality now? If not, why not? Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King could have chosen to sit back and let others take a bullet for rights. But he didn't.
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner could have decided the fight for civil rights could be done by others. But they didn't.
It's not as if LGBTs haven't paid the price with their lives because of who they are and what they stood for, but the questions Nadine asks are tough, honest ones for all of us who want equality under the law.
The course of action that our movement has chosen, by and large, has mostly been about reacting to tragedy and working within the political framework and institutions, and letting "professional gays" in largely safe enclaves do legislative heavy lifting as we sit back and criticize. Outside of the major orgs, many state LGBT advocacy orgs and and agencies operate pretty hand-to-mouth, while many of us prefer to drop disposable income at the club or bar rather than support their work. On the other side of the coin, some of the decisions and strategies of the orgs have burned the community and generate deserved criticism of excess without producing results.
However, too many of us don't show up to lobby their state legislators or do door-to-door work, but will show up at festivals and galas. Personal activism and commitment happen each day, but clearly the opposition continues to paint our community as not hungry or deserving enough of equality. Too many of our allies don't even know what our issues are. Heck, too many LGBTs don't know what our issues are. Why is this?
It's food for thought. So what is your reaction to Nadine's essay?
Protect Marriage Washington PAC to begin R-71 signature gathering drive!"Preserving Marriage, Protecting Children"
Olympia, Wa - May 29, Friday, 2009 - The newly formed Protect Marriage Washington political action committee announced on Friday that they will begin a massive statewide effort to distribute many thousands of R-71 petitions as needed to gather the 120,577 signatures required to bring the controversial Senate Bill 5688 before the voters of Washington State in November....R-71 petitions will be available at various locations (to be announced and posted on the website this week).
From all across Washington State, organizations and individuals have come together to ensure that families remain protected by the domestic partnership law. We call ourselves Washington Families Standing Together to reflect our values and the breadth of support for the state's domestic partnership law. The law provides essential protections to families formed by gay and lesbian couples and couples where one partner is over the age of 62. Now there is an attempt to repeal the law by getting a referendum on the ballot.We hope you'll join Washington Families and pledge to decline to sign Referendum 71 petitions. Click:
Please encourage your friends, colleagues and family to also decline to sign. If enough signatures are collected and the Referendum is qualified for the November 2009 ballot, then voters will need to vote "YES" in order to retain these legal rights and protections already granted to domestic partners by the legislature. To learn more about our efforts and to find out other ways you can help to protect Washington families, click here.
On May 18, Governor Gregoire signed Senate Bill 5688, a law ensuring that all Washington families are treated the same, with the same protections, the same rights and the same obligations as their neighbors. Under this law, registered domestic partners (same-sex couples and opposite sex couples over age 62), and married couples, are treated equally under the law in all parts of the state.Key rights and obligations in the law include death benefits for the partners of police and firefighters killed in the line of duty; pension benefits for the partners of teachers and other public employees; victims' rights, including the right to receive notifications and benefits allowances, and the right to adopt a partner's child without paying for a home study.
These rights and obligations for domestic partners were passed following those adopted in 2007, when the Legislature established a domestic partnership registry and granted registered couples rights to make health care decisions for a sick partner, to visit a partner in the hospital, the right to consent to an autopsy, and some property rights, and those adopted in 2008, including community property rights, probate rights, joint responsibility for debts, and other protections.
A group has filed a referendum - Referendum 71 - to try to repeal the law. They have until July 25 to collect 120,577 signatures to get it on the ballot. We - and many, many people across the state -worked together to get this law passed. We are now going to have to work together to keep it from being repealed.
As was the case in 2006, strategic, early action may help avoid yet another costly campaign battle, especially important with all of the needs facing our citizens in these tough economic times.
So many people have asked how they can help, that we have formed a coordinated campaign to help keep the law from being repealed. It's called Washington Families Standing Together - a coalition of community partners committed to working together to protect Washington's families.
Please click here to contribute - $25, $50, $100 or $71 to help us retain the domestic partnership law so that all of Washington's families have the protections and rights every family deserves.
Decline to sign handouts are available here and Domestic Partnership law FAQs are here. Please distribute at social events like barbeques, fairs, farmers markets, parties or any gathering of family or friends. As you distribute these, please say "Protect all Washington families by declining to sign Referendum 71". When you do so, please avoid saying things like "Oppose Referendum 71" because if the referendum qualifies then we will need to ask voters to vote YES to retain the recently passed Domestic Partnership law.
The Washington Families Standing Together coalition is endorsed by the following organizations:
Among other inanities, such as the lie that children need a mother and a father to be healthy as a reason to preserve man-woman marriage, Gallagher also said that just because the polls show that younger people support same-sex marriage isn't reason to "change the definition of marriage." Why? Because they need to listen to the "wisdom of the older generation." You know, some of the folks in that same crowd who opposed desegregation of the schools and inter-racial marriage. That's a good model.
Even host Kitty Pilgrim sounded a bit tired of the NOM schtick. The full transcript is here. A snippet:
PILGRIM: Let me just bring up for our viewers some public opinion polls because I think they're quite interesting. We have a CNN poll that says gays and lesbians have the constitutional right to get married; 54 percent say no.Related:Let me contrast this with another Gallup poll that found that 59 percent of 18 to 29 year-olds favor making gay marriages legal. We have a big national debate about this.
This is not an individual sort of private sort of discussion at this point. This is a large, national, interesting debate. What do you think about these two kinds of polls? To me, it suggests that younger people are perhaps more accepting.
WOLF: Well, I think it speaks to a key issue. I'd actually like to take this as a point of departure to pose a question to Maggie, if I could.
PILGRIM: Go right ahead.
WOLF: By conservative estimates, there's about 10 million to 12 million gay people in the United States. No matter what we do in our laws, they're going to be there and they're going to be having families and they're going to be having relationships and they have kids and they have parents and they have brothers and sisters.
And Miss Gallagher has used some very strong language to say what she thinks gay and lesbian couples should not be able to do. I'd like her to tell us what she wants those couples to do. What should those couples do?
PILGRIM: We're almost out of time but I will let you respond. Go ahead.
GALLAGHER: I think that they're free to live as they choose. What they shouldn't do, either gay or straight, is redefine marriage. There is a reason a marriage means a husband and wife. These unions are really special and distinct.
Part of the reason is that children need a mother and father. Whatever you're going to do for gay people, I don't think you should mess with that.
By the way, that Gallup poll you mentioned, 57 -- growing opposition to gay marriage, the highest level since 2005; 57 percent of Americans do not support gay marriage. I don't think we should go to 18 year-olds and ask them to determine the future of marriage. I think the wisdom of the older generations is something we should be listening to right now.
PILGRIM: You know, I have to say that sometimes you get a good bit of wisdom from young people, too. I have to disagree on that one point.
* The complex questions about the marriage equality movement and the Olson/Boies federal lawsuit
On the eve of the 40th Anniversary of Stonewall, come join us in celebrating the achievements of the LGBT equality movement:
I'll Toast to That Thursday, June 25th, 2009 6:00pm Charles Froelick Gallery 817 SW 2nd Avenue $40 beforehand, $50 at the door (tickets available here)
Attire: pizazzulous
A special thank you to our sponsors: Organic Nation Spirits Devil's Food Catering Raptor Ridge
Music by: DJ Scoe
Music by: DJ Scotty D
Ticket price qualifies for the Oregon Political Tax Credit which means you can get every penny of your ticket price back at tax time! Click here for more information on the Oregon Political Tax Credit. Questions? Call 503/222.6151
Subscribe to Reader feed
Subscribe to daily Email
No comments:
Post a Comment