The last 15 months have seen a sea-change in gay politics. To many it appeared to be the inevitable march of progress. The march began with the U.S. Supreme Court's Texas decision in June 2003, continued with the Massachusetts court's equal marriage rulings implemented on May 17, and most recently saw the defeat of the anti-gay 'Federal Marriage Amendment' in the Senate.
Unfortunately, this illusion of 'inevitability' is not supported by the evidence. It's also a dangerous prescription for complacency. Powerful forces are arrayed against us, and yet almost no politicians of either major party are saying that gay people deserve equal marriage rights, let alone equal legal rights of all kinds. Anti-gay politicians brazenly say we shouldn't be the legal equals of heterosexuals—something which few of them would dare say about other groups—while politicians who claim to be on our side refuse to embrace equal marriage rights as a basic issue of civil rights and fairness.
Violence, including murder, against LGBT people in many communities around the country has spiked during the past year. Alongside our court victories have come important defeats like the vote for the 'Marriage Protection Act' in the House strengthening Clinton's 1996 anti-gay 'Defense of Marriage Act.' The overwhelming vote in favor of an anti-gay constitutional amendment for Missouri last month could be followed by a string of similar defeats in Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah by early November.
Campaigning in Missouri the day after the vote, Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards said that he and Kerry had 'no objection' to the anti-gay constitutional amendment. 'We're both opposed to gay marriage and believe that states should be allowed to decide this question,' he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. John Kerry said that if he were a citizen of Missouri, he would have voted FOR the anti-gay measure.
Topping it all, equal marriage in the relatively liberal state of Massachusetts, the one state where we've won it, could be ended as early as 2006. In Massachusetts the overwhelmingly Democratic state legislature and its leadership, backed by John Kerry and Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, have committed themselves to destroying our legal right to marry there at the earliest opportunity. Whoever wins in November, we'll have a president who forthrightly says he is against our equal marriage rights, and hence legal equality, for our community.
Even during our recent win in the Senate, most Senators 'supported' us in terms that were insulting to our rights and our humanity. After voting on our side, Tom Daschle, leader of the Democrats in the Senate, said:
'Marriage is a sacred union between men and women. That is what the vast majority of Americans believe. It's what virtually all South Dakotans believe. It's what I believe. In South Dakota, we've never had a single same-sex marriage, and we won't have any. ... There is no confusion. There is no ambiguity.'
Senators who claimed to support equal rights said they opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment NOT because it stripped us of our legal equality, but because the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act was a GOOD piece of legislation! Hardly a ringing endorsement of equal rights from those who claim to be our friends. In July the House passed the DOMA-strengthening 'Marriage Protection Act' (MPA), which would basically say that the federal courts are a 'no-go zone' for LGBT people demanding that our marriages performed in one state be respected elsewhere. The Senate looks set to vote on the MPA this fall.
In Illinois, even though fringe, anti-gay Senate candidate Alan Keyes does not have a prayer of winning, and anti-gay Sen. Peter Fitzgerald is retiring, come Nov. 3 both U.S. Senate seats from Illinois will STILL be filled by politicians opposed to equal rights for gay people. When Keyes called Vice President Cheney's daughter and all LGBT people 'hedonistic' and 'sinful,' Obama laughed off the remarks, joking about all the attention Keyes was getting rather than calling to task the hate directed against an entire community. Even though he is a constitutional scholar, Obama opposes equal marriage rights and proposes 'separate but equal' civil unions instead. Sen. Dick Durban mimics his cowardly political colleagues, in July saying that 'There are some, such as myself, who oppose same-sex marriage but believe that civil unions should be allowed as they are in many states, and as they are recognized by many private companies. There are strong feelings about a marriage between a man and a woman that are shared by me and by others.'
But Won't the Courts Save Us?
With 'activist' courts we've recently had a string of good luck, but such good luck could easily end if our community and allies are insufficiently mobilized in support of these decisions. History has shown that great court decisions can remain a dead letter if there is no public movement to force their implementation. The great 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., decision was supposed to desegregate the schools. But real desegregation did not begin until the Civil Rights Movement's militant sit-ins, freedom rides and bus boycotts forced such change beginning in the 1960s.
This history should inform us as to how we can win legal equality for LGBT people today. While they are ratified in the legislatures and courts, civil rights are always WON in the streets.
Unfortunately, most national LGBT organizations are saying, or at least acting like, civil-rights progress must be put off until after the election. This ignores the fact that whoever wins in November, we'll have a president who forthrightly says he is against equal marriage rights, and hence legal equality, for our community.
When Kerry said he favored the Missouri anti-gay constitutional amendment, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson brushed it off by saying, 'This is consistent with what he's been saying all along,' even though the viciously anti-gay amendment not only prevents gay marriage, but prohibits civil unions and wipes out domestic-partner benefits. This hands-off attitude mimics the disastrous stance that most LGBT organizations took towards the Clinton administration. Twelve years ago we had a president who started out with two Democratic houses of Congress and a promise of ending anti-gay employment discrimination in the military, who instead gave us 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' the Defense of Marriage Act and the 'Republican Revolution.' The reason was simple: When our community failed to pressure Clinton for civil-rights change, the only pressure remaining on the administration came from the far right. As the great abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass put it, 'power concedes nothing without a demand, never has, never will.' Our community was demanding nothing of the Clinton administration, and as a result, got worse than nothing as a result.
The lesson today is that we must publicly challenge politicians who oppose our legal equality, regardless of their party affiliation. Instead of plowing even more resources into supporting politicians who gladly take our money and yet refuse to treat us as equal human beings, we must get back to the kind of on-the-streets activism which has always been the greatest source of civil-rights progress.
With that in mind, the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network invites you to participate in the 6th Annual Matthew Shepard March for LGBT Equality, 8 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 2, Halsted and Roscoe, Chicago. Our theme will be 'DEMAND Legal Equality. DEMAND Marriage Equality'
The battle over marriage rights is about much more than just the 1,000+ rights that come with legalized marriage. It has become a referendum on the future of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered people in this country. Will LGBT people become equal citizens? Or will we be officially proscribed by our government, and hence fair game for the sort of discrimination and violence which ultimately left a young man strung up on a Wyoming fence six years ago?
Chicago Anti-Bashing Network, www.CABN.org, CABNstopthehate@aol.com, 888-471-0874
