So we had an amazing, excruciating trial, an agonizing wait, an exhilarating victory, a crushing stagnation in the form of the hold on the ruling, and now we have another wait, this one more frightening in a number of ways.
I feel I should say something about how my opinion on the court case changed between first learning about it (when I feared the worst) to the first rough summary of a day in court (when I was pessimistic and wary) to actually reading the details of the day (when I began to hope) to suffering through the history lessons and the dehumanizing arguments and general ignorant questions while getting more and more optimistic as the other side failed to produce any legal argument. Because that's what happened, and it's not documented here, so it looks like quite a jump from thinking the court case was a terrible idea to loving the ruling. It wasn't -- it was a very painful, wonderful process.
The reason I'm posting, then, is partly to clear that up, but mostly because, though Prop. 8 is unlikely to be resolved before 2012, we do have an election coming up, and I have to say something about the biggest part of it -- the gubernatorial race. As an advocate of equality, I have to say I'm terrified now -- as terrified as I was by Prop. 8 -- by Meg Whitman. I'm terrified by her anti-gay stance, I'm terrified by her anti-immigrant stance, and I'm terrified by her anti-feminist stance. As a student, I'm also terrified of her threats to cut back on education more ("cut waste" was how she worded it, but I can promise you, my school's long since done that.) California is desperate and the worst possible thing we can do in this situation is let the education system get weaker. Lower-quality and less accessible education -> fewer people qualified to do high-paying jobs -> less tax revenue in the future -> less funding for education -> even lower-quality and less accessible education -> the economy goes down the toilet at about warp 9. Oh, and a less educated populace is also one more likely to commit violent crimes, petty theft, and other such crimes, so we're also talking about a less safe society here.
So I'm currently raising funds for Jerry Brown, because (besides not being Meg Whitman) Jerry Brown has a great track record on LGBT issues (he signed the law legalizing gay sex in California in his last stint as governor, among other things) as well as on women's issues, other equality and representation issues, the economy, and the environment. And he understands the importance of education. And he's behind in the polls, because Whitman's filthy rich and has been spending a ton of money on dishonest and sneaky ads (though given how much she's been outspending him by, he's holding his own very well). So I figure this is the right thing to do, for myself and for California, at present.
2010-09-20
2010-08-05
the first federal ruling: in plain English
So you've all probably seen the news about the current court case. You've quite probably also seen quotes from the ruling, and you may have read the entire thing. What I suspect, though, is that people who are less involved will look at that huge document full of legalese and their eyes will glaze over, and people who don't approve of the decision will definitely not read it. So I want to provide the Lazy American's Abridged Ruling here, which will attempt to cover the whole thing in plain English, as concisely as possible. (This will still be long, because the decision is 136 pages, but you can read it in a sitting or two.)
--
The first two pages are names of people involved in the case and information about the court, and the table of contents. The first page following (numbered page 1; I'm going to use the numbering scheme they use) has a description of what Prop. 8 is and why it's being challenged, namely that it "deprives [GLB people] of due process and of equal protection of the laws contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment." (Text of the Fourteenth Amendment: here.) Page 1 also describes the plaintiffs, two couples (one couple of men, one of women) who couldn't get marriage licenses due to Prop. 8. It notes that there was no other reason suggested that these couples could not marry. The next several pages cover the history of Prop. 8 and Prop. 22 before it, and the history of the court case itself (who moved what, when, etc.).
The meat of the thing begins on page 5, when the arguments against Prop. 8 are presented. In short, the argument is that Prop. 8 violates due process because it prevents people from marrying who they choose, while the Fourteenth Amendment says the state can't intervene in that choice without a good reason (huge paraphrase; this, I gather, is what courts have understood in the past, with regards to interracial marriage and similar) and domestic partnerships aren't an acceptable substitute for marriages, so their existence isn't enough to cancel this problem.
Then we get into the equal protection part, which boils down to GLB people being restricted from marrying the people they want to marry while straight people aren't (thus, unequal treatment) with a note that "gay men and lesbians" are a "suspect class" (laws discriminating against "suspect classes" are harder to legally justify, so it's important that this is the term used here). One last important point is that the argument is given that it's not just discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but also of sex -- remember that, that'll be important later.
Page 6 starts the counter-argument from the pro-Prop. 8 side, which includes campaign advertising. There's a bulleted list of the "key premises" of the campaign at the bottom of page 7, boiling down to "protect marriage and children" and "opposite-sex couples are better (for childrearing and just because) than same-sex ones". (I'm not making up that "just because" -- it's in legalese there but very clear.) Page 8 provides a list of reasons given in the legal case, which are different and boil down to "promote opposite-sex marriage because heterosexuals can have children without special effort and because children should have a father and a mother, and keep same-sex couples from marrying because the voters and the state have said they want to". (Again, not making it up; this is the judge's summary summarized.) Here is also where the ruling notes that the Prop. 8 side argued very narrowly.
Page 9 continues to describe how the Prop. 8 side argued, and it's not very favorable. Basically, it's denials of everything the No side said (of course) and incompetence. (The pro-8 lawyer admitting that he "didn't know" how same-sex marriage negatively impacts the state's interest in promoting "procreative" heterosexual relationships is simply quoted, as though it's so weak a description wouldn't do it justice, which is true.) The "expert witness" the Yes side presented, David Blankenhorn, gets mentioned, and is dismissed -- later more on that. The argument that procreation within marriage should be promoted, therefore no gay marriage, is outlined in detail on page 10.
Page 11 is background. Page 12 is the couples in the case's explanation of what marriage means to them, segueing into the experts on the case (Nancy Cott on the No side, Blankenhorn again on the Yes) defining marriage and talking about its history. Cott says it's a choice to commit to a certain kind of relationship, Blankenhorn says it's either a socially-accepted sexual thing between a man and a woman to have kids (barely paraphrasing the ruling there) or a "private relationship between two consenting adults" and then there's discussion of the history of the term and contract. (Pages 13-15 if you want to read the details.) Page 15 includes expert opinions on the benefits of marriage. Interesting note here: on page 14, Blankenhorn actually admits that SSM "would benefit same-sex couples and their children, would reduce discrimination against gays and lesbians and would be 'a victory for the worthy ideas of tolerance and inclusion'" but still opposes. Expert witness, eh? Conclusion on page 15 is that there's no evidence that California "has an interest" in banning SSM.
Page 16 begins a discussion of whether SS couples are "different" in any important way from opposite-sex ones (expert witness shows evidence that they aren't). Definition of sexual orientation comes up here, defined as a pattern of attraction to one or both sexes and/or the identity based on that, and "also sometimes used to describe an enduring pattern of behavior" and that "the vast majority of people" do not change their sexual orientation. Expert testimony on childrearing (is it bad for a kid to be raised by a SS couple? answer: no) and whether Prop. 8 increases stigma against GLB people (yes) follows. Dispute between Blankenhorn and No side expert over whether biological parents are better leads to Blankenhorn contradicting himself. (Adoptive parents average better in some areas, and he admits it after insisting that biology is way way important.) Then we look at the economic impact of Prop. 8 on the couples who can't get married, and veer back into the psychological -- both are negative. More on stigma. Finally, conclusion on page 20 that it's not in the state's interest to "differentiate" between SS and opposite-sex couples (can I say "OS" too, or is that too slangy?)
Doing all right there? Heh. Now (starting page 20) we talk about the "morality" issue. See, if this is a law meant to legislate some people's idea of morals, it's suspect, so the Yes side's been trying to deny that part. We get some interesting history here on the history of "protecting the children" (Anita Bryant is the name we don't get here, but did in the argument itself) as depending on the stereotype of gay people (really, men, but they don't say so) as child molesters despite the scientific evidence against this stereotype. More history and stereotype discussion follows. Then we get the Yes campaigner, Hak-Shing William Tam, who -- I can't describe him properly; if you don't read another page of the ruling, read page 22. More on the harm done by the campaign and the law, psychologically, and some more on financial problems for the state caused by Prop. 8. Conclusion notes that the voters' opinions hold great weight, but since this is a law that is potentially harmful to people it has to be based on more than some people's "disapprobation" of the people being hurt, and Prop. 8 "finds support only in such disapproval" so it fails that test and can't be resolved just by a majority vote.
Page 25 starts a discussion of the witnesses and their credentials, including the couples bringing the case, the mayor of San Diego, Tam the pro-8 extremist, and some gay witnesses as well as the experts. Interesting part here is, on pages 35-37, the number of Yes witnesses who dropped out, even when they knew they wouldn't be recorded/broadcast.
When we get to the two who did show up, Blankenhorn gets skewered; his testimony is dubbed "inadmissible" and "should be given essentially no weight" because his work is not peer-reviewed and he has no degree in any relevant field. We get lines here like "[n]one of Blankenhorn’s opinions is reliable" and the accusation that his definition of marriage is "a dichotomy" and there is a snide line that translates as "he recited stuff he'd read somewhere and dude, I can read, I don't need you to do that, I need you to explain why it matters" at the start of page 43. This goes into great detail about why the guy failed to carry his side, and is recommended reading for anyone who thinks that there's solid science behind the idea that same-sex marriage will damage opposite-sex marriage, children, or society in general. After pages and pages shredding Blankenhorn, the other Yes witness gets off easily, being simply not qualified to talk about GLB issues specifically but being accepted as an expert on American and Californian politics. He got hammered for not having thoroughly researched his subject, though, and for having stated before the case that "gays and lesbians, like other minorities, are vulnerable and powerless in the initiative process", but saying the opposite in the courtroom. Oops. He's granted "little weight" overall.
Page 54 starts a listing of people involved, etc. again, and a history of the case. Mentions of religious groups involved are worth noting. Then we get to whether "any evidence" supports the law, noting that churches may choose to not marry people, only people legally capable of consent may marry (relevant to the people making bestiality/pederasty comparisons), and marriage does not legally require procreation/fertility. Further, we get a history of marriage in California and the US, which mentions slaves not being allowed to marry, interracial marriage bans, and the OS understanding California initially used, then noting the overturning of interracial marriages and removal of "coverture" (wife as property of husband), and finally the introduction of no-fault divorce. Leads into the change in age of consent laws from gendered to neutral, and then the history of same-sex marriage in California specifically.
On page 66, we get some interesting stuff about gender roles in marriage, namely, that the state does not treat a wife's obligation to her husband differently from a husband's to his wife. Also a note that getting rid of coverture and race restrictions hasn't hurt marriage as an institution. We then (pages 67-71) segue back into more about what marriage is (looks like Cott's definition about commitments and forming a household carries the day) and there are lots of reasons the state has for "licensing and fostering" it, and for people to want it. Page 71 starts a discussion of sexual orientation, rehashing what they covered earlier, with a key note that the state has no reason to want to change or drive out GLB people. Mentions children of SS couples, benefits to them, and how adoption/AI is not prohibited. Also notes that "[m]arrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals" -- in other words, so much for that strawman. Rehashes problems with domestic partnerships and dismisses idea that SS marriage will reduce marriage rates in OS couples.
Things get interesting in a different way on page 85, when it specifically notes that gender is an issue here -- a man can marry a woman but a woman can't. We touch again on social stigma, the unequal status of SS and OS couples, and gender roles in marriages. This is important as heck, okay? Prop. 8, says this judge, "amends the California Constitution to codify distinct and unique roles for men and women in marriage" -- it's not just anti-gay, it's directly linked to sexism. After this we get a reiteration of the fact that it doesn't violate freedom of religion to allow SS marriage, and that Prop. 8's only effect on anyone's rights is preventing some people from marrying anyway. Restatement of the financial impact on the state and the couples involved follows. Then we're back to more about stereotypes and stigma, and more on the impact on children (pages 94-96 now, if you want to read that part) and a note that anti-gay discrimination happens (odd that they'd have to mention this, but the Yes side actually tried to dispute it!) and more on stereotypes. Also, religion-based ones. And what "protect the children" meant in the campaign (learning about gay people = becoming gay = bad) and what stereotyping was relied on to pass Prop. 8.
Conclusions begin on page 109. The basic gist is that both the equal protection and due process arguments are valid, and we get detail on why. Interesting note is that a major and recurring theme here is the fact that marriage is legally a relationship of equals, now, not defined by gender roles, and that historically a reason SS couples were not considered was that equality in a marriage was not the expected model. That is, when men owned their wives it made no sense to anyone to think that two men or two women would want to marry, because who would own whom then? Another interesting point is that we get a specific clarification that this isn't a "new right" or a "right to same-sex marriage" but just a right to have a recognized marriage -- specifically countering the idea that we're "inventing rights" here.
