Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…
– Rhyme taught to British children. Learn more about Guy Fawkes Day (Official UK government site; amateur historian site)
“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.”
– Barack Obama’s election victory speech, November 4, 2008 (video + transcript; transcript only)
Believe it or not there were other important questions decided by voters on Tuesday besides who would be the next President of the United States. Voters in Washington state approved a measure to allow terminally ill patients to elect physician assisted suicide while voters in Maryland approved two Constitutional amendments, one allowing legalized slot machines and another mandating early voting. But the big news is California.
California voters went to the polls and approved the anti-factory farming initiative Proposition 2 and they also passed Proposition 8 which by Constitutional amendment will “eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California” and “provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” If you look at the election results you’ll see that the split in voting on Prop 8 was about the same as split in the presidential election: Yes on Prop 8 got 52.4% of the vote; Obama got 52.6% of the vote. Yet today The Washington Post is reporting (read it as a PDF or you’ll have to register to read it online) that 80% of black voters and 53% of hispanic voters (yes, I said “black” and “hispanic”; I am a child of the 1970s after all) supported Prop 8. Why? It’s a culture thing. From the Post article:
The Latino vote for the ban also appears rooted in culture.
“It’s our tradition,” said Flor Guardado, 38, who voted yes. “In Latino Central American culture, the gays aren’t accepted.”
Guardado said that in her native Honduras, she would not tell her mother if she had a lesbian friend. “If I had a lesbian friend, they’d think I was a lesbian, too,” she said.
But in Los Angeles, where she owns a hair salon, a different kind of diplomacy obtains. All eight of her employees are gay. When they asked how she voted, she tells them it’s a secret.
“I’m sorry for the gay people. They have feelings,” said the mother of two. “Legally, I don’t want that for the children. They will be confused and think it’s okay. They might think they’re gay, too.”
So…it’s OK to employ gay people but not OK for us to have full civil rights?
Now, I’ve never been a fan of marriage as an institution; mostly it has been used to establish lineage for inheritance purposes and until the last 45 years or so women usually ended up worse off when they were married in terms of their ability to get a job, earn money, get credit, and make decisions about their own lives, including how to spend money they’d earned if they already had a job, than women who stayed single. I also happen to think that using marriage as the primary venue for fighting for full civil rights for lesbian, gay, and transgendered people is just fuckdumb for two reasons: 1) as an institution marriage has deeply rooted religious connections and there’s very little more futile than trying to convince someone that their religion is wrong, and 2) there are more important things we should be worrying about, like the fact that in 31 states it is legal to fire someone on the basis of their sexual orientation and in 39 it is legal to do so based on their gender identity.
But regardless of my view of marriage personally or the political argument over whether we should be pushing for marriage, “settling” for civil unions, or using vast legal resources to force the government to make all legal partnerships civil unions regardless of whether they are same-sex or hetero-sex and letting churches perform “marriages” for whomever they see fit thereby taking religion out of the legal assignment of rights altogether is moot. What really concerns me is the idea that my rights and the rights of millions of Americans get to be decided by popularity contest.
According to Derek McCoy, African American outreach director for the Protect Marriage Campaign, again quoted in the Post article, it’s because “The gay community was never considered a third of a person.”
So let me get this right: the strategy used in the black community, which worked with 80% of black voters, was that because gay men and lesbians haven’t been as oppressed as black folk everyone gets the right to decide whether I can inherit property from my spouse or whether or not my spouse can be denied the right to sit by my hospital bed and hold my hand while I die?
And I’m supposed to be happy we now have a black president who, by the way, supports civil unions but not marriage?
Really?
It is also worth pointing out that in 1961 when Barack Obama’s parents were married in Hawaii almost half of U.S. states had miscegenation laws on the books.
The irony astounds.
And I want to ask that 80% all of whom likely voted for Obama how, exactly, does continuing to deny me my rights constitute all of us looking after not just ourselves but each other?
Now, I know it’s not fair to extrapolate the views of our newly elected president from the views of a bunch of judgemental hypocrites in California and it’s really not fair considering that as one of his stated civil rights agenda items Obama has pledged that his administration will work to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, but it’s so hard despite the pretty words and the eloquent speeches to feel like yes, there is going to be a place for me and my kind at the table.
One of the hallmarks of the outgoing Administration and the cultural changes Bush and his cronies wrought on this country was the near destruction of the idea that it is not only the right of citizens but their absolute duty to question the policies of their government. It is not only our right but our duty as responsible citizens to hold Obama’s feet to the fire. We would be fools not to demand intensely and immediate the rights – whether those are the same rights and privileges guaranteed under the law to heterosex couples or the right not to be fired from our jobs or denied housing – we deserve.
Gunpowder, treason, and plot may be going a little overboard when it comes to trying to secure civil rights. Or maybe not.
Resources
Transcript of the Constitution of the United States. Please duly note that the 14th Amendment which canceled out that 3/5ths definition gave only men the right to vote.
Leave a Reply