A Discussion on Marriage Equality

The year 2009 was a huge roller-coaster ride for marriage equality. When I was actively posting on my blog, I have touched on this issue (especially before the Equality March on Washington back in October). Sadly, this issue has become the face of what people think the Queer community is all about in 2009. But I want to set the record straight (and yes I said straight) for anyone who doesn’t know where I stand on this issue. I do honestly believe that every queer couple deserves the same rights as our straight counterparts, so clearly I am for marriage equality. Yet, I do not believe that it is the most important issue that faces the Queer community. Nor do I honestly believe that by passing these marriage laws will substantially change life for most of the Queer community overnight. The way I see it, we need to fight for better non-discrimination laws at the local, state and federal level. We need to fight to overturn “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, so those members who are LGBTQ and serving in our country’s Armed Forces are not dishonorable discharged from service. It is to help stop the beating and the killing of Queer people on the streets of their hometowns. We need to fight to ensure that partners of Queer people can honor the wishes of their partner if something tragic was to happen. We need to be able to guarantee that the partner of someone who is hospitalized is able to stay by their lover’s side to provide comfort. These issues are as important as the right to get married.

I do realize that the battle for marriage is going to be a very long and challenging fight; it isn’t going to happen overnight. I thought I would be happy for now over every little battle we win that help protect our relationships and our families. I’d thought that I rather achieve some rights rather than holding out for full marriage equality and having nothing until that happens.

Yet my opinion changed when I went to a dinner party with friends. One of my friends pointed out that marriage is an umbrella “right”, which means that this right covers almost everything that is valuable to the protection of ourselves, our relationships, our children, and our families. Listening to his stand on this issue, I took away that since marriage equality is such a powerful topic on its own, that it could possibly help us accomplish more than we were able to accomplish when we win smaller battles at the local and state level.

We discussed that when our issue loses in a public vote, that we need to have more dialogue within the queer community about the reasons why we can’t seem to get anywhere with this issue. We discussed that the opponents of marriage equality always use these public votes as proof that the majority of America does not approve of same-sex marriages. Therefore, they get people to believe that there shouldn’t be marriage equality for the queer community.

We argued over if we should regroup as a community and work toward finding some new strategies in 2010. He pointed out that as a community, we know what the strategies of our opposition are, yet we do not defend ourselves against it. He asked why are we not prepared for their antics since they just keep doing the same crap over and over again?

As my friends discussed this topic over drinks, I begin to wonder if we as a community were really fighting for our civil. What made me think that was another friend voiced her opinion that the push for Marriage Equality was basically to create a sound-bite issue that many from the Queer community could rally behind and feel like they are making a difference. Yet at the same time, those same people who have rallied (me included) have failed to provide rights to queer partners and their families. Another issue that was brought up was that by allowing this issue to be a state by state issue has actually set us back rather than propel us forward. I was asked that could we, the Queer community, say that this fight for marriage equality is a full fledged effort to protect ourselves and our families, or is it just our half-assed effort to become our straight counterparts? To be honest with you, I could not answer that question, and I still could not give you a honest opinion. All I could say is that I am fighting to protect my relationship.

It was pointed out that behind closed door, those leading the battle for equal rights are strategizing and are trying to figure out their next move. Yet those of us on the front are pissed off because we believe that at some point, that dialogue needs to leave those behind the closed doors and come out and help educate those of us in the grass roots organizations so we are not flying blindly into battle.

We discussed that it is just wrong for others to be voting on rights that do not affect them. Yet we were reminded that we needed to keep in mind whom we are fighting this battle against. The anti-gay opponents never deal with logic, fact or reason, instead they focus more on fear mongering with lies, misinformation, and a warped sense of the role of religion in secular life. So, if we were to go at them with the “it is wrong to vote…” strategy, we do not know what the possible ramifications could be down the road. They could spin it to make it seem like we are saying that the public’s opinion doesn’t matter, and thus alienating those we need to reach to help fight for our civil rights.

At this dinner party there were people who believed that marriage equality didn’t matter. They went through all the right channels and jumped through all the hoops just too got some paperwork done that says it will protect your family. Yet, how many of our straight counterparts had to go through all those channels and jump through all those hoops to protect their families?

What we still seem to fail to understand is that the real battle over marriage equality is the fear of cultural change. We rally and fight for a political fix to a cultural problem. And the worst part of it is that we want that political fix right now! Why are we not out there on the streets speaking directly to the fears that our opposition is telling the general public, instead of complaining about what we think our rights should be. We need to go to the general public and address those fears and try to counter them with the truth. Yet as a community, we seem more reactive then proactive when it comes to this issue.

So I am asking all my brothers and sisters; either gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, transsexual, to stand up and educate yourselves. If we want to make a change in 2010, we need to become more proactive and less reactive when it comes to all our civil rights and not just marriage equality.

MJ

I Am So Sorry

To start, I like to say I am sorry that my blog seemed to disappear toward the end of the year. I was working on getting enrolled into the Culinary Arts program at the Art Institute of Chicago, but sadly that fell through at the last minute and now I am fighting the clock to get enrolled into the Culinary Arts program at College of DuPage. If all goes well, I will be enrolled and attending my classes starting next week. My New Years revolution is to make sure I post at least one blog a week. I would love to post more than that, but between work and school who knows when I will have the time.