Yesterday was my husband’s birthday, the second one we’ve celebrated since we got married. I’m already sick to death of his birthday gift from voters being yet another in the long line of statewide decisions that we’re just not human.
Look at Maine. Compare it with California; see a far more competent, sensitive, well-run, well-organized, on-message campaign in a state many see as reasonable. Yet Question 1 succeeds with nearly the same proportion of voters in Maine as Prop 8 in California. Our side did a far better job – but to what effect? It feels like zero. There’s no arguing belief. In spite of all our work, fact-free is fine -- there are no hearts and minds to win. Either people like us, or we’re just too disgusting to deserve to be treated like human beings.
I have journaled here about LGBT civil rights. I registered my UID to do exactly that. I felt I had to add my voice to this din, like that was worth it – since, like it or not, DKos is no echo chamber on LGBT rights. A fair number of Democrats still see gay folks as repugnant, indiscriminately slutty child-molesting perverts.
My conclusion: I’m not convincing anyone. Few of us are; we are having no effect. The only thing to do is to wait this out.
We have come so far from where we were. Change is here. Five years ago, state after state after state passed laws and constitutional amendments against us by legislative or popular vote (or both). Hating us was the fashion. It was profitable and easy – and virtually no one stood up for us. Not even us, actually, in a lot of cases. I did nothing to fight my state’s constitutional amendment passage; what was the point? It passed on a three-to-one margin. If polls are any indication, nothing has changed in Texas since that time.
What has changed is that our movement is more energized. It’s not so fashionable to hate us. We’re viewed more and more as capable, worthwhile human beings -- parents, co-workers, citizens, contributors. If all politics is local, we are starting to win. It used to be that we lost all local elections. Much like Colorado attempted to do, Cincinnati passed a ballot measure banning ANY protections for us in the 1990s, for example – Ballot Measure 3 passed with flying colors. It was the kind of thing Anita Bryant is very proud of – she led the charge to repeal any and every protective measure back in the ‘70s and others have taken on her work and profited handsomely from doing so.
But we are starting to win local elections – Kalamazoo passed Ordinance 1856 the other night by a 2-to-1 margin. Gainesville, Florida, kept protections in place for us last year. Cincinnati repealed Ballot Measure 3 in 2005 – and our rights are now protected there. When it comes to protecting us from discrimination in housing and employment, actually, Maine actually voted to do that in 2005 – but marriage is a different matter. It looks like Washington might very well let us even have domestic partnerships – but marriage – real, live, actual marriage – is a different matter.
As candidates, too, we are winning local elections. And we’re doing it as openly LGBT people, not as people who hide from who we are until someone forces us out of the closet during our term (sorry, Barney). Chapel Hill, NC, elected a gay man mayor the other night. Annise Parker is the woman to beat in Houston’s runoff mayoral election next month. Annise isn’t some self-hating closeted politician. She’s never had a problem telling Houston voters she has a partner and kids. And they’ve been electing her to office for much of my adult life. I think I can handle it when the mayor of the fourth largest city in the USA – and the biggest city in TEXAS, mind you – just happens to be an out, proud gay person.
So things are changing, as they often do, from the ground up. Openly gay people are only just beginning to pop up in Congress. That’s probably going to be a next step. To quote a character in HotHead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist (my favorite comic strip), "Slow change is lasting change. That’s just the way it is."
Even so, I’m sick to death of hearing about the arc of history bending toward justice. Save it. The arc of history beating us black and blue again and once again handed my husband shitbombs for his birthday. I’m fucking exhausted from holding him while we cry on a day we should celebrate. I’m done with richly funded, religiously motivated better-than-us bigots who preach love while they spew hate. I've also had it with anyone who enables them. I’ve had it with corrupt milquetoast politicians who are so damned busy protecting their money and power that they studiously avoid standing up for what’s right, and I support anyone who wants to primary them out of a seat. I’m especially tired of people waiting until their political career is over to speak up for us. That’s right, Bill Clinton, I’m looking at you, you weasel. Better late than never -- but damn it, stop being late, people. And I’ve had it with writing about my own civil rights. It doesn’t matter. People who don’t give a damn aren’t going to start giving a damn because of me.
I will be seeing a few of you volunteering for a campaign here or there, I’m sure. We’re going to contact Annise Parker’s campaign to find out what we can do on the ground, since Houston’s just down the road, and we can do something directly good for LGBT people there.
But here on DKos, or elsewhere, for that matter, I don’t see me writing anything else about LGBT issues. I need to take some self-protective measures. If I could, I’d ensconce myself and my husband on a small farm, surrounded by trees, veggie gardens, flowers, animals, maybe an orchard, and friends who protect us from having our humanity called into question. And I’d stay there, cocooned in a green, living shell, for as long as I could.
So maybe I’ll diary nutrition issues; or talk more about the species I see as survivors and innovators out there, in the hopes that someone will see a reason to stand up and protect them; or just try to find a way to bring a little beauty in here...because I am just sick over the hate. Fighting it, feeding it with attention, I fear, only makes it stronger and me weaker. There is a difference between shining a spotlight on hate and actually strengthening it by making it important. I do not know where that line is and I do not want to approach it. I strongly appreciate those folks who can more easily negotiate that, and I think everyone who fights for us is a hero. Even if your fight is only a prayer. But really the only thing at this point that will foment change is time. I don’t know how long that’s going to be, but it’s not tomorrow, and it’s not next year. A whole lot of folks are going to have to die before my lifelong love isn’t revolting to a bare majority of any state in the union. Unfortunately, some of those folks who die will be LGBT folks who would, more than anything, have loved to have simply been equal citizens.
So – goodbye, cruel LGBT issues. Hello, nature and beauty and health. I hope I have the staying power of a sequoia. I’ll need it to see equality through. We all will.