The meeting between LGBT leaders and the Obama transition team really drove home for me how far we’ve come since the days of Harvey Milk!
Activism and civic engagement work, even if change is slow.
A place at the table
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Category Archives: Gay rights
VP Debate
A great transcript-linked video of the debate, with a timeline, is available courtesy of the New York Times.
My impressions:
Gov. Palin rose from seeming completely out of her element to acting like the typical politician who sticks to the talking points and tries to spin/avoid facts.
Both of them seemed more articulate and fluid than their respective principals.
Gay rights: Biden seemed to issue a strong statement on gay rights, though he did not support same-sex civil marriage. It seemed to me he left the door open, though, by saying there should not be a constitutional distinction. If they make all the federal benefits available to same-sex couples, then they’re effectively creating a civil marriage institution (and I don’t care what they call it, as long as it’s the same for everyone!).
Impressed and annoyed
Obama mentioned gay rights in his acceptance speech even more than Kennedy did (emphasis mine):
We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America’s promise – the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.
But then the convention closed with a closing benediction by a Christian pastor. What about other faiths? What about atheists? Why did they have to inject religion into a political event?
Marriage Equity
Our marriage is less than a month away. Life feels full, as we try to juggle wedding tasks (the meeting of the parents went well), errands we want to get done beforehand (the picket fence is still an abstraction), and relaxation (hah!)
Obviously, I have marriage on the brain, but it seems like I’m not the only one. The New York Times has a retrospective on four years of gay marriage in Massachusetts, complete with a multimedia feature. Then, same-sex marriages are held up as examples of more equitable and non-gender-based power dynamics. And finally, in a shocking development, it seems that heterosexuals themselves are discovering equitable marriage roles.
These last two leave me shaking my head. Obviously in a same-sex marriage gender is not part of the power dynamics, but why should the power dynamics be affected by gender in the first place? And is it really that novel that some straight couples eschew gender roles? I certainly grew up with the expectation that both partners in a marriage share responsibilities equally, and that’s the norm among my friends, too.
Who cares about marriage?
The California Supreme Court, that’s who.
By now you’ve heard of the historic decision allowing same-sex marriage. Lambda Legal has a brief analysis of the decision, where they highlight the signficance of the ruling.
What this means personally is that Knox and I need could get legally married in California, though Vancouver remains closer. That’s in principle; it turns out that the ruling is not final unless no appeals or motions are filed within 30 days.
The decision caught me by surprise. Not because I expected the court to rule one way or the other, but rather because the case wasn’t even on my radar. Yes, I knew some cases were winding their way through the courts, but I wasn’t following.
This is a big change from the days of the Massachusetts legal victory and the rallies to defend the state constitution. Or even from more recent tracking of gay issues in the news. Why is this?
Part of this is political fatigue. Eight years of the national nightmare that is George W. Bush have taken their toll. I feel like I’m tuned out of the political process. Even in this presidential campaign, I’m tired of the posturing and plain-folksiness, the moralizing, the hyperbole.
Part of my encroaching apathy, too, is the volume and insignificance of the blogosphere. I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before, nor am I reaching masses of people. It’s just a fraction of my friends who bother to check my blog or RSS feed. And face-to-face debates? Much the same. No new points are brought up. Yes, talking to friends and neighbors about issues is a good way to effect change, but it is slow, laborious, and not scalable.
I care about the issues. I don’t care about the noise. More and more I seek refuge in the determinism of computer code, or the plainness of physical activity.
But I’m excited about the marriage victory.