The conclusion goes on, having established that we're talking about a fundamental right here (and thus can use "strict scrutiny"), to say that not only does Prop. 8 fail that test, but it doesn't even have a "rational basis" -- it doesn't stand up under any scrutiny at all. We get a discussion of what equal protection means and under what circumstances it can be denied to people, which aren't these because the state has no interest that is being protected here, and so there's no justification for discrimination. (Touching back on the gender theme, this is specifically described as being "equivalent to" sex-based discrimination.) A note here is that, although sexual orientation is described as a suspect class, strict scrutiny is not used because it's not needed -- Prop. 8 fails less severe tests. There's some disagreement as whether this case can count as precedent for use of strict scrutiny on other anti-GLB laws or not; I think it can but IANAL.
We get a blow-by-blow of why stated reasons aren't good enough, starting on page 123. Tradition is dismissed, with a note that that argument boils down to "an artifact of a foregone notion that men and women fulfill different roles in civic life" and that OS-only marriage is the only place "legally-mandated gender roles" still exist in California. The potential effects on society are dismissed because there's no evidence of them. The procreation/childrearing argument is roasted. The freedom of religion argument is worse. The idea that SS couples are measurably different (worse) than OS ones, well, you can guess. All other arguments are grouped into a "catchall" category that contains... nothing but bigotry? Yeah. So there's no good reason for Prop. 8 to exist.
Then there's this section header on page 132: "A PRIVATE MORAL VIEW THAT SAME-SEX COUPLES ARE INFERIOR TO OPPOSITE-SEX COUPLES IS NOT A PROPER BASIS FOR LEGISLATION" and that section basically says that Prop. 8 -- I'm going to quote again, actually, from page 133 -- "enacts a moral view that there is something 'wrong' with same-sex couples" and is based on prejudice and the idea that GLB people are inferior.
So with all this laid out, the conclusion is that Prop. 8 is discriminatory and unconstitutional and cannot legally be enforced.
--
The first two pages are names of people involved in the case and information about the court, and the table of contents. The first page following (numbered page 1; I'm going to use the numbering scheme they use) has a description of what Prop. 8 is and why it's being challenged, namely that it "deprives [GLB people] of due process and of equal protection of the laws contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment." (Text of the Fourteenth Amendment: here.) Page 1 also describes the plaintiffs, two couples (one couple of men, one of women) who couldn't get marriage licenses due to Prop. 8. It notes that there was no other reason suggested that these couples could not marry. The next several pages cover the history of Prop. 8 and Prop. 22 before it, and the history of the court case itself (who moved what, when, etc.).
The meat of the thing begins on page 5, when the arguments against Prop. 8 are presented. In short, the argument is that Prop. 8 violates due process because it prevents people from marrying who they choose, while the Fourteenth Amendment says the state can't intervene in that choice without a good reason (huge paraphrase; this, I gather, is what courts have understood in the past, with regards to interracial marriage and similar) and domestic partnerships aren't an acceptable substitute for marriages, so their existence isn't enough to cancel this problem.
Then we get into the equal protection part, which boils down to GLB people being restricted from marrying the people they want to marry while straight people aren't (thus, unequal treatment) with a note that "gay men and lesbians" are a "suspect class" (laws discriminating against "suspect classes" are harder to legally justify, so it's important that this is the term used here). One last important point is that the argument is given that it's not just discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but also of sex -- remember that, that'll be important later.
Page 6 starts the counter-argument from the pro-Prop. 8 side, which includes campaign advertising. There's a bulleted list of the "key premises" of the campaign at the bottom of page 7, boiling down to "protect marriage and children" and "opposite-sex couples are better (for childrearing and just because) than same-sex ones". (I'm not making up that "just because" -- it's in legalese there but very clear.) Page 8 provides a list of reasons given in the legal case, which are different and boil down to "promote opposite-sex marriage because heterosexuals can have children without special effort and because children should have a father and a mother, and keep same-sex couples from marrying because the voters and the state have said they want to". (Again, not making it up; this is the judge's summary summarized.) Here is also where the ruling notes that the Prop. 8 side argued very narrowly.
Page 9 continues to describe how the Prop. 8 side argued, and it's not very favorable. Basically, it's denials of everything the No side said (of course) and incompetence. (The pro-8 lawyer admitting that he "didn't know" how same-sex marriage negatively impacts the state's interest in promoting "procreative" heterosexual relationships is simply quoted, as though it's so weak a description wouldn't do it justice, which is true.) The "expert witness" the Yes side presented, David Blankenhorn, gets mentioned, and is dismissed -- later more on that. The argument that procreation within marriage should be promoted, therefore no gay marriage, is outlined in detail on page 10.
Page 11 is background. Page 12 is the couples in the case's explanation of what marriage means to them, segueing into the experts on the case (Nancy Cott on the No side, Blankenhorn again on the Yes) defining marriage and talking about its history. Cott says it's a choice to commit to a certain kind of relationship, Blankenhorn says it's either a socially-accepted sexual thing between a man and a woman to have kids (barely paraphrasing the ruling there) or a "private relationship between two consenting adults" and then there's discussion of the history of the term and contract. (Pages 13-15 if you want to read the details.) Page 15 includes expert opinions on the benefits of marriage. Interesting note here: on page 14, Blankenhorn actually admits that SSM "would benefit same-sex couples and their children, would reduce discrimination against gays and lesbians and would be 'a victory for the worthy ideas of tolerance and inclusion'" but still opposes. Expert witness, eh? Conclusion on page 15 is that there's no evidence that California "has an interest" in banning SSM.
Page 16 begins a discussion of whether SS couples are "different" in any important way from opposite-sex ones (expert witness shows evidence that they aren't). Definition of sexual orientation comes up here, defined as a pattern of attraction to one or both sexes and/or the identity based on that, and "also sometimes used to describe an enduring pattern of behavior" and that "the vast majority of people" do not change their sexual orientation. Expert testimony on childrearing (is it bad for a kid to be raised by a SS couple? answer: no) and whether Prop. 8 increases stigma against GLB people (yes) follows. Dispute between Blankenhorn and No side expert over whether biological parents are better leads to Blankenhorn contradicting himself. (Adoptive parents average better in some areas, and he admits it after insisting that biology is way way important.) Then we look at the economic impact of Prop. 8 on the couples who can't get married, and veer back into the psychological -- both are negative. More on stigma. Finally, conclusion on page 20 that it's not in the state's interest to "differentiate" between SS and opposite-sex couples (can I say "OS" too, or is that too slangy?)
Doing all right there? Heh. Now (starting page 20) we talk about the "morality" issue. See, if this is a law meant to legislate some people's idea of morals, it's suspect, so the Yes side's been trying to deny that part. We get some interesting history here on the history of "protecting the children" (Anita Bryant is the name we don't get here, but did in the argument itself) as depending on the stereotype of gay people (really, men, but they don't say so) as child molesters despite the scientific evidence against this stereotype. More history and stereotype discussion follows. Then we get the Yes campaigner, Hak-Shing William Tam, who -- I can't describe him properly; if you don't read another page of the ruling, read page 22. More on the harm done by the campaign and the law, psychologically, and some more on financial problems for the state caused by Prop. 8. Conclusion notes that the voters' opinions hold great weight, but since this is a law that is potentially harmful to people it has to be based on more than some people's "disapprobation" of the people being hurt, and Prop. 8 "finds support only in such disapproval" so it fails that test and can't be resolved just by a majority vote.
Page 25 starts a discussion of the witnesses and their credentials, including the couples bringing the case, the mayor of San Diego, Tam the pro-8 extremist, and some gay witnesses as well as the experts. Interesting part here is, on pages 35-37, the number of Yes witnesses who dropped out, even when they knew they wouldn't be recorded/broadcast.
When we get to the two who did show up, Blankenhorn gets skewered; his testimony is dubbed "inadmissible" and "should be given essentially no weight" because his work is not peer-reviewed and he has no degree in any relevant field. We get lines here like "[n]one of Blankenhorn’s opinions is reliable" and the accusation that his definition of marriage is "a dichotomy" and there is a snide line that translates as "he recited stuff he'd read somewhere and dude, I can read, I don't need you to do that, I need you to explain why it matters" at the start of page 43. This goes into great detail about why the guy failed to carry his side, and is recommended reading for anyone who thinks that there's solid science behind the idea that same-sex marriage will damage opposite-sex marriage, children, or society in general. After pages and pages shredding Blankenhorn, the other Yes witness gets off easily, being simply not qualified to talk about GLB issues specifically but being accepted as an expert on American and Californian politics. He got hammered for not having thoroughly researched his subject, though, and for having stated before the case that "gays and lesbians, like other minorities, are vulnerable and powerless in the initiative process", but saying the opposite in the courtroom. Oops. He's granted "little weight" overall.
Page 54 starts a listing of people involved, etc. again, and a history of the case. Mentions of religious groups involved are worth noting. Then we get to whether "any evidence" supports the law, noting that churches may choose to not marry people, only people legally capable of consent may marry (relevant to the people making bestiality/pederasty comparisons), and marriage does not legally require procreation/fertility. Further, we get a history of marriage in California and the US, which mentions slaves not being allowed to marry, interracial marriage bans, and the OS understanding California initially used, then noting the overturning of interracial marriages and removal of "coverture" (wife as property of husband), and finally the introduction of no-fault divorce. Leads into the change in age of consent laws from gendered to neutral, and then the history of same-sex marriage in California specifically.
On page 66, we get some interesting stuff about gender roles in marriage, namely, that the state does not treat a wife's obligation to her husband differently from a husband's to his wife. Also a note that getting rid of coverture and race restrictions hasn't hurt marriage as an institution. We then (pages 67-71) segue back into more about what marriage is (looks like Cott's definition about commitments and forming a household carries the day) and there are lots of reasons the state has for "licensing and fostering" it, and for people to want it. Page 71 starts a discussion of sexual orientation, rehashing what they covered earlier, with a key note that the state has no reason to want to change or drive out GLB people. Mentions children of SS couples, benefits to them, and how adoption/AI is not prohibited. Also notes that "[m]arrying a person of the opposite sex is an unrealistic option for gay and lesbian individuals" -- in other words, so much for that strawman. Rehashes problems with domestic partnerships and dismisses idea that SS marriage will reduce marriage rates in OS couples.
Things get interesting in a different way on page 85, when it specifically notes that gender is an issue here -- a man can marry a woman but a woman can't. We touch again on social stigma, the unequal status of SS and OS couples, and gender roles in marriages. This is important as heck, okay? Prop. 8, says this judge, "amends the California Constitution to codify distinct and unique roles for men and women in marriage" -- it's not just anti-gay, it's directly linked to sexism. After this we get a reiteration of the fact that it doesn't violate freedom of religion to allow SS marriage, and that Prop. 8's only effect on anyone's rights is preventing some people from marrying anyway. Restatement of the financial impact on the state and the couples involved follows. Then we're back to more about stereotypes and stigma, and more on the impact on children (pages 94-96 now, if you want to read that part) and a note that anti-gay discrimination happens (odd that they'd have to mention this, but the Yes side actually tried to dispute it!) and more on stereotypes. Also, religion-based ones. And what "protect the children" meant in the campaign (learning about gay people = becoming gay = bad) and what stereotyping was relied on to pass Prop. 8.
Conclusions begin on page 109. The basic gist is that both the equal protection and due process arguments are valid, and we get detail on why. Interesting note is that a major and recurring theme here is the fact that marriage is legally a relationship of equals, now, not defined by gender roles, and that historically a reason SS couples were not considered was that equality in a marriage was not the expected model. That is, when men owned their wives it made no sense to anyone to think that two men or two women would want to marry, because who would own whom then? Another interesting point is that we get a specific clarification that this isn't a "new right" or a "right to same-sex marriage" but just a right to have a recognized marriage -- specifically countering the idea that we're "inventing rights" here.
The conclusion goes on, having established that we're talking about a fundamental right here (and thus can use "strict scrutiny"), to say that not only does Prop. 8 fail that test, but it doesn't even have a "rational basis" -- it doesn't stand up under any scrutiny at all. We get a discussion of what equal protection means and under what circumstances it can be denied to people, which aren't these because the state has no interest that is being protected here, and so there's no justification for discrimination. (Touching back on the gender theme, this is specifically described as being "equivalent to" sex-based discrimination.) A note here is that, although sexual orientation is described as a suspect class, strict scrutiny is not used because it's not needed -- Prop. 8 fails less severe tests. There's some disagreement as whether this case can count as precedent for use of strict scrutiny on other anti-GLB laws or not; I think it can but IANAL.
We get a blow-by-blow of why stated reasons aren't good enough, starting on page 123. Tradition is dismissed, with a note that that argument boils down to "an artifact of a foregone notion that men and women fulfill different roles in civic life" and that OS-only marriage is the only place "legally-mandated gender roles" still exist in California. The potential effects on society are dismissed because there's no evidence of them. The procreation/childrearing argument is roasted. The freedom of religion argument is worse. The idea that SS couples are measurably different (worse) than OS ones, well, you can guess. All other arguments are grouped into a "catchall" category that contains... nothing but bigotry? Yeah. So there's no good reason for Prop. 8 to exist.
Then there's this section header on page 132: "A PRIVATE MORAL VIEW THAT SAME-SEX COUPLES ARE INFERIOR TO OPPOSITE-SEX COUPLES IS NOT A PROPER BASIS FOR LEGISLATION" and that section basically says that Prop. 8 -- I'm going to quote again, actually, from page 133 -- "enacts a moral view that there is something 'wrong' with same-sex couples" and is based on prejudice and the idea that GLB people are inferior.
So with all this laid out, the conclusion is that Prop. 8 is discriminatory and unconstitutional and cannot legally be enforced.
2010-01-11
ugh
Any last doubts I may have had about the federal case have gone out the window today. First there's the stupid delay on being able to broadcast the trial, because gay people might pressure the anti-gay witnesses into changing their testimony -- bullshit. Fucking bullshit. Homophobes, you're the majority, with the power to define the debate and strip away our rights -- you're not fucking oppressed. The Gay Mafia will not terrorize your family for your bold stand, because there is no Gay Mafia. Christ. Yes, people will be angry with you, but you don't have a right to avoid that, not if you're going to do things that make people angry.
*clears throat* I got a little carried away there. Anyway, on top of that now, we have the judge:
"How is it discrimination to ban you from entering into a contract that is understood and recognized by many jurisdictions and the general population, when you've got one that has a different definition in every jurisdiction that might recognize it, is poorly understood by the general population and thus not granted the same respect?"
"Gee, I don't know! Sorry to have wasted your time, Mr. Judge!"
I thought I was done being depressed for a while, but apparently not.
EDIT: Should've looked for more complete coverage -- here's a liveblog showing more of the questions, and in context it's not so bad. Still an uphill fight, but not so hopeless.
*clears throat* I got a little carried away there. Anyway, on top of that now, we have the judge:
Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker asked attorney Theodore Olson, who represents two same-sex couples suing to overturn Proposition 8, how the ban could be called discriminatory, since California already allows domestic partnerships.Wow. Just -- wow.
"How is it discrimination to ban you from entering into a contract that is understood and recognized by many jurisdictions and the general population, when you've got one that has a different definition in every jurisdiction that might recognize it, is poorly understood by the general population and thus not granted the same respect?"
"Gee, I don't know! Sorry to have wasted your time, Mr. Judge!"
I thought I was done being depressed for a while, but apparently not.
EDIT: Should've looked for more complete coverage -- here's a liveblog showing more of the questions, and in context it's not so bad. Still an uphill fight, but not so hopeless.
2009-11-06
Maine fallout and thinking of the children
So, to recap: We lost Maine by an even larger percentage than we lost California. The question of who's to blame has come up all over, of course, and the usual voices are saying we need to give up on marriage and work on other people's pet issues (see this post for my thoughts on that.) Discussion of whether the Democratic leadership is failing to lead on this (yes, it is, says Phoenix the Green, but our problems go a lot deeper than that) and whether the campaign was badly run (it was much better than No on 8, from what I saw) abound. I stopped in to talk to an ally the other day, one of the teachers at my community college who supported me when Prop. 8 hit, and he was angrier than I've seen him before. He pointed to the Yes (on 1 in Maine and 8 here) campaign's tactic of saying "gay marriage will be taught in schools if we don't have a ban on it" and the standard response of simply calling them out as liars as wrong. I think he had good points, so I'm going to paraphrase what he said:
Yes, we do want children to learn about same-sex marriage in the contexts they learn about opposite-sex marriage. We want children to learn that in our society, your life and family are valued regardless of who you are and/or who you love. We want children to learn that queer people and our families are normal because we are. So what? Why should we try to pretend that we're okay with being invisible to "protect the children" from our existence? The children don't need to be protected in this way.
This ties in with something I, as a lifelong homeschooler, have always found confusing: people who want to keep the public schools from teaching about things their personal beliefs say are wrong. It's the job of the public schools, it seems to me, to provide education for everyone, i. e., for the public. Education means factual information and skills likely to be beneficial in later life, so that they can be productive members of society. Public education is supposed to benefit the public, in short, by giving its members the tools they need to do well in it. It's therefore best if it is inclusive, so as to decrease the hostilities between societal subgroups and the destructive behavior that arises from people feeling excluded or threatened by the Other. A society in which different groups coexist is a more functional one.
So what's a parent to do if the schools are teaching their kids things they don't approve of? Parent! Yes, folks, you can raise your own kids, you don't have to let the schools do it. You can emphasize that you believe the schoolteachers are teaching them wrong in x area, and explain why, or take your kids out of the school system altogether and guarantee that they learn what you personally believe. See, parenting is actually your job, not the government's (oh, yeah, that's who provides public education -- I've seen some people who seem to be unaware of that recently, so I thought I should mention.) Passing on your specific values is your job. (And your kids may end up believing things you don't, anyway, because they're individuals. Such is life.)
Arguing against inclusivity in the schools that serve GLBT children, and the children of LGBT parents, is stupid, and it's high time we said so. Which gets to the main point that keeps coming up, in all this: we keep losing because our opponents define the subjects, and we're the "second idiot" responding to their well-formulated attacks. It's high time we stopped letting them have control of the discourse.
Yes, we do want children to learn about same-sex marriage in the contexts they learn about opposite-sex marriage. We want children to learn that in our society, your life and family are valued regardless of who you are and/or who you love. We want children to learn that queer people and our families are normal because we are. So what? Why should we try to pretend that we're okay with being invisible to "protect the children" from our existence? The children don't need to be protected in this way.
This ties in with something I, as a lifelong homeschooler, have always found confusing: people who want to keep the public schools from teaching about things their personal beliefs say are wrong. It's the job of the public schools, it seems to me, to provide education for everyone, i. e., for the public. Education means factual information and skills likely to be beneficial in later life, so that they can be productive members of society. Public education is supposed to benefit the public, in short, by giving its members the tools they need to do well in it. It's therefore best if it is inclusive, so as to decrease the hostilities between societal subgroups and the destructive behavior that arises from people feeling excluded or threatened by the Other. A society in which different groups coexist is a more functional one.
So what's a parent to do if the schools are teaching their kids things they don't approve of? Parent! Yes, folks, you can raise your own kids, you don't have to let the schools do it. You can emphasize that you believe the schoolteachers are teaching them wrong in x area, and explain why, or take your kids out of the school system altogether and guarantee that they learn what you personally believe. See, parenting is actually your job, not the government's (oh, yeah, that's who provides public education -- I've seen some people who seem to be unaware of that recently, so I thought I should mention.) Passing on your specific values is your job. (And your kids may end up believing things you don't, anyway, because they're individuals. Such is life.)
Arguing against inclusivity in the schools that serve GLBT children, and the children of LGBT parents, is stupid, and it's high time we said so. Which gets to the main point that keeps coming up, in all this: we keep losing because our opponents define the subjects, and we're the "second idiot" responding to their well-formulated attacks. It's high time we stopped letting them have control of the discourse.
2009-10-30
well, so much for that hope
We're on our own.
I actually screamed "no" several times when I got the word. I suspect later I'll cry. Our options are getting too limited here.
I actually screamed "no" several times when I got the word. I suspect later I'll cry. Our options are getting too limited here.
2009-10-16
time travel and a worrying development
Two unrelated news items led me to this post. I will address each, in turn, and then we'll see where we are. First up, a blast from the distant past:
"Two civil and constitutional rights organizations called on a Louisiana justice of the peace to resign Friday after he refused to marry an interracial couple, saying any children the couple might have would suffer."
When I was investigating the possible reasons the California Supreme Court might overturn the late lamented ban on same-sex marriage that Prop. 8 has now replaced, I read the entire majority opinion on Perez v. Sharp, the case that in 1948 made California the first state to overturn a ban on interracial marriage. So for me, this guy's logic is like going back in time more than 61 years, to when people seriously thought they had a right to deny marriage licenses to interracial couples to "protect" their potential children from being outcasts. But even without the history, this should be scarily familiar to advocates for same-sex marriage. And there's a reason this is significant.
We've established that personal political views are reason enough to deny others equal protection under the law. It's okay to deny someone a fundamental right -- in this case the right to join in marriage with the person of one's choice (thank you, Justice Traynor) -- if you personally don't believe they are exercising it appropriately. That's what the gay marriage bans implicitly say. Now this fellow in Louisiana is trying to extend that logic to race issues again. I am well convinced that this is a symptom of the increasingly open racism in American public discourse since the President was elected, but I think it's also a result of the successful weaseling of open bigotry into the law in the form of anti-LGBT legislation.
**
In other news, the federal case against Prop. 8 is going forward, and I am very worried. I don't trust the lawyers who are bringing it, nor do I believe that the current US Supreme Court will rule fairly; I expect a nationwide setback for equality if it does get there, and suspect that this was the true intention of the suit. I know that ultimately, we need national protections, but I don't think this method of getting them stands a snowball's chance in hell until we depolarize the Supreme Court (or get a more liberal one, but depolarization is generally preferable.)
One possible alternative is that Prop. 8 becomes a thing of the past, eliminating the primary basis for the lawsuit, before it gets that high. I'll be honest, I'm not optimistic about this, but knowing how slowly court cases go I wouldn't rule it out. If, for instance, we vote to overturn Prop. 8 in 2010, I wouldn't be surprised if that led to dismissal of the case purely on the grounds that the law being challenged no longer exists. Even if that doesn't work, we'll have a new Governor, and I'm optimistic about Gavin Newsom's chances of being that person, and if he is it frees up the Legislature to do a lot more and makes the most prominent voice in the state government a decidedly pro-equality one.
Wild speculation at this point, but I have to hope.
"Two civil and constitutional rights organizations called on a Louisiana justice of the peace to resign Friday after he refused to marry an interracial couple, saying any children the couple might have would suffer."
When I was investigating the possible reasons the California Supreme Court might overturn the late lamented ban on same-sex marriage that Prop. 8 has now replaced, I read the entire majority opinion on Perez v. Sharp, the case that in 1948 made California the first state to overturn a ban on interracial marriage. So for me, this guy's logic is like going back in time more than 61 years, to when people seriously thought they had a right to deny marriage licenses to interracial couples to "protect" their potential children from being outcasts. But even without the history, this should be scarily familiar to advocates for same-sex marriage. And there's a reason this is significant.
We've established that personal political views are reason enough to deny others equal protection under the law. It's okay to deny someone a fundamental right -- in this case the right to join in marriage with the person of one's choice (thank you, Justice Traynor) -- if you personally don't believe they are exercising it appropriately. That's what the gay marriage bans implicitly say. Now this fellow in Louisiana is trying to extend that logic to race issues again. I am well convinced that this is a symptom of the increasingly open racism in American public discourse since the President was elected, but I think it's also a result of the successful weaseling of open bigotry into the law in the form of anti-LGBT legislation.
**
In other news, the federal case against Prop. 8 is going forward, and I am very worried. I don't trust the lawyers who are bringing it, nor do I believe that the current US Supreme Court will rule fairly; I expect a nationwide setback for equality if it does get there, and suspect that this was the true intention of the suit. I know that ultimately, we need national protections, but I don't think this method of getting them stands a snowball's chance in hell until we depolarize the Supreme Court (or get a more liberal one, but depolarization is generally preferable.)
One possible alternative is that Prop. 8 becomes a thing of the past, eliminating the primary basis for the lawsuit, before it gets that high. I'll be honest, I'm not optimistic about this, but knowing how slowly court cases go I wouldn't rule it out. If, for instance, we vote to overturn Prop. 8 in 2010, I wouldn't be surprised if that led to dismissal of the case purely on the grounds that the law being challenged no longer exists. Even if that doesn't work, we'll have a new Governor, and I'm optimistic about Gavin Newsom's chances of being that person, and if he is it frees up the Legislature to do a lot more and makes the most prominent voice in the state government a decidedly pro-equality one.
Wild speculation at this point, but I have to hope.
2009-10-03
family values
Q: "What are 'family values'?"-approximate quote from The Cartoon History of the Universe Volume II by Larry Gonick
A: "When one family is more valuable than another family."
I was thinking about the future I dream about today, not the gloomy one where my entire waking life is spent working away in a little cubicle and sneakily playing Nethack for entertainment, but the one where I have a wonderful wife and about five zillion adopted and foster children. I'm the eldest of four kids, and I love my family situation, so passing on what I see as my good luck seems right to me, and my religious beliefs lead me to want to pass it on to existing children who don't have a good home or high odds of getting one rather than using AI and bringing new beings into the world. (The process of finding a sperm donor seems uncomfortably reminiscent of eugenics programs to me, but YMMV and I don't presume to apply this belief to anyone's life but my own. Anyway, that's not what I came to tell you about.)
Adoption is a complicated issue. International adoption agencies may be engaging in human trafficking, buying babies from their biological parents and adopting them out for profit. Nor are in-country adoptions guaranteed ethical; the demand for healthy white and Asian babies leads young single mothers to be pressured to give their infants up. Meanwhile, the foster care system is overflowing with older children, black and Latin children disproportionately represented, as are disabled ones, because these aren't the children anyone wants. Where the need is greatest, the people willing to help are fewest.
I want to help those kids. I know it's hard and sometimes very painfully difficult to deal with the problems children who've been taken from their families can have -- I remember two little kids a family friend fostered for a while, who called everyone "mommy" in the hope that someday they would be right and "daddy" when they were angry and who had been locked in a little room most of their short lives and it hurts my heart -- but the thing is, it's not the kids' fault and they shouldn't have to deal with a lack of support on top of it all. And I owe a debt to my parents for the wonderful childhood they gave me, which I can best pay off by spreading it around. The long and short of it is, I fully intend to be a foster parent and hopefully an adoptive one for the kids whose odds of having someone else take them in are low. It's what I want and what I feel called to do in the future.
I want to be the kind of parent every child deserves, the kind who tries their best and learns from their mistakes and never stops loving their kids and showing it. The kind of parent who takes time, no matter what else is going on, to comfort the child who's fallen down and scraped her knee or try to help explain some mathematical concept to the one struggling with his homework. I want to raise my kids to be honest and strong and proud of who they are, dedicated to doing right by others and making the world a better place, hardworking and successful. I want my kids to be able to go to whatever schools they want and work whatever jobs they want, and however hard I have to work to make that happen I'll do my best to do it. I don't care if I never get thanked or if I don't magically produce perfect citizens by sheer power of desire; I just hope I do the best possible job and leave the rest up to my kids and the world. I'll be a good mom, if not a great one.
So I get really twitchy when I hear "family values" politicians talking about banning same-sex couples from marrying or adopting or fostering to protect "families" and "children" from the horrible gays. Because, apparently, it's better to live in a group home than have two moms, or one mom who dates women. Never mind the data showing that children with gay parents aren't negatively impacted by it in any way (nor are they more likely to be queer than children of straight parents.) Never mind that kids who simply "age out" of the foster care system are likely to face severe challenges as adults that strong support from just a few loving adults could radically reduce. Nope. I still shouldn't be allowed to have the family I pray for.
Why don't "family values" politicians spend more time encouraging people to adopt or foster children in need, and less time encouraging young women to put their unwanted or unaffordable offspring into the system while trying to keep prospective parents from taking kids out of it? It's not just gay couples who get restricted, either; single gay people are kept from adopting in Florida and all unmarried couples or individual members of said couples are banned from adopting in Arkansas. This is to "protect the children," as though said children have a huge supply of qualified adoptive parents in heterosexual marriages who want them and gay and unmarried straight people are competing for them. Except they don't, and I don't see a lot of "family values" politicians or religious leaders helping to ameliorate the situation in word or deed. It smacks of hypocrisy, which I don't think Jesus would've approved of:
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to."-Matthew 23:13
2009-09-28
divide and be conquered
Recently I read the book Stonewall by Martin Duberman. It is, as you might be able to deduce, an account of the famous riot that changed the American movement for GLBT rights forever, but it's also a fairly in-depth historical look at the GLBT rights movement in the '60s and '70s. And a fascinating aspect of that movement, for me, is how splintered it has always been.
I'll enumerate the worst divides, not in order:
That's not the only big split around this specific issue, of course. The conformist vs. non-conformist fight raises its ugly head here, because marriage is a trapping of the heterosexual world and there are those who don't think we ought to want it at all. Now, I understand that the conformists are the face of the movement right now, and that this is doing nothing for the rest, who are still stigmatized; I strongly object to any "straight-acting" queer who tries to say that everyone should be like them if they want to be treated fairly. On the other hand, I think the aggressive non-conformists who think everyone should be like them are just as bad, and I'm tired of them telling me what I should and shouldn't want. I want a family; it's not the heterosexual brainwashing, it's just that I'm that sort of person. The inability to recognize that people may not conform (ha) to one particular idea of what queer people should be like because it's not their nature is hugely crippling the movement on all levels.
To get tangential for a moment, I'm tired of the idea that you either have to completely try to blend in with the mainstream or completely reject anything that came from it to be a good [insert group here]. My mother isn't a bad feminist for choosing the job -- unpaid and without resume value -- of main childrearer, nor would she be rejecting her womanhood if she had continued in a "real job" and left Dad home with us kids instead. What's antifeminist is the fact that childrearing (a job done mostly by women still) is an unpaid job without resume value, less societally respected than far less important tasks. Likewise, the most damaging thing to the queer community is neither the people who prefer to marry and have kids nor the ones who prefer to live wild sexy lives outside of societal norms, but rather the fact that society's treatment of us changes depending on which path we choose. (And, in both cases, the fact that there realistically isn't an accepted middle path is a problem.)
Anyway, back on topic. I remember when Prop. 8 passed there was a surge of racist reactionism based on what turned out to be inaccurate statistics; it was the black community, not the general public (or churchgoers, or seniors) that was scapegoated. Stephen Colbert, I believe, described it as "the gays versus the blacks, the blacks versus the gays, and the black gays versus themselves" or something similar. Despite the later statistics showing that it wasn't so, the divide persists in too many people's minds. It's a classic: let's you and him fight, divide and conquer. The sad bit is that it's happening completely inside of the community -- pure "gays vs. gays," no outside casualties -- and it has been for as long as there has been a community.
My challenge to my readers today, therefore, is to take a moment and evaluate where you stand on the divides I listed above. Seriously think about it, I mean. Then do as your conscience dictates.
I'll enumerate the worst divides, not in order:
- Gay men vs. everyone else -- the emphasis on issues particular to gay men, and the high probability that both insiders and outsiders will talk about those men first even in discussing general issues, breeds resentment and infighting.
- Gay vs. bi -- bisexuals are subject to a lot of stereotyping and rejection within the queer community, leading them to be less willing to participate in the movement and culture, leading to increased invisibility and vulnerability for the bisexuals, leading to more stereotyping....
- Gay and bi vs. trans -- the mainstream gay movement (e. g. the HRC) often ignores trans-specific issues and overlooks trans people when they are affected by GLB issues (in other words, most of the time); this pisses trans people off. Plus, stereotyping leads to nastiness from cisgendered GLB people, leads to fighting.
- Conformists vs. non -- this takes multiple forms: there's the butch/femme vs. gender-role-rejecting split common in the lesbian community, the people who want to raise families and have "normal" relationships vs. the ones who reject these things as unimportant or trappings of the heterosexual world.
- White vs. ethnic minority -- much as cisgendered men are the focus of the movement, so are white people, and indeed open racism may be more prevalent in the queer community than in the general one. I've addressed some of this here before.
- Religious vs. non -- touchy subject, as many religions accept or actively promote homophobia, tempting people who've faced a little too much "God says I should treat you badly and say it's loving" to be hostile to all religion, while those who have found affirming belief systems or just reject the homophobia and embrace what they see as the important part of their church's dogma tend to object to this.
That's not the only big split around this specific issue, of course. The conformist vs. non-conformist fight raises its ugly head here, because marriage is a trapping of the heterosexual world and there are those who don't think we ought to want it at all. Now, I understand that the conformists are the face of the movement right now, and that this is doing nothing for the rest, who are still stigmatized; I strongly object to any "straight-acting" queer who tries to say that everyone should be like them if they want to be treated fairly. On the other hand, I think the aggressive non-conformists who think everyone should be like them are just as bad, and I'm tired of them telling me what I should and shouldn't want. I want a family; it's not the heterosexual brainwashing, it's just that I'm that sort of person. The inability to recognize that people may not conform (ha) to one particular idea of what queer people should be like because it's not their nature is hugely crippling the movement on all levels.
To get tangential for a moment, I'm tired of the idea that you either have to completely try to blend in with the mainstream or completely reject anything that came from it to be a good [insert group here]. My mother isn't a bad feminist for choosing the job -- unpaid and without resume value -- of main childrearer, nor would she be rejecting her womanhood if she had continued in a "real job" and left Dad home with us kids instead. What's antifeminist is the fact that childrearing (a job done mostly by women still) is an unpaid job without resume value, less societally respected than far less important tasks. Likewise, the most damaging thing to the queer community is neither the people who prefer to marry and have kids nor the ones who prefer to live wild sexy lives outside of societal norms, but rather the fact that society's treatment of us changes depending on which path we choose. (And, in both cases, the fact that there realistically isn't an accepted middle path is a problem.)
Anyway, back on topic. I remember when Prop. 8 passed there was a surge of racist reactionism based on what turned out to be inaccurate statistics; it was the black community, not the general public (or churchgoers, or seniors) that was scapegoated. Stephen Colbert, I believe, described it as "the gays versus the blacks, the blacks versus the gays, and the black gays versus themselves" or something similar. Despite the later statistics showing that it wasn't so, the divide persists in too many people's minds. It's a classic: let's you and him fight, divide and conquer. The sad bit is that it's happening completely inside of the community -- pure "gays vs. gays," no outside casualties -- and it has been for as long as there has been a community.
My challenge to my readers today, therefore, is to take a moment and evaluate where you stand on the divides I listed above. Seriously think about it, I mean. Then do as your conscience dictates.
2009-09-11
California: what a mess!
Due to the power of the initiative process, California's people have the ability to directly fuck things up without any interference from our elected officials, but that doesn't mean the latter don't do an excellent job of fucking up things the general population can't or won't handle. Today, I'd like to take a moment to talk about some of those things, as off-topic as it may be here.
I've been a community college student since the fall of 2005, when I started taking classes part-time as a not-quite-seventeen-year-old high school student. As soon as I was eighteen, I started full-time. I've got an excellent record, though my performance has been impacted by my depression ever since Prop. 8 got through, and this summer was the first since I started that I haven't opted for class rather than relaxation. So it breaks my heart to see the troubles my school's facing.
I initially registered for three classes -- 13 units, slightly over a full-time load -- this semester. All three were full, and the waitlists for them were full too, something I had never seen happen before. I managed to add a class and drop one of the ones I had initially been in, and I think that I was able to do that mostly because it was a night class outside of general education requirements; the worst-hit classes seemed to be math and English. (There's a sign outside the English department's main building notifying students that all English classes are full with full waitlists and advising them to register as early as possible next semester if they need to take one.) I know quite a few other students weren't as fortunate as I; during the second week of classes, I saw a number of them sheepishly go up to my German teacher and ask if they could add the class, apparently desperate. The teachers are having to be tough and drop people they would normally try to keep, and are using various strategies to do so. Whole departments have been cut down to the bare minimum; at least one disappeared outright last semester when the budget problems started to hit. My department, computer science, got it pretty bad; the head of department says she's advising prospective CS majors that to get the core classes they need for transfer will take at least four years, when it's officially supposed to take two. This is all in spite of the fact that they raised the cost per unit this semester, which should have reduced enrolment considerably.
The problem's not just in terms of how many classes are offered, of course. Other services are also reduced. My sister has dyslexia and requires accommodations to do well: this semester, she's getting them, but only because her teacher is very understanding; the people who are supposed to process her paperwork so that she can get the necessary support and equipment to do well have been unavailable and not returning calls since the semester started, and she still hasn't been able to get a notetaker as a consequence (there's official paper provided by these people that she can't get, and which is prohibitively expensive to buy.)
Nor are the problems limited to the lower-class schools. One of my classmates is still with us, he told me, because the local UC told him they couldn't accept him because they had as many students as they could afford. I don't know so much about UC's situation, because I don't go there, but I do know that typically junior transfers are fairly popular with them and less likely to be turned away than, say, freshmen. I also believe that the classmate in question has fairly good grades, so he probably was actually turned away for the reason stated and not because he's unqualified.
So far, I haven't seen an impact on the bus system, which I use despite its limitations (it takes me 1.5 to two hours to get to school) and depend on, but I fear that's coming too, because I know they lost money as well.
The thing that drives me crazy about all of this is that in the long run, it's making the problems worse. The more cuts education takes, the fewer people can get a good education, and the more people will drop out at all levels. More uneducated people means that the work that requires a degree of some kind goes out of the state, which means that the people here make less money, which means that they pay less in taxes and can afford to spend less in their communities. Less tax revenue means more cuts are needed later down the line, which means more cuts to education, et cetera, ad infinitum. It's completely idiotic to operate this way. The trouble as I see it is that we're not a system that operates based on the long term. Companies look for short-term profits, and avoid investing in the long term because it will mean short-term losses; politicians look for reelection, and avoid the dirty question of raising taxes in favor of borrowing and cutting necessary programs. The trouble is, we kind of need tax dollars to pay for the programs that allow people to become wealthier. Argh.
I used to like my state, overall. In the past year, however, I've become increasingly interested in leaving it. This is saddening.
(Incidentally, signature-collection is under way to get a measure on the ballot to help combat the budget crisis -- by legalizing marijuana, taxing its sale, and releasing the people incarcerated for using or selling it. I approve of the general idea, because I see no logical reason to treat marijuana as worse than alcohol or tobacco, but at the same time if the people of California decide to allow me to smoke weed after what they denied me last election, I'm going to have a good bit of fun with the ridiculousness of it. Hallucinogen use: possibly okay. Affirming one's commitment to a long-term relationship: not okay!)
I've been a community college student since the fall of 2005, when I started taking classes part-time as a not-quite-seventeen-year-old high school student. As soon as I was eighteen, I started full-time. I've got an excellent record, though my performance has been impacted by my depression ever since Prop. 8 got through, and this summer was the first since I started that I haven't opted for class rather than relaxation. So it breaks my heart to see the troubles my school's facing.
I initially registered for three classes -- 13 units, slightly over a full-time load -- this semester. All three were full, and the waitlists for them were full too, something I had never seen happen before. I managed to add a class and drop one of the ones I had initially been in, and I think that I was able to do that mostly because it was a night class outside of general education requirements; the worst-hit classes seemed to be math and English. (There's a sign outside the English department's main building notifying students that all English classes are full with full waitlists and advising them to register as early as possible next semester if they need to take one.) I know quite a few other students weren't as fortunate as I; during the second week of classes, I saw a number of them sheepishly go up to my German teacher and ask if they could add the class, apparently desperate. The teachers are having to be tough and drop people they would normally try to keep, and are using various strategies to do so. Whole departments have been cut down to the bare minimum; at least one disappeared outright last semester when the budget problems started to hit. My department, computer science, got it pretty bad; the head of department says she's advising prospective CS majors that to get the core classes they need for transfer will take at least four years, when it's officially supposed to take two. This is all in spite of the fact that they raised the cost per unit this semester, which should have reduced enrolment considerably.
The problem's not just in terms of how many classes are offered, of course. Other services are also reduced. My sister has dyslexia and requires accommodations to do well: this semester, she's getting them, but only because her teacher is very understanding; the people who are supposed to process her paperwork so that she can get the necessary support and equipment to do well have been unavailable and not returning calls since the semester started, and she still hasn't been able to get a notetaker as a consequence (there's official paper provided by these people that she can't get, and which is prohibitively expensive to buy.)
Nor are the problems limited to the lower-class schools. One of my classmates is still with us, he told me, because the local UC told him they couldn't accept him because they had as many students as they could afford. I don't know so much about UC's situation, because I don't go there, but I do know that typically junior transfers are fairly popular with them and less likely to be turned away than, say, freshmen. I also believe that the classmate in question has fairly good grades, so he probably was actually turned away for the reason stated and not because he's unqualified.
So far, I haven't seen an impact on the bus system, which I use despite its limitations (it takes me 1.5 to two hours to get to school) and depend on, but I fear that's coming too, because I know they lost money as well.
The thing that drives me crazy about all of this is that in the long run, it's making the problems worse. The more cuts education takes, the fewer people can get a good education, and the more people will drop out at all levels. More uneducated people means that the work that requires a degree of some kind goes out of the state, which means that the people here make less money, which means that they pay less in taxes and can afford to spend less in their communities. Less tax revenue means more cuts are needed later down the line, which means more cuts to education, et cetera, ad infinitum. It's completely idiotic to operate this way. The trouble as I see it is that we're not a system that operates based on the long term. Companies look for short-term profits, and avoid investing in the long term because it will mean short-term losses; politicians look for reelection, and avoid the dirty question of raising taxes in favor of borrowing and cutting necessary programs. The trouble is, we kind of need tax dollars to pay for the programs that allow people to become wealthier. Argh.
I used to like my state, overall. In the past year, however, I've become increasingly interested in leaving it. This is saddening.
(Incidentally, signature-collection is under way to get a measure on the ballot to help combat the budget crisis -- by legalizing marijuana, taxing its sale, and releasing the people incarcerated for using or selling it. I approve of the general idea, because I see no logical reason to treat marijuana as worse than alcohol or tobacco, but at the same time if the people of California decide to allow me to smoke weed after what they denied me last election, I'm going to have a good bit of fun with the ridiculousness of it. Hallucinogen use: possibly okay. Affirming one's commitment to a long-term relationship: not okay!)
2009-08-11
2010 vs. 2012: the internal divisions that will kill us
There's some controversy (I hate that word, but I can't think of a better one) about just when the best time is to try to put Prop. 8's overthrow on the ballot. Do we immediately spring back, trying to bring the vote in 2010, or do we keep our heads down this round and wait until 2012? Reading The Bilerico Project posts on the subject, I'd tend to believe that the 2010 side used dishonest means to establish the appearance of being the majority. Personally, I still agree with them about the timing; as I've mentioned, I'm opposed to waiting at all. But I'm frankly disgusted with the campaign's leadership already, based mostly on the stuff I've been getting in my inbox. These are quotes from messages from the Courage Campaign, which was decent to good on the initial No On 8 campaign:
Here we've got a beautiful combination: we need lots of money now (the deadline is completely arbitrary) or it's your fault that we're stuck waiting around for two more years! Don't think about it; act now or you're against us! (Their emails actually have more bolding than my emphasis gives.) Basically, they're guilt-tripping people to raise an arbitrary amount of money -- they say it's the necessary amount for their research, but don't explain why -- by a completely arbitrary date. And I'm sitting here wondering how on Earth they expect to keep the community united behind them when they're fear-mongering and guilt-tripping their way into cash they'll use for goodness knows what.
The movement is splintering, and I think it's pretty clear why. We need new leadership, and it can't be these organizations, or the dubiously-aligned lawyers who supposedly think the US Supreme Court is going to help bring equality to California (long-term? Sure. This court? No.) It's got to be one of us, or a group of us, but acting as individuals, not as a faceless organization.
(Message title: "Repeal Prop 8 in 2010? Or not?" Date: 10. August 2009 10:52. Abbreviated for your sanity; emphasis added, links removed.)A follow-up message, sent a day later, quoted the same text with some stats about how much they'd raised, reasserted the urgent need to act (read: give them money) immediately, and was titled "60 hours left to decide Prop 8's fate".
It's time to make a very big decision. And the power to make it is in your hands.
Right now, several organizations within the marriage equality movement are debating whether to place an initiative on the ballot to repeal Prop 8 in either 2010 or 2012.
The Courage Campaign community already spoke out in favor of 2010, quite strongly. In May, 83% of our members told us to work with our partners to place a marriage equality initiative on the ballot in 2010 -- and to help build the movement to support it.
[...]
But the only way a 2010 campaign can be launched is if the marriage equality movement raises $200,000. That's right. $200,000. That's how much money it will take to determine -- through research, polling and focus groups -- the initiative language and messages that will move voters to support marriage equality.
We are ready to do our part but we can't do it alone. That's why we are asking the Courage Campaign community to raise $100,000 by August 13. And we are challenging our partners in the marriage equality movement to raise the remaining $100,000 as soon as possible.
Are you ready to commit? Time is running out to launch a 2010 initiative. To put marriage equality on the ballot next year, will you help us meet this $100,000 community goal by making a contribution right now? DEADLINE: August 13.
[...]
But if the marriage equality movement is not able to raise the $200,000 necessary -- $100,000 from the Courage Campaign and $100,000 from our partners -- to pay for the research to launch an initiative campaign, then we will have to accept that our movement is not ready to repeal Prop 8 in 2010.
And we will have to wait until 2012 to bring marriage equality to the ballot again. It's as simple as that.
It's up to you. Will you help the Courage Campaign community raise $100,000 before August 13? [...]
Here we've got a beautiful combination: we need lots of money now (the deadline is completely arbitrary) or it's your fault that we're stuck waiting around for two more years! Don't think about it; act now or you're against us! (Their emails actually have more bolding than my emphasis gives.) Basically, they're guilt-tripping people to raise an arbitrary amount of money -- they say it's the necessary amount for their research, but don't explain why -- by a completely arbitrary date. And I'm sitting here wondering how on Earth they expect to keep the community united behind them when they're fear-mongering and guilt-tripping their way into cash they'll use for goodness knows what.
The movement is splintering, and I think it's pretty clear why. We need new leadership, and it can't be these organizations, or the dubiously-aligned lawyers who supposedly think the US Supreme Court is going to help bring equality to California (long-term? Sure. This court? No.) It's got to be one of us, or a group of us, but acting as individuals, not as a faceless organization.
2009-08-06
setting the tone
Back in June, FiveThirtyEight.com posted some interesting poll data on how differently gay marriage polls depending on the wording. Specifically, the difference was that one poll asked "if the government has a right to pass laws to prohibit or allow" marriages based on various categorizations of the relationships in question (interfaith, interracial, same-sex, polygamous, and involving children under 16, to be precise.) The other polls asked if same-sex couples should be allowed to marry -- quite a different question.
What's the result of changing the wording? 63% of people polled believed that the government did not have that right, vs. the usual 40some% that think same-sex marriage "should be allowed." (Leading me to wonder what people think voting for laws is -- if they don't believe the government has a right to regulate something, shouldn't they vote against regulating it? But people tend not to analyze their voting process, I think.)
I've mentioned before that I think conservatives are controlling the dialog. That's why this is the hot GLBT issue, and why it's being sold so badly: they define the terms and make the attacks, and we argue with the terms and counter the attacks. We aren't fighting more winnable battles on such a public stage, even though they're as important; I think we could convince people that homeless GLBT youth deserve better services, for example, and actually get a lot of support for youth-related issues in other areas, because "the children" tend to be an automatic selling point, but it's not in the limelight. And we're fighting from the position that we ought to be given rights, implicitly suggesting that the government (the voting public, Congress) has the right to deny them to us. Which it doesn't.
The big question is, though, how do we change this? I've talked a lot about what's wrong; we all do. How to make it right is harder. I, personally, will be changing my emphasis in future debates, and I advise everyone who sees this to do the same.
What future debates, specifically? Well, if it's true that an overturn of Prop. 8 will be on the ballot next year, then I'm going to try to find a way to travel to the high-Yes parts of the state and campaign next summer, because there aren't a lot of people I can influence in my own town. The hard part is transportation -- I don't drive and public transit is unlikely to work well -- but I'm optimistic about it.
Someone's got to go, anyway. The highest concentrations of queer people in the state are, not surprisingly, in the most queer-friendly areas, so we really need to be out knocking on doors further from home. As scary as that sounds.
What's the result of changing the wording? 63% of people polled believed that the government did not have that right, vs. the usual 40some% that think same-sex marriage "should be allowed." (Leading me to wonder what people think voting for laws is -- if they don't believe the government has a right to regulate something, shouldn't they vote against regulating it? But people tend not to analyze their voting process, I think.)
I've mentioned before that I think conservatives are controlling the dialog. That's why this is the hot GLBT issue, and why it's being sold so badly: they define the terms and make the attacks, and we argue with the terms and counter the attacks. We aren't fighting more winnable battles on such a public stage, even though they're as important; I think we could convince people that homeless GLBT youth deserve better services, for example, and actually get a lot of support for youth-related issues in other areas, because "the children" tend to be an automatic selling point, but it's not in the limelight. And we're fighting from the position that we ought to be given rights, implicitly suggesting that the government (the voting public, Congress) has the right to deny them to us. Which it doesn't.
The big question is, though, how do we change this? I've talked a lot about what's wrong; we all do. How to make it right is harder. I, personally, will be changing my emphasis in future debates, and I advise everyone who sees this to do the same.
What future debates, specifically? Well, if it's true that an overturn of Prop. 8 will be on the ballot next year, then I'm going to try to find a way to travel to the high-Yes parts of the state and campaign next summer, because there aren't a lot of people I can influence in my own town. The hard part is transportation -- I don't drive and public transit is unlikely to work well -- but I'm optimistic about it.
Someone's got to go, anyway. The highest concentrations of queer people in the state are, not surprisingly, in the most queer-friendly areas, so we really need to be out knocking on doors further from home. As scary as that sounds.
2009-07-27
hello again
It's been a while, hasn't it? I'll explain why later, but I want to start off by mentioning that Washington state is apparently going to have a vote on their domestic partnerships that eerily parallels Prop. 8 -- potentially taking away the rights granted to the GLB people of Washington by their legislature last year. The most telling part of this? From the article:
As to why I was away, I spent mid-June to mid-July traveling, the time I got back through the present being sick, and the time before that, well....
Mid-May I was going about my normal academic process on campus and saw a sign advertising GLBT activist/community events, and a sense of overwhelming frustration and hopelessness overcame me as the words oh, what's the point raced through my head in three-foot letters of fire, and I became so angry and confused that I knew I had to get help. I ran over to the student health center and made an appointment to get counseling. Turned out to be the same day the court upheld Prop. 8. So I basically got out of math class, feeling pretty good (we got a test back; I got 100%, so I remember that) but scared, called home, asked my dad for the results, got them, thanked him, and stumbled off to wait for my appointment. Had it, made an appointment for another one with another counselor, went to the rally downtown.
The reason all of this interfered with my blogging is that, well, when you're having a breakdown, when something that personal is that wrong -- well, it doesn't lend itself to activism so much. I mean, it does -- I had wild impulses to write my protest on every blank wall I came to, tear down the Yes On 8 yard sign I had to see every day on the bus and stand there until the cops came, parade around with "GIVE ME BACK MY RIGHTS" scrawled on my bare chest (not downtown, though, as female toplessness is legal there), or chain myself to something -- but the sort of actions it inspires don't include coherent blog posts. All I would've produced would've been blind rage and grief and repetitions of they're lying, I'm hurting, this is wrong that would have left me more frustrated.
I'm back, though, and next summer I will be out collecting signatures to overturn this thing. Because I was reminded, when I rewatched Milk with my family, that we don't have that guy any more; we have to inspire ourselves, and keep on fighting whatever the odds. So, hi. My name is Phoenix.You stole my civil rights. Prepare to be defeated. I'm here to recruit you.
The newest version [of the law being challenged] adds registered domestic partners to all remaining areas of state law that presently apply only to married couples.Translation: these are the "just civil unions" that all but the most extreme anti-gay people allege to support. They're not called marriages, they're separate from religion; they're just legally equivalent. And the good people of Washington are going to vote on whether to take them away anyway. Because, as I think I've mentioned before, anti-gay activists are liars.
As to why I was away, I spent mid-June to mid-July traveling, the time I got back through the present being sick, and the time before that, well....
Mid-May I was going about my normal academic process on campus and saw a sign advertising GLBT activist/community events, and a sense of overwhelming frustration and hopelessness overcame me as the words oh, what's the point raced through my head in three-foot letters of fire, and I became so angry and confused that I knew I had to get help. I ran over to the student health center and made an appointment to get counseling. Turned out to be the same day the court upheld Prop. 8. So I basically got out of math class, feeling pretty good (we got a test back; I got 100%, so I remember that) but scared, called home, asked my dad for the results, got them, thanked him, and stumbled off to wait for my appointment. Had it, made an appointment for another one with another counselor, went to the rally downtown.
The reason all of this interfered with my blogging is that, well, when you're having a breakdown, when something that personal is that wrong -- well, it doesn't lend itself to activism so much. I mean, it does -- I had wild impulses to write my protest on every blank wall I came to, tear down the Yes On 8 yard sign I had to see every day on the bus and stand there until the cops came, parade around with "GIVE ME BACK MY RIGHTS" scrawled on my bare chest (not downtown, though, as female toplessness is legal there), or chain myself to something -- but the sort of actions it inspires don't include coherent blog posts. All I would've produced would've been blind rage and grief and repetitions of they're lying, I'm hurting, this is wrong that would have left me more frustrated.
I'm back, though, and next summer I will be out collecting signatures to overturn this thing. Because I was reminded, when I rewatched Milk with my family, that we don't have that guy any more; we have to inspire ourselves, and keep on fighting whatever the odds. So, hi. My name is Phoenix.
2009-04-21
reactions
I wear a pin identifying myself in some way every day. Usually, it's the one that says "I was affected by Proposition 8." And I have had many discussions triggered by that, besides the coincidental Prop. 8 talks, and I feel called to talk about some of the common themes.
The number one, of course, is people who say "I'm sorry -- I voted no" or "yeah, me too." There's not much to say about this, really. I like to hear these things, because they're simple bond-forming dialog-openers, allowing me to connect to my neighbors and share the pain that we both felt, easing it some.
Number two is a little more frustrating, and often follows number one: "it won't last/the Supreme Court will fix it." As I've mentioned, the legal impact is minimal -- the overall legal trend, worldwide, is towards equality, and even with the oral arguments I think there's a good reason to believe that the Supreme Court will act on this specific case. Certainly by the time I find someone I want to marry, (DV, insha'Allah, etc.) I expect to have that legal right. But to me this is about losing faith in people's goodness, in their compassion, in their sense of justice. It's about knowing that even in my safe little bubble, at least one out of every four people I meet doesn't believe I deserve equal protection under the law. It's about feeling helpless to protect myself because I gave my all and it wasn't enough, and it still isn't enough, to make a difference. Under the circumstances, reassurances about the legal part don't help and get irritating, because the Supreme Court can't fix my faith, and the promise of a better world to come doesn't help because it doesn't do anything about the present. So this line, though well-intentioned, is irritating and at times seems naïve, as though it were saying that it's no big deal, but only factoring in the tip of the iceberg. (Not that I think this is at all intentional, you understand.)
That leads me neatly to number three: "sexuality shouldn't matter." Again well-intentioned, again irritating. Yeah, it shouldn't matter -- nobody should care if other people are queer or not, outside of a dating context; nobody should care about gender or ethnicity or religion or political affiliation either, but the thing is? They do. It does matter, no dodging it.
Number four is one I get from queer people who don't personally seek marriage rights (some GLB people, many T): "marriage is a nonissue -- we should be working on things that affect all of us." Yes, we should be working on more urgent things: fully inclusive nondiscrimination and hate crime legislation, protecting queer kids from abuse and bullying, protecting the children of queer parents from the same plus the danger of losing their parents, helping those in countries where the laws are truly draconian (Uganda and Iran come to mind), protecting the weakest among us. And yes, marriage is emphasized far more here and now than those things, and I don't think that's by any means a good thing -- actually, I think it's a conservative ploy to keep us occupied, controlling the dialog. However, when we start talking about "nonissues" or suggest that because you don't want it, it doesn't/shouldn't concern you, I have to disagree. Go back to #2, please, or to the first post in this blog, and also refer to the list of legal rights provided by marriage in the US. Okay, you back? So there was that little detail about the pain and grief and losing faith thing, plus the legal bit -- calling it a nonissue is really fucking hurtful to those of us who, y'know, are personally interested in those things. Besides which, discriminatory laws set a dangerous precedent from any minority's viewpoint: they imply that it's okay to have, well, discriminatory laws.
The fifth kind of reaction I encountered in its most glaring form the other day, when I spoke to a family friend I hadn't seen in some time. He greeted me, and I him, and he read my pin aloud, as people often do. Then he greeted another friend, was called away by his family, and vanished without so much as nodding a farewell or looking my way. I can't tell whether this was the snub it appeared, any more than I know whether the silent anonymous people who avoid my eyes on the bus after glancing at the pin are simply being wary of strangers or something else. Sometimes I wish I met people who were openly and unambivalently hostile; not knowing is the most irritating thing of all.
The number one, of course, is people who say "I'm sorry -- I voted no" or "yeah, me too." There's not much to say about this, really. I like to hear these things, because they're simple bond-forming dialog-openers, allowing me to connect to my neighbors and share the pain that we both felt, easing it some.
Number two is a little more frustrating, and often follows number one: "it won't last/the Supreme Court will fix it." As I've mentioned, the legal impact is minimal -- the overall legal trend, worldwide, is towards equality, and even with the oral arguments I think there's a good reason to believe that the Supreme Court will act on this specific case. Certainly by the time I find someone I want to marry, (DV, insha'Allah, etc.) I expect to have that legal right. But to me this is about losing faith in people's goodness, in their compassion, in their sense of justice. It's about knowing that even in my safe little bubble, at least one out of every four people I meet doesn't believe I deserve equal protection under the law. It's about feeling helpless to protect myself because I gave my all and it wasn't enough, and it still isn't enough, to make a difference. Under the circumstances, reassurances about the legal part don't help and get irritating, because the Supreme Court can't fix my faith, and the promise of a better world to come doesn't help because it doesn't do anything about the present. So this line, though well-intentioned, is irritating and at times seems naïve, as though it were saying that it's no big deal, but only factoring in the tip of the iceberg. (Not that I think this is at all intentional, you understand.)
That leads me neatly to number three: "sexuality shouldn't matter." Again well-intentioned, again irritating. Yeah, it shouldn't matter -- nobody should care if other people are queer or not, outside of a dating context; nobody should care about gender or ethnicity or religion or political affiliation either, but the thing is? They do. It does matter, no dodging it.
Number four is one I get from queer people who don't personally seek marriage rights (some GLB people, many T): "marriage is a nonissue -- we should be working on things that affect all of us." Yes, we should be working on more urgent things: fully inclusive nondiscrimination and hate crime legislation, protecting queer kids from abuse and bullying, protecting the children of queer parents from the same plus the danger of losing their parents, helping those in countries where the laws are truly draconian (Uganda and Iran come to mind), protecting the weakest among us. And yes, marriage is emphasized far more here and now than those things, and I don't think that's by any means a good thing -- actually, I think it's a conservative ploy to keep us occupied, controlling the dialog. However, when we start talking about "nonissues" or suggest that because you don't want it, it doesn't/shouldn't concern you, I have to disagree. Go back to #2, please, or to the first post in this blog, and also refer to the list of legal rights provided by marriage in the US. Okay, you back? So there was that little detail about the pain and grief and losing faith thing, plus the legal bit -- calling it a nonissue is really fucking hurtful to those of us who, y'know, are personally interested in those things. Besides which, discriminatory laws set a dangerous precedent from any minority's viewpoint: they imply that it's okay to have, well, discriminatory laws.
The fifth kind of reaction I encountered in its most glaring form the other day, when I spoke to a family friend I hadn't seen in some time. He greeted me, and I him, and he read my pin aloud, as people often do. Then he greeted another friend, was called away by his family, and vanished without so much as nodding a farewell or looking my way. I can't tell whether this was the snub it appeared, any more than I know whether the silent anonymous people who avoid my eyes on the bus after glancing at the pin are simply being wary of strangers or something else. Sometimes I wish I met people who were openly and unambivalently hostile; not knowing is the most irritating thing of all.
2009-02-24
lying liars that lie
There's an old talking point that goes like this: marriage is between a man and a woman. Sure, same-sex couples should have basic legal recognition/protections of some kind, but call it something else. This is the primary argument of moderates opposed to marriage equality, and something many conservatives pay lipservice to. It's bollocks.
Two articles today about Colorado, which has passed a bare-minimum domestic partnership bill, and Wisconsin, which is working on the same. Now, these are two states with bans on same-sex marriage, protecting the sacred institution and all that, right? Here's the article on Colorado's measure:
I need Al Franken here to shout "LIARS" for me, I think.
Passing this along, while I'm here. I don't think I can make it, but I will be a very visible presence in my classroom that day.
Two articles today about Colorado, which has passed a bare-minimum domestic partnership bill, and Wisconsin, which is working on the same. Now, these are two states with bans on same-sex marriage, protecting the sacred institution and all that, right? Here's the article on Colorado's measure:
Republicans attacked the measure, calling it an attempt to circumvent the state constitution which bans same-sex marriage.And here's the one about Wisconsin:
The conservative Wisconsin Family Action said Tuesday that the proposal would violate the state constitution. In 2006, Wisconsin voters approved a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples.These are not marriage equivalents we're talking about here, even if we ignore the psychological effect of the word and talk pure law. These are simple, inadequate things, trying to give basic legal recognition and a semblance of dignity to same-sex couples. And yet they are now supposedly covered by the marriage bans, something I fancy few voters knew when they put those bans into place.
I need Al Franken here to shout "LIARS" for me, I think.
Passing this along, while I'm here. I don't think I can make it, but I will be a very visible presence in my classroom that day.
2009-02-02
that'll teach me to watch my tongue
Of course as soon as I comment on how little news there is, I get this: Mormon Church admits it spent 100 times more for Prop 8 than reported. OUCH.
I admit to a certain level of happiness at the knowledge that this is out there, even if it hasn't hit the mainstream press (which AFAIK it hasn't.) They lied; it's good that they are being exposed. On the other hand, it's frustrating because I know that the Mormons are only one religious group that worked on this thing, and even if they lose their tax-exempt status or get fined it won't lessen the power of the bigger power they represent. It will, however, make for excellent material to base further lies on. The homosexual activists are persecuting the poor innocent churches; crop the church's actions that started the whole thing and you've got "proof."
It hooks into the fight over donors' "privacy." That's the thing where there was a brief attempt to prevent information about who contributed to pass measures from being accessible, on the basis that look at how the evil homosexual activists were punishing Prop. 8 supporters by boycotting their businesses or attacking them -- usually verbally. This is, of course, complete bullshit.
Nobody has a right to not be boycotted, FFS. If they did, that would imply that others didn't have the right to spend or not spend their money as they see fit. I'm pretty sure I have a right to not buy things I don't want, and to not go to the horrible local grocery store where everyone's surly. I mean, nobody's told me yet that that's a violation of their freedom of expression because they have a right to be surly.
