As a socialist and as a person who believes strongly in expressing solidarity with movements for full equality and liberation I find myself conflicted with how to deal with the prioritization of winning marriage equality for same-sex couples among progressive organizations.
I do believe strongly that gay and lesbian couples deserve the right to marry and most certainly deserve the 1400+ rights that come with the institution of marriage. I also believe that marriage is a very flawed institution that has historically be used to keep women and people of color oppressed and to keep a certain order to society that regardless of whether or not gays and lesbians are allowed in the club will still be an oppressive system.
I know that for thousands of couples and families the rights that accompany marriage are of vital importance – for many it is a life or death issue. The right for a child to visit their parent in the hospital or the right for a spouse to receive the social security benefits of their deceased loved ones matters to me. It matters deep down in my core.
Yet, year-by-year, I see who is leading the marriage movement. I see the campaigns the marriage equality organizations have run so far. And I see the most pressing needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities.
I have seen marriage equality organizations hand out flyers at immigration rights rallies only to turn around and endorse candidates who were against immigrants' rights. I have seen marriage equality organizations avoid showing any out gay people in their advertisements, let alone families or gender variant and transgender people. I have seen marriage organizations endorse candidates who were pro-life, and pro-war.
When I was organizing a direct action protest against Focus On the Family in collaboration with anti-war groups, the marriage equality organizations asked me to stop. Several of their leading employees even took me out to dinner to beg me to stop. They didn’t want an angry protest to mess up their multi-million dollar desexualized, gentle, all-American patriotic image. (It ended up being the largest ever protest against Focus On The Family by the way!)
These actions are unacceptable and are not in the spirit of solidarity or coalition building that we need in order to win full equality and liberation for ALL people.
The issue of most importance to the LGBTQ people I have come across in my 10 years of activism and involvement with LGBTQ movements is not marriage, it’s general acceptance, safety on the streets and access to direct services like healthcare.
As the predominately white, wealthy leaders of marriage equality organizations continue to push at the ballot box via costly campaigns that drain hundreds, yes hundreds, of millions of dollars from the LGBTQ movement, the groups that serve those most in need are closing their doors or barely hanging on.
Where were the mainstream gay rights organizations when it came time to organize for a single payer or public health care option that would have helped more queer families than any gay rights bill ever could? They were silent, perhaps because many of their biggest funders are pharmaceutical companies. As socialists, it behooves us to say something about this.
The National Youth Advocacy Coalition will close their doors this May. Lyon Martin, the one organization that provides healthcare to transgender and queer people in San Francisco is on the verge of closing their doors too. The New Orleans LGBT Center is begging for help, and the San Jose LGBT center has almost closed several times. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has deemed homelessness among LGBTQ youth an “epidemic.” At least one in five people with an LGBTQ parent lives in poverty (Williams Institute).
The marriage organizations across the country have not done the coalition building necessary to win, nor have they prepared themselves or the broader queer community to deal with the inevitable backlash that accompanies gay marriage campaigns. When marriage is in the news, our youth suffer at school. Studies have shown that harassment of LGBTQ youth skyrockets when ballot initiatives are being debated. Just ask GLSEN.
The Trevor Project, It Gets Better, and Make It Better campaign have brought much needed attention to the plight of queer youth. But it’s not enough. We need the wealthy funders of the marriage equality organizations to put their money where their mouths are when to comes to FULL equality.
If they’re going to lead us down another Prop 8 style battle in California and nationwide, we need them to support the infrastructure that the queer community relies on for survival.
