An early Gay Liberation Front
poster from the 1970s
With a 2010 state proposition on gay marriage in the works and a national gay rally on the Washington Mall being planned for October 10-11 of that year, it's obvious that more and more of the LGBT community's resources are being funneled into the battle for marriage equality, while other causes go begging.
Already gay marriage has become a black hole that is sucking untold amounts of money, time, and energy out of our community. In the 2008 election alone, gay marriage supporters raised $43.3 million to defeat Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative that California voters passed by 52 percent. It may be the biggest chunk of change the community has ever spent for a single fight.
A QUESTION OF PRIORITIES
I'm not against gay marriage. If queer couples want to be as miserable as straight ones, that's their choice. Marriage is a failed institution. With a 54.
8 percent divorce rate nationally and a 60 percent rate here in California, there's no doubt in my mind that heterosexual "wedded bliss" is more of an oxymoron than a reality.
What's troubling to me as a queer activist of almost 40 years (much of that time spent on economic justice work) is that, with the tremendous amount of homelessness, poverty, and unemployment in our community, we are spending so much dough on the fight to give a minority of folks — those who opt for tying the knot — rights and privileges that straight married folks have.
Sure, it's unfair that married straights get tax breaks, not to mention the status of next-of-kin for hospital visits and medical decisions when one partner is ill, and queers don't. Altogether, married couples have 1,400 benefits, both state and federal, that domestic partners and single people don't enjoy. It's a matter of simple justice that the playing field be leveled. Only a right-wing idiot could disagree with that. Now, if only we could fight to give everyone (including singles) those 1,400 benefits.
For me it's a question of priorities. We are living in scary times. Unemployment is sky-high; millions are without healthcare, including children; foreclosures are robbing homeowners and tenants alike of their housing; and business collapses are leaving a lot of people out in the cold and unable to pay the rent or the mortgage.
DINKS NO MORE
The queer community is no better off.
It's a popular misconception that queers have a lot of disposable income. The "double income, no kids" (DINK) myth was promoted in the 1980s by gay publishers who wanted to expand their advertising base and their profits. These days, to read many gay publications, you'd think that all queers are going on fabulous vacations and buying expensive clothes, jewelry, and electronic gizmos.
That myth was easily dispelled by a recent study, "Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community," published this March by the Williams Institute at UCLA. Like "Income Inflation: the myth of affluence among gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans," the groundbreaking 1998 study by M.V. Lee Badgett of the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts ...
Mark Barnes
Gay marriage is absolutely as worthy and important a cause as any of the others Mecca mentions. Whatever your thoughts about marriage (personally, I think it's kind of quaint at best, idiotic at worst), unless it's done away with, gay taxpayers have as much right to it as straight ones. And think about this: Do you really want yet another generation of gay kids in America growing up with the stigma of being second-class citizens in the eyes of the state? There's plenty of goodwill, money and time to be volunteered here in San Francisco...until activists start wasting that time slagging off other activists over "prioritization." The people I know who worked tirelessly against Proposition 8 are already bummed out, and in some cases, leaning toward apathy and resignation; the last thing they need is for others to start insinuating that their efforts never really counted for anything to begin with. That's precisely the sort of rhetoric that drives people away from activism and philanthropy for keeps.
Mr Mecca, I have much respect for you and your work and I wish you continued success. Now please, get back to that good work and let others do the same. In whatever way they chose to do so.
Comment on: The price of normal
In order to comment on an article, you must Log In.
