Io-wha???By Marke B.
Lat night, I attended the annual gala for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Campaign (or IGLHRC) -- last year's gala feted Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and this one, while considerably smaller, was also mega-inspiring. It was held mostly to honor Helem, an incredible and youthful gay rights organization based in Lebanon, but it also served as an introduction to IGLHRC's new Executive Director, Cary Alan Johnson. The intensely charismatic Johnson spoke of how he had just visited nine starving gay prisoners in Senegal, convicted of "engaging in acts against the order of nature" and ordered to serve eight years -- the men in fact had simply gathered at an apartment to discuss AIDS education (and were therefore also convicted of conspiracy.)
He also spoke about how IGLHRC's small ground team in Uganda was desperate to combat a huge new wave of creepy American religious right extremists (totally creepy -- one horrid group of them is called "Extreme Prophetic Ministry!"), who were openly and vocally attacking Ugandan LGBTs and insisting they could be "cured." Johnson also described IGLHRC's role in assisting all the people who had been beaten senseless in the backlash against South Africa's recent adoption of same-sex marriage laws.
The speech was pretty rousing and I was soon wiping my eyes on the bf's sleeve as the emotions poured out for my persecuted peeps around the globe. Would there ever be any bright spots in the seemingly eternal struggle to get other people to fucking mind their own goshdarned business?
And then I woke up to news of not just Vermont passing legislation to allow same-sex marriage, but the supreme court of fricking IOWA unanimously rejecting the constitutionality of an anti-gay marriage law.
Yes, the boneheaded Republican governor of Vermont will veto (and it looks like there may not be enough votes in the state house to override it -- a lot of idiot Democrats voted against equality as well). And sure there'll be all that nonsense about "activist judges" from people who hopefully will someday actually read the constitution. But screw California and New York -- gays can start getting wed in the plainest of plain states on April 24 and can't be legally stopped until about 2012, which is how long it would take to amend the state constitution.
Ok, seriously, WTF? Total emotional rollercoaster right through the heartland. Damn, I can't believe those Midwestern cornholers totally beat us bicoastal fudgepackers to the altar punch: so many delicious, delicious plot twists on the way to marriage equality.
And yet compared to what's happening to so many LGBTs around the world, the marriage dealie still seems a tad self-centered and ridiculous to me. All that money spent on lawsuits, advertising, canvassing, etc. could have gone toward outreach to those direly in need, and toward changing international immigration, health, and asylum laws. But, I guess, the tangible change in attitudes towards same-sex marriage in America offers one big-picture thing: hope. Right? Well, I just hope that we all begin to see our family more as a global one, and not forget to spend a little energy trying to help out our folks beneath the media radar who can't even imagine hooking up, let alone waltzing down the aisle.
If it can happen in Iowa, it can happen in Uganda, y'all.
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