David and I arrived in Oregon in the late 1980s as a newly-minted gay couple, energized by the 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. We fled conservative Virginia, enticed by the seeming tolerance of the Northwest.
Soon after we arrived, the nascent Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA) brought us down to earth - or the mire, more accurately - with Measure 8, an initiative to repeal the Governor's executive order banning discrimination in state government and at the same time prohibit any job protection for gays and lesbians in government. The measure handily passed.
I remember finding a campaign brochure from the OCA explaining that all gay men eat four tablespoons of feces each year. However bizarre (and mysterious) that claim, I heard it repeated unselfconsciously a few days later on the radio. Then again. And again.
The campaign for and passage of Measure 8 sickened and, honestly, frightened us. We faced opprobrium of the sort that fed anti-semitism to the gates of Auschwitz. We wondered if we had made a mistake leaving Virginia. At least there no one talked about homosexuality.
But we soldiered on. We got involved politically. We told ourselves that the benighted OCA would burn out soon enough, and major straight political leaders would emerge who would grasp the moral imperative of fighting for GLBT rights.
But the OCA returned in 1992 with Measure 9, an initiative that, had it passed, would have amended our state constitution to say that the state "recognizes homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism and masochism as abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse." The measure did not pass. It barely did not pass, and it did not pass in the same election Bill Clinton won.
Naively, we thought the coming of Clinton coupled with the failure of Measure 9 meant change was inevitable. Yet within a year Clinton dashed out hope with the odious "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "Gays undermine unit cohesion," Colin Powell proclaimed (lest Powell slip into history as a decent mensch, remember that he talked Congress into invading Iraq in 2003 - blood, Powell baby, lots and lots of blood). Of course, gays undermine unit cohesion when generals tells units that gays undermine unit cohesion.
Meanwhile, the ongoing battle for marriage equality began. I confess that I did not get it at first. I thought of marriage as a holdover from the old common law, the means by which a man made a woman chattel. Who wanted that baggage? I did not for some time grasp that what matters about marriage - what matters beyond the obvious issue of equal treatment under the law - is whether we same-sex couples are entitled to belong, really belong, in our society.
The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) told us otherwise. Clinton signed it. Interestingly, he did not mention DOMA in his 2004 memoir, My Life. I guess revisionist histories leave out acts of manifest discrimination.
By the time the Bush Dark Ages began, I did get same-sex marriage. I got it, and I wanted it. I wanted it for the reason most straight couples want marriage (and, come on now, the reason is not spelled out in statute books). So it seemed abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse that in 2004 enough citizens of my state voted for Measure 36 to deny us a civil right straights can take for granted.
Okay, there have been advances. Certainly, David and I enjoy civil rights unknown to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered persons of generations before us. And, okay, how much further advance could we really have expected during Bush's reign of reaction?
Still, I find it remarkable that nearly 25 years have passed since I met David, yet we still cannot marry in Oregon. We have "domestic partnership," but, ahem, separate but equal always was separate and never equal. There is no national law barring sexuality discrimination in employment. Gays and lesbians still cannot tell in the military, yet, I hear, they still are asked. We should have come much further than this by now.
This past October 11 was the GLBT National March on Washington. Many of our GLBT leaders stayed away. Some openly criticized the marchers for impatience, political naivete, even arrogance. "Why rock the boat?" "Don't mess it up." "Slow down kiddies," they said, "And shut up."
Hearing this criticism, I realized that too many of our GLBT leaders have fallen into the delusion that we are Players and can work "within the system." Hello? If we really were Players, what use would we have for civil rights leaders? I realized that the October marchers were right: Why should we settle for incremental civil rights? Equality is a unity. Either we are equal before the law, or we are not.
Last week's vote against same-sex marriage perhaps highlights the pretense of Playerdom. Yes, the GLBT communities worked hard to beat Maine's measure, but they had to do so in the context of national GLBT leaders whining about patience and restraint. We now must ask ourselves: Did political restraint help chart the way for this latest broadside of intolerance?
(Out of curiosity, I just checked the Human Rights Campaign's website. No mention of Maine on the homepage. There is a link to the new HRC credit card, and, my oh my, isn't it nice to see so many corporate sponsors. I am figuring something out: Maybe our "leaders" lead incrementally because real equality would put them out of their jobs.)
Given what is going on within the GLBT communities, perhaps it is not surprising that we do not hear clarion calls for equality from many straight political leaders, from the top down. A year of Obama now has passed, yet "don't ask, don't tell" persists.
A friend asked me this past weekend if my patience with Obama had worn thin. I wanted to say no. I really wanted to say "no," but the "no" no longer came. Obama's failure to end "don't ask, don't tell" seems emblematic. Obama could have killed the policy his first day, his first week, heck, his first month in office. He would have raised a fuss, of course, but the very fact of that fuss would have made his action all the more meaningful. Had Obama promptly ended "don't ask, don't tell," he would have made a powerful statement how much equality matters. After all, protection of equal rights is one of the reasons we have a military.
Obama now has squandered his opportunity. Worse, by perpetuating "don't ask, don't tell" even as the military desperately needs recruits, he has telegraphed the message that GLBT citizens are not the same as others. We are not entitled to equal rights. We are not entilted to really belong. As our leaders go, then, no surprise that so goes Maine.
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