I think I've already covered that nobody has a right to say whatever they want and not have anyone contradict them, right? So I'll skip the part where I talk about how negative reactions are not something the Constitution protects you from. Let's just say the LDS appear to be about to get a stiff lesson in what freedom of religion and expression don't mean, and I just wish I thought it would take.
I admit to a certain level of happiness at the knowledge that this is out there, even if it hasn't hit the mainstream press (which AFAIK it hasn't.) They lied; it's good that they are being exposed. On the other hand, it's frustrating because I know that the Mormons are only one religious group that worked on this thing, and even if they lose their tax-exempt status or get fined it won't lessen the power of the bigger power they represent. It will, however, make for excellent material to base further lies on. The homosexual activists are persecuting the poor innocent churches; crop the church's actions that started the whole thing and you've got "proof."
It hooks into the fight over donors' "privacy." That's the thing where there was a brief attempt to prevent information about who contributed to pass measures from being accessible, on the basis that look at how the evil homosexual activists were punishing Prop. 8 supporters by boycotting their businesses or attacking them -- usually verbally. This is, of course, complete bullshit.
Nobody has a right to not be boycotted, FFS. If they did, that would imply that others didn't have the right to spend or not spend their money as they see fit. I'm pretty sure I have a right to not buy things I don't want, and to not go to the horrible local grocery store where everyone's surly. I mean, nobody's told me yet that that's a violation of their freedom of expression because they have a right to be surly.
I think I've already covered that nobody has a right to say whatever they want and not have anyone contradict them, right? So I'll skip the part where I talk about how negative reactions are not something the Constitution protects you from. Let's just say the LDS appear to be about to get a stiff lesson in what freedom of religion and expression don't mean, and I just wish I thought it would take.
2009-01-31
days go by
I haven't posted here in over a month because, well, nothing's changing. We got some interesting data, most significantly that knowing GLB people didn't affect how people voted that much. I'd say this is really significant, but once the first surprise sank in I realized that it made sense.
We accept that people may not think they have "anything against" us while still expressing raging bigotry. Anyone who's participated in any debate involving a minority knows the old classic, "some of my best friends are [insert group here] but...." The thing is, generally when interacting with our friends we see them as, well, our friends, not as "a black person/Latino/Hindu/Libertarian." There are exceptions -- for instance, I get my hair cut by a black woman I could never possibly fail to see as a black woman, because she's an activist and a half -- and subconsciously we may be affected, but as a general rule an individual person is first and foremost a person. When thinking about the group they belong to, we probably don't think of them first. We think of the stereotype.
I read an article the other day about the Swiss government's movement to restrict nude hiking in anticipation of a huge number of German tourists hiking naked later this year. Between that, a similar issue in Italy a while back, the infamous nude skydiving video I'm too lazy to dig up, and the airline for nudists, I've become very attached to the stereotype of "naked in public = German" and vice versa. And actually some of my best friends are German and to the best of my knowledge aren't in the habit of hiking naked, and I never associate any of them with nudity. And yet, say "German" to me and I think, not of them, but of the skydiving guys. I daresay even if/when I go to Germany this summer and discover that most if not all of the people I meet are fully clothed, I will continue to have this association. My point is, beliefs about groups of people, once formed, are fairly resistant to the influence of individuals in those groups.
"Well, then," I can hear you saying, "if knowing people doesn't change anything, what can we do? Being out obviously isn't enough." Ah, she responds arrogantly to the imagined masses, this returns to the idea of being actively out. It's not enough for us to say "I'm gay" once and have that be an end to it. It's probably not enough to bring a partner to every gathering. You have to, like my hairdresser, be an activist. Discuss the issues. Make people see you and the group together, not apart.
The difficulty of this is that it is freaking exhausting. I am so damn' sick of having to introduce the terminology and underlying concepts, dispel the common myths, and then debate my basic rights with people, I wish I never had to do it again. I'm tired of putting myself out there, hearing the same old tired responses, failing to change anything. And I'm only 20, and I've only been talking about this for maybe four years, so I can only imagine that the older activists must be on their fifth or sixth wind at least. And I'll be there, given time.
Right now I'm burnt out because there is no news. There is no justice, but more importantly my faith in humanity's still off somewhere. I was at a concert earlier this month, and the time had come to sing "Step By Step" together and I realized that I couldn't do it because, while I believe it intellectually, my heart is not so sure. That's the long-term thing here -- I don't trust that the right will prevail any more. Only months ago I was a proud idealist, convinced that if only we worked hard enough all would be well, and now I'm fighting just to get that back. And it doesn't stop hurting, and it won't no matter what the court rules, because I don't have faith in the system to protect me, or in the people, or in God. I hope like hell this will pass, because if it doesn't I think I'll end up nonfunctional, addicted to something and hating the world, driven to do something beyond anyone's power and make the world right.
Wow, that was a downer. Sorry, folks.
We accept that people may not think they have "anything against" us while still expressing raging bigotry. Anyone who's participated in any debate involving a minority knows the old classic, "some of my best friends are [insert group here] but...." The thing is, generally when interacting with our friends we see them as, well, our friends, not as "a black person/Latino/Hindu/Libertarian." There are exceptions -- for instance, I get my hair cut by a black woman I could never possibly fail to see as a black woman, because she's an activist and a half -- and subconsciously we may be affected, but as a general rule an individual person is first and foremost a person. When thinking about the group they belong to, we probably don't think of them first. We think of the stereotype.
I read an article the other day about the Swiss government's movement to restrict nude hiking in anticipation of a huge number of German tourists hiking naked later this year. Between that, a similar issue in Italy a while back, the infamous nude skydiving video I'm too lazy to dig up, and the airline for nudists, I've become very attached to the stereotype of "naked in public = German" and vice versa. And actually some of my best friends are German and to the best of my knowledge aren't in the habit of hiking naked, and I never associate any of them with nudity. And yet, say "German" to me and I think, not of them, but of the skydiving guys. I daresay even if/when I go to Germany this summer and discover that most if not all of the people I meet are fully clothed, I will continue to have this association. My point is, beliefs about groups of people, once formed, are fairly resistant to the influence of individuals in those groups.
"Well, then," I can hear you saying, "if knowing people doesn't change anything, what can we do? Being out obviously isn't enough." Ah, she responds arrogantly to the imagined masses, this returns to the idea of being actively out. It's not enough for us to say "I'm gay" once and have that be an end to it. It's probably not enough to bring a partner to every gathering. You have to, like my hairdresser, be an activist. Discuss the issues. Make people see you and the group together, not apart.
The difficulty of this is that it is freaking exhausting. I am so damn' sick of having to introduce the terminology and underlying concepts, dispel the common myths, and then debate my basic rights with people, I wish I never had to do it again. I'm tired of putting myself out there, hearing the same old tired responses, failing to change anything. And I'm only 20, and I've only been talking about this for maybe four years, so I can only imagine that the older activists must be on their fifth or sixth wind at least. And I'll be there, given time.
Right now I'm burnt out because there is no news. There is no justice, but more importantly my faith in humanity's still off somewhere. I was at a concert earlier this month, and the time had come to sing "Step By Step" together and I realized that I couldn't do it because, while I believe it intellectually, my heart is not so sure. That's the long-term thing here -- I don't trust that the right will prevail any more. Only months ago I was a proud idealist, convinced that if only we worked hard enough all would be well, and now I'm fighting just to get that back. And it doesn't stop hurting, and it won't no matter what the court rules, because I don't have faith in the system to protect me, or in the people, or in God. I hope like hell this will pass, because if it doesn't I think I'll end up nonfunctional, addicted to something and hating the world, driven to do something beyond anyone's power and make the world right.
Wow, that was a downer. Sorry, folks.
2008-12-23
diverting from our main discussion to Rick Warren
Link first: "It's not Obama I'm mad at; it's way too many of you."
There're a lot of people, including some quite close to me, who don't get why this Rick Warren thing is a big deal. Or they argue that it's about bringing together diverse views, or reaching out to the right, and that it's somehow admirable for this. Here're my two cents:
Bull-fucking-shit. Hem. This isn't just one isolated event; it's yet another in a long line of occasions where the Democratic Party has reached out to the right at the expense of the GLBT community, thrown us under the bus in the name of unity. This isn't about diversity; this is validation of hate speech, a signal that it is somehow acceptable to, as Warren has, compare gay marriage to incest. This isn't outreach; we're not communicating anything to the guy or his supporters except that Obama & co. care about them. And if he'd spoken of another minority -- say, Jews, or Asian-Americans, or African-Americans -- as hatefully as he has of gay people, nobody would consider it an acceptable form of outreach or diversifying.
The thing is, quite simply, that GLBT issues are not abstract. I've said it before; I'll keep saying it. GLBT issues are not abstract. People die because of anti-GLBT discrimination. People are brutally attacked because homophobia is still accepted -- nay, encouraged -- in our society. I could go on -- that's just this last week -- but I shouldn't have to. It should be bleeding obvious that GLBT people need protection and active support and that no, we can't wait. We have waited too long. We can't go on taking scraps from the table of justice, watching as hate speech is accepted and affirmed while we are told to sit down and shut up until the mainstream is "ready" for us, following along like good little sheep after leaders who openly oppose full equality and justify it with religious beliefs that aren't even validated by the holy texts they draw from. As the famous quote/paraphrase whose origins appear to be lost in the mists of time says, "justice too long delayed is justice denied" and we cannot allow ourselves to be denied justice. Neither can any supposed ally allow us to, without admitting that they don't really care about us.
We can't let ourselves be thrown under the bus by the Democratic Party or anyone else. We can't let ourselves be put at the bottom of the priority list, to wait until America is ready for us. We need justice today, and if America is not ready then it must be dragged kicking and screaming into a place of justice, as it has been so many times before in the history of our nation, because the majority's opinion is so wildly unimportant in comparison to the needs of the minority that it should never even register.
Enough is enough is enough, already.
There're a lot of people, including some quite close to me, who don't get why this Rick Warren thing is a big deal. Or they argue that it's about bringing together diverse views, or reaching out to the right, and that it's somehow admirable for this. Here're my two cents:
Bull-fucking-shit. Hem. This isn't just one isolated event; it's yet another in a long line of occasions where the Democratic Party has reached out to the right at the expense of the GLBT community, thrown us under the bus in the name of unity. This isn't about diversity; this is validation of hate speech, a signal that it is somehow acceptable to, as Warren has, compare gay marriage to incest. This isn't outreach; we're not communicating anything to the guy or his supporters except that Obama & co. care about them. And if he'd spoken of another minority -- say, Jews, or Asian-Americans, or African-Americans -- as hatefully as he has of gay people, nobody would consider it an acceptable form of outreach or diversifying.
The thing is, quite simply, that GLBT issues are not abstract. I've said it before; I'll keep saying it. GLBT issues are not abstract. People die because of anti-GLBT discrimination. People are brutally attacked because homophobia is still accepted -- nay, encouraged -- in our society. I could go on -- that's just this last week -- but I shouldn't have to. It should be bleeding obvious that GLBT people need protection and active support and that no, we can't wait. We have waited too long. We can't go on taking scraps from the table of justice, watching as hate speech is accepted and affirmed while we are told to sit down and shut up until the mainstream is "ready" for us, following along like good little sheep after leaders who openly oppose full equality and justify it with religious beliefs that aren't even validated by the holy texts they draw from. As the famous quote/paraphrase whose origins appear to be lost in the mists of time says, "justice too long delayed is justice denied" and we cannot allow ourselves to be denied justice. Neither can any supposed ally allow us to, without admitting that they don't really care about us.
We can't let ourselves be thrown under the bus by the Democratic Party or anyone else. We can't let ourselves be put at the bottom of the priority list, to wait until America is ready for us. We need justice today, and if America is not ready then it must be dragged kicking and screaming into a place of justice, as it has been so many times before in the history of our nation, because the majority's opinion is so wildly unimportant in comparison to the needs of the minority that it should never even register.
Enough is enough is enough, already.
2008-12-20
18000 marriages need to end to protect marriage
Yes On 8 wants to annul all the same-sex marriages performed in the state to date. I am completely unsurprised.
I just don't get it, friends. I don't understand how other people living their lives can be so offensive to anyone that they're willing to put their time and money into tearing us down. The nearest I can figure is that there's some severe difference in word definitions between us and them.
My hypothesis is that it comes down to the definition of homosexuality. From the point of view of a GLBA person, homosexuality is the state of being attracted to/falling in love exclusively or almost exclusively with people of the same sex/gender as oneself. It's innate, it's immutable -- who chooses who they love? -- and it's a part of who you are regardless of what you do.
