Quotes from this essay:
And the more troubling question is: Who is going to clean up this mess? How did gay marriage become “the issue” in Maine and how did so many LGBTA folks get duped into making this campaign their top priority, emotionally, financially and otherwise, by the shallow rhetoric of equality?
This is something we still need to deal with. Even after federal marriage equality took place during the Obama administration, so many people (including liberals in the LGBTQIA+ community want to ignore that we still are not free. We did not get liberation because we could enter into a state-sanctioned structure that protected a few but not many, leaving so many people behind.
Gays and lesbians of all ages are obsessing over gay marriage as if it's going to cure AIDS, stop anti‐queer/anti‐trans violence, provide all uninsured queers with health care, and reform racist immigration policies. Unfortunately, marriage does little more than consolidate even more power in the hands of already privileged gay couples engaged in middle class hetero‐mimicry.
Two things:
This is still happening to some extent because people are really pushing this as the end-all-be-all of queer liberation, when it's not even liberating in the first place. And, as we've seen in other arenas, it's so fucking easy to smash them and have these rights removed with barely a fight (by the people who claim constantly to "do what's best" for us).
This kind of fight still happens in places where same-sex marriage is under attack or straight out banned. We still see people pushing for the most minimal of changes and obsessing over them to our detriment. It's infuriating.
Let’s be clear: The national gay marriage campaign is NOT a social justice movement. Gay marriage reinforces the for‐profit medical industrial complex by tying access to health care to employment and relational status. Gay marriage does not challenge patent laws that keep poor/working class poz folks from accessing life‐extending medications. Gay marriage reinforces the nuclear family as the primary support structure for youth even though nuclear families are largely responsible for queer teen homelessness, depression and suicide. Gay marriage does not challenge economic systems set up to champion people over property and profit. Gay marriage reinforces racist immigration laws by only allowing productive, “good”, soon‐to‐be‐wed, non‐citizens in while ignoring the rights of migrant workers. Gay marriage simply has nothing to do with social justice.
Note: 'Poz' is a reference to HIV+ people. (This is something I had to look up because it was not part of my vocabulary.)
Fucking hard agree, though. And this is still the case.
Comments on the sections: "An Opportunistic National Strategy" and "Following the Money"
This is a huge problem, and I don't think enough people saw through it as it was happening. This ties into issues with the Non-Profit Industrial Complex; they get to help set the stage as tools of governments, and that's a huge issue. Instead of focusing on all the problems above, which would've helped far more people (including queer people)? We got stuck on goddamned marriage equality and everything tied to belongings, wealth, and ownership.
I also feel like we haven't done enough to actually check into where the money is coming from and has gone; there are so many things I didn't know because they weren't happening in my community, and there wasn't a queer community for me to safely be a part of (where I lived).
And I'm starting to wonder how much of that lack of community was caused by same-sex marriage campaigns soaