Angela's bashes
I gagged as I read Yasmin Nair's account of activist Angela Davis insulting LGBTs who desire the right to marry. Davis says these LGBTs are motivated by a desire for "bourgeois respectability."
But most equal marriage-rights activists I know simply desire the same rights that heterosexuals take for granted, rights that are particularly useful to working class LGBTs who can't afford specialized contracts drawn up by attorneys. Also, whether desiring marriage for themselves or not, they are intelligent enough to know that to tolerate the government dictating second class citizenship for anyone—defined as substandard legal rights—is demeaning and a mark of self-hatred.
How silly Davis' position is can be seen by analogy. Should African American activists of the 1950s and 60s have tolerated the often petty segregation of their time, such as separate drinking fountains and lunch counters? Should they have disparaged those who organized against these indignities? Or did most rightly see these measures as calculated insults to all African Americans, designed to buttress the more far-reaching and systematic oppression of their community?
Were those who organized against racial segregation necessarily "assimilationist" to white culture or seeking "bourgeois respectability?" Undoubtedly a minority of them were, but most weren't, and it would be insulting to that majority to cast the entire movement as such. The foremost Black radical of that era, Malcolm X, started out with a position similar to Davis', disparaging the movement against segregation, but then matured into an appreciation of it—without losing any of his revolutionary edge.
The reason why the anti-LGBT haters at the Illinois Family Institute fight tooth and nail against equal-marriage rights is not because they really give a damn whom any of us marry (or not), but because they see the unequal legal status of LGBTs as a bulwark to systematic homophobia and transphobia in society at large.
To the minority of LGBTs today who, like Davis, disparage the fight for equal-marriage rights, I would only ask, have you ever denounced your (presumably straight) parents or other close relatives for their marriages? Have you demanded that they divorce in solidarity with us, rather than pursue "bourgeois respectability?" Have you demanded the same of your straight comrades who are married?
Of course not. You disparage marriage rights ONLY when same-sex couples pursue the same rights as your straight friends and relatives. That double-standard sounds a lot like LGBT self-hatred to me. Moreover, for all of your radical posturing about "opposing assimilation," when you oppose the fight for the equal right to marry, you are unwittingly assimilating into the homo-hating status quo.
Finally, for those who know her political history, it's a little bit rich for Davis to lecture us about the marriage rights movement being aimed at "bourgeois respectability." While she certainly has made valuable contributions to the movement for human freedom in other ways, when it comes to LGBT rights, for more than two decades she managed to be at peace—during Stonewall, during the height of the women's and gay liberation movements—in a political organization which described homosexuality itself as "a bourgeois deviation." Self-hatred indeed.
Right now Illinois's equal-marriage rights bill hangs in the balance. Those who oppose us are busy sponsoring weekly hate rallies around the Chicago area, whipping up homophobia and transphobia where they can. Those of us who care and can, are out in the streets opposing them.
Very soon the Supreme Court will issue its most significant LGBT decisions of the decade. Whether they were issuing decisions on equal marriage rights, equal employment rights or whatever, on a basic level it really doesn't matter. What they're really doing is deigning to decide whether or not LGBTs will finally become citizens in this country.
And since the court's decisions are frequently influenced by public opinion and the potential for public outcry, what we do in the streets of our cities over the next several weeks really does matter. That's why those standing on the sidelines during this, while claiming to be "progressive," "radical" or whatever, are fiddling while Rome burns—the very antithesis of true activism.
Andy Thayer
Co-founder, Gay Liberation Network
* * *
Getting in on the acts
Dear Windy City Times,
Thank you for the excellent collection of archival materials and for discussing the verboten subject of the connection between homosexuality and the registry in the first set of articles in your Criminal Legal series. I look forward to seeing what you have in store in the next installments.
There is one important point to note. The article "Bars for Life" starts the history of the registry in 1994 with the passage of the Wetterling Act. However, the Wetterling Act was just the federal government getting in on the growth of state registries across the country that started in California in 1947. This was the McCarthy era and the registry was used throughout the 1950s and onward to harass homosexuals. Ninety percent of the people on the registry in that period were adult men convicted of engaging in or soliciting sexual activity with another adult man. With the decriminalization of sodomy in the late 1900s, culminating in the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court Lawrence decision, the focus of the registry gradually shifted from homosexuality to pedophilia. For more on the history of the registry and its homophobic roots, you may find my report on the subject of interest, at www.SOLresearch.org/SORorigin.
The "Bars" article also says that the Adam Walsh Act was also passed in 1994. This is obviously just a typo; the AWA was passed in 2006.
Again, these comments aside, thank you for your excellent investigative journalism.
Marshall Burns, Ph.D.
SOL Research
www.SOLresearch.org
* * *
Catholic controversy
I am responding to Dignity's President Chris Pett's letter to the editor in Windy City Times concerning tensions within AGLO over the cardinal's invitation.
I could not agree more with Chris' assessment that the situation at AGLO concerning Cardinal George raises some good questions. However, where I depart with him is in what those questions are.
The issue of AGLO's vision statement or its relationship to church authority was not the issue. The Rainbow Sash Movement's concern was over the decision to invite a man who has done so much harm to our community for its 25th anniversary. In our opinion, they could have respected not only our Roman Catholic community but the broader LGBT community, and found someone who does not have so much painful baggage.
On the whole, AGLO does a good job. It does not misrepresent itself as a Roman Catholic community. It attempts to bring the good news of the gospel to our community and encourages people to move deeper in their faith journey. However, we do have differences not only with the cardinal's invitation. Because of the church's teaching on women, many Catholic lesbians do not feel welcome and AGLO, for its part, has done nothing to reach out to Catholic lesbian community. Members of the transgender community are not openly welcomed, either. I have only seen one transgender person present at the liturgy in the time I have been attending AGLO. Basically, AGLO is made up of manly white males who are comfortable with that situation.
This is not about whose ministry should or should not exist; it is about exercising some common sense in decision-making. We will continue support AGLO in a mature relationship. People of good will can have differences without picking up their bat ball and running every time they don't get their way.
Chris' reference to dialogue with the cardinal is a bit bizarre. I have had a private meeting with Cardinal George, unlike Frank DeBernardo or Chris—I don't think either have. I can assure you he believes that error has no rights. It is misleading to imply that the Rainbow Sash Movement is not about open dialogue. I can only attribute that to a good Catholic/bad Catholic mentality that some use to dismiss others.
In a Feb. 18, 2004, letter to the editor of Windy City Times, Jim Bussen spoke for Dignity and said of the cardinal's last visit to AGLO, "Anyone who would celebrate and defend this false teaching and the man who promulgates it is either incredibly naive, or self-loathing, or a betrayer of who they are as a person and a betrayer of their community." Chris, what has happened to change Dignity's opinion of this man? If anything, he has only gotten more homophobic.
AGLO's decision to invite Cardinal George for its 25th-anniversary Mass was imprudent. All we are asking for is a reasonable explanation of its decision-making process.
Joe Murray
Rainbow Sash Movement
* * *
Not mad about Madigan
Dear Windy City Times,
Failure to pass the Illinois same-sex marriage bill cannot be blamed on the Republican Party. It is largely irrelevant to this issue. In fact, two courageous Republican legislators back the bill, as do U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk and outgoing state party chair Pat Brady.
The problem, instead, is with the Democrats, who say they support us, have a 2-to-1 plurality in the House—and yet fail to act in our favor.
House Speaker Mike Madigan is the most powerful politician in the state. Anyone who knows anything about Illinois politics knows that when he truly wants a bill passed, his House Democratic caucus responds in lockstep. An example of his recent effectiveness is the pressure he exerted to pass, over stiff opposition, his odious pension bill, one that reduces the constitutionally mandated benefits of current and retired teachers and state workers.
Yet Madigan sits on the marriage-equality bill. Why? Why not the same sense of urgency, the same degree of pressure, for it that he shows in undermining the future income of Illinois teachers and government workers? Could it be that he doesn't want to put at risk his daughter's gubernatorial ambitions by appearing to fight too hard for marriage equality for thousands of Illinois LGBT people?
It is time to call out House Speaker Mike Madigan as the reason we don't have marriage equality in Illinois. Passage of the Illinois bill is particularly important now as a means of putting additional pressure on the Supreme Court to totally wipe away the anti-gay Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, as well as California's Proposition 8, when it rules sometime between now and late June.
The legislative session closes May 31. Speaker Madigan, now is the time to act!
Roger Fraser
Rolling Meadows