The thing about this understanding of sexual orientation -- supported by science and backed by the APA -- is that it makes "homosexuality is a sin" gibberish. It's a trait. Redheadedness isn't a sin, or autism, or being black, or being left-handed. And therefore we don't push redheads to dye their hair, mandate drugging of autistic people, force black people to bleach their skin and straighten their hair, or prohibit the use of the left hand for writing. In the present, I mean. So it's illogical to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation, just as laws against left-handedness would be illogical.
Therefore, I don't think that our opponents can possibly define homosexuality this way. The party line for a lot of conservatives is that it's a "lifestyle choice," right? So what I eventually realized is that homosexuality to them means gay sex. A gay person is someone who has sex with people of the same sex -- bisexuals I think must be seen as incredibly promiscuous, because otherwise there would be no way of giving meaning to the term -- and therefore, logically, if they stop having sex with people of the same sex, they are no longer gay.
Now, there are a few flaws with this, and the first is that it's completely and demonstrably false. Well, that can be dodged by simply not believing the overwhelming scientific evidence or any individual gay person who has relevant personal experience. The second is that only a total idiot with a persecution complex would ever choose to be a member of an unpopular minority group. The counter to this that I've seen is the suggestion that gay sex is addictive, sort of like tobacco I suppose, and to try it once is to risk getting hooked for life. Alternately, there's the Freudian idea that gay people have some childhood trauma that makes us afraid of relationships with people of the opposite sex, so that same-sex relationships seem better somehow even with every disadvantage that goes with them.
So assuming that the addiction view is accepted, the logic runs the opposite way. You want to make it harder for people to become addicted to harmful things, so you pass laws to discourage use and encourage rehabilitation. Therefore, banning same-sex marriage (and ideally civil unions) is a way of discouraging gay people from committing to relationships, making stable commitment harder and forcing us to see opposite-sex relationships as preferable alternatives. Similarly, with the Freudian model, the idea is that making same-sex relationships less appealing will lead people back to heterosexuality.
The problem, of course, is that they're so completely wrong about every aspect of this that it's absurd. And here we get to the part I don't understand, and will never be able to understand: why don't they figure this out? Why is it so hard to realize that the sex-addiction model of homosexuality completely fails to account for monogamous same-sex couples, gay virgins/happily single gay people like yours truly, heterosexually monogamous bisexual-identified people, and indeed most of the gay/bi community because most people aren't awfully promiscuous actually? Or that the Freudian model, besides being rejected by the psychiatric community, fails to explain any variety of bisexual? It doesn't compute, for me.
I just don't get it, friends. I don't understand how other people living their lives can be so offensive to anyone that they're willing to put their time and money into tearing us down. The nearest I can figure is that there's some severe difference in word definitions between us and them.
My hypothesis is that it comes down to the definition of homosexuality. From the point of view of a GLBA person, homosexuality is the state of being attracted to/falling in love exclusively or almost exclusively with people of the same sex/gender as oneself. It's innate, it's immutable -- who chooses who they love? -- and it's a part of who you are regardless of what you do.
The thing about this understanding of sexual orientation -- supported by science and backed by the APA -- is that it makes "homosexuality is a sin" gibberish. It's a trait. Redheadedness isn't a sin, or autism, or being black, or being left-handed. And therefore we don't push redheads to dye their hair, mandate drugging of autistic people, force black people to bleach their skin and straighten their hair, or prohibit the use of the left hand for writing. In the present, I mean. So it's illogical to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation, just as laws against left-handedness would be illogical.
Therefore, I don't think that our opponents can possibly define homosexuality this way. The party line for a lot of conservatives is that it's a "lifestyle choice," right? So what I eventually realized is that homosexuality to them means gay sex. A gay person is someone who has sex with people of the same sex -- bisexuals I think must be seen as incredibly promiscuous, because otherwise there would be no way of giving meaning to the term -- and therefore, logically, if they stop having sex with people of the same sex, they are no longer gay.
Now, there are a few flaws with this, and the first is that it's completely and demonstrably false. Well, that can be dodged by simply not believing the overwhelming scientific evidence or any individual gay person who has relevant personal experience. The second is that only a total idiot with a persecution complex would ever choose to be a member of an unpopular minority group. The counter to this that I've seen is the suggestion that gay sex is addictive, sort of like tobacco I suppose, and to try it once is to risk getting hooked for life. Alternately, there's the Freudian idea that gay people have some childhood trauma that makes us afraid of relationships with people of the opposite sex, so that same-sex relationships seem better somehow even with every disadvantage that goes with them.
So assuming that the addiction view is accepted, the logic runs the opposite way. You want to make it harder for people to become addicted to harmful things, so you pass laws to discourage use and encourage rehabilitation. Therefore, banning same-sex marriage (and ideally civil unions) is a way of discouraging gay people from committing to relationships, making stable commitment harder and forcing us to see opposite-sex relationships as preferable alternatives. Similarly, with the Freudian model, the idea is that making same-sex relationships less appealing will lead people back to heterosexuality.
The problem, of course, is that they're so completely wrong about every aspect of this that it's absurd. And here we get to the part I don't understand, and will never be able to understand: why don't they figure this out? Why is it so hard to realize that the sex-addiction model of homosexuality completely fails to account for monogamous same-sex couples, gay virgins/happily single gay people like yours truly, heterosexually monogamous bisexual-identified people, and indeed most of the gay/bi community because most people aren't awfully promiscuous actually? Or that the Freudian model, besides being rejected by the psychiatric community, fails to explain any variety of bisexual? It doesn't compute, for me.
2008-12-07
so sick of this all
We've got a long haul until March. Let's have analysis to fill it up!
Someone was talking about the importance of communication and understanding and how the other side had their reasons today, and that got me thinking. It's hard for me, because on the one hand, I hate having to do this. We shouldn't have to fight this one. We have a society that, by and large, recognizes the importance of equality. Legally, at any rate, we recognize that racial inequality is wrong, that people with disabilities need accommodations, that men and women deserve equal respect. (Socially, we often don't recognize areas where these ideals are not applied, but they are embedded in our laws now.) And it took so long, and so much heartbreak and struggle, that it is unthinkable to me that we could now ignore that legacy. How can a society full of people who have lived through the civil rights movement and the women's movement, or been taught about them in their history classes, fail to recognize the same story with a simple search-and-replace? How can I possibly have to fight this battle as though it were new? It's completely unfair.
On the other hand, as my dad always used to tell me when I complained about some unjust family rule, life isn't fair. Whether we like it or not, we have to fight this, and we have to give it our all, and we have to be better than the best people if we want to stand a chance of winning. So I suppose I recognize that feeling how unfair it is doesn't really help, at all.
I do find myself increasingly frustrated by the call for dialog, though. I think we've got a cultural fallacy, brought about by "fair" press coverage of everything, that says that if there are two different views on a subject, they must be afforded equal respect. This is bullshit. The two sides of the "debate" on global warming are not equally valid -- one is supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, and the other by a small fringe group. The two sides of the "debate" on whether same-sex couples make good parents are not equal -- scientific evidence firmly supports the affirmative position. Ditto, well, most gay stuff. It is biologically caused, neither a mental illness nor a cause of mental illness, and immutable. These are what we call facts and they are supported by scientific evidence, so they're not at all equal to the beliefs supported by people's personal beliefs and discredited studies conducted by wingnuts like this guy. And these and other facts clearly show that being gay is, yes, a status equally worthy of the law's protection as race, gender, national origin, disability, etc.
The Yes side deceived the people, used low-down tricks, and is now hiding behind faith and so-called democracy all to justify subverting the American system to attack a vulnerable minority. They do not deserve equal respect to the people they hurt, and their opinions do not deserve to be heard in "civilized discourse" as though they were legitimate, because while they may be valid opinions for individuals to hold, they aren't legitimate parts of any political or even philosophical debate. There is a wrong and a right here, and they're in the wrong.
I'll probably still end up debating them and trying to listen to them, because as I said before, we have to do things that we shouldn't even have to consider doing if we're going to win this. Which is why, today, I hate the world.
P. S. Oh, here, have a link: antigay campaigns cause depression in LGBT people. Gosh, really? I only came the closest I've ever been to suicidal in November, so I am of course totally shocked by this.
Someone was talking about the importance of communication and understanding and how the other side had their reasons today, and that got me thinking. It's hard for me, because on the one hand, I hate having to do this. We shouldn't have to fight this one. We have a society that, by and large, recognizes the importance of equality. Legally, at any rate, we recognize that racial inequality is wrong, that people with disabilities need accommodations, that men and women deserve equal respect. (Socially, we often don't recognize areas where these ideals are not applied, but they are embedded in our laws now.) And it took so long, and so much heartbreak and struggle, that it is unthinkable to me that we could now ignore that legacy. How can a society full of people who have lived through the civil rights movement and the women's movement, or been taught about them in their history classes, fail to recognize the same story with a simple search-and-replace? How can I possibly have to fight this battle as though it were new? It's completely unfair.
On the other hand, as my dad always used to tell me when I complained about some unjust family rule, life isn't fair. Whether we like it or not, we have to fight this, and we have to give it our all, and we have to be better than the best people if we want to stand a chance of winning. So I suppose I recognize that feeling how unfair it is doesn't really help, at all.
I do find myself increasingly frustrated by the call for dialog, though. I think we've got a cultural fallacy, brought about by "fair" press coverage of everything, that says that if there are two different views on a subject, they must be afforded equal respect. This is bullshit. The two sides of the "debate" on global warming are not equally valid -- one is supported by the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, and the other by a small fringe group. The two sides of the "debate" on whether same-sex couples make good parents are not equal -- scientific evidence firmly supports the affirmative position. Ditto, well, most gay stuff. It is biologically caused, neither a mental illness nor a cause of mental illness, and immutable. These are what we call facts and they are supported by scientific evidence, so they're not at all equal to the beliefs supported by people's personal beliefs and discredited studies conducted by wingnuts like this guy. And these and other facts clearly show that being gay is, yes, a status equally worthy of the law's protection as race, gender, national origin, disability, etc.
The Yes side deceived the people, used low-down tricks, and is now hiding behind faith and so-called democracy all to justify subverting the American system to attack a vulnerable minority. They do not deserve equal respect to the people they hurt, and their opinions do not deserve to be heard in "civilized discourse" as though they were legitimate, because while they may be valid opinions for individuals to hold, they aren't legitimate parts of any political or even philosophical debate. There is a wrong and a right here, and they're in the wrong.
I'll probably still end up debating them and trying to listen to them, because as I said before, we have to do things that we shouldn't even have to consider doing if we're going to win this. Which is why, today, I hate the world.
P. S. Oh, here, have a link: antigay campaigns cause depression in LGBT people. Gosh, really? I only came the closest I've ever been to suicidal in November, so I am of course totally shocked by this.
2008-11-20
the latest and a moment for other people
An interesting look at how various hypothetical votes from the African-American community would have affected Prop. 8.
You've probably heard by now that the Supreme Court is going to review the challenges to Prop. 8, but won't be staying it. We probably won't know the outcome until at least March, so while we're waiting I suggest we continue to fight where we can.
The latest I've been seeing is people saying we shouldn't be protesting churches, or we shouldn't be protesting at all. The idea is that we've got to show everyone how nice we are so they'll get around to giving us our rights. The trouble with this idea is that a) GLBT people are an "invisible" minority, meaning unless we consciously put ourselves out there nobody knows it's us being nice, and b) everybody else is too busy taking care of their own needs to worry about minorities (or other minorities.) We need to be loud to get dialog going. If I may quote Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail here, he makes my point:
In short, you have to start the conversation first.
Today is the 10th annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance, so I'd like to take a moment to address someone else's fight here. Because transpeople get treated like shit by the general population, even gay/bi people who really ought to know better, and far too often people brutally murder them in cold blood and get away with it, and it's wrong. So take a moment -- read this year's names and think about what you can do to stop the hate, because we all should do something.
You've probably heard by now that the Supreme Court is going to review the challenges to Prop. 8, but won't be staying it. We probably won't know the outcome until at least March, so while we're waiting I suggest we continue to fight where we can.
The latest I've been seeing is people saying we shouldn't be protesting churches, or we shouldn't be protesting at all. The idea is that we've got to show everyone how nice we are so they'll get around to giving us our rights. The trouble with this idea is that a) GLBT people are an "invisible" minority, meaning unless we consciously put ourselves out there nobody knows it's us being nice, and b) everybody else is too busy taking care of their own needs to worry about minorities (or other minorities.) We need to be loud to get dialog going. If I may quote Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter From Birmingham Jail here, he makes my point:
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.
In short, you have to start the conversation first.
Today is the 10th annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance, so I'd like to take a moment to address someone else's fight here. Because transpeople get treated like shit by the general population, even gay/bi people who really ought to know better, and far too often people brutally murder them in cold blood and get away with it, and it's wrong. So take a moment -- read this year's names and think about what you can do to stop the hate, because we all should do something.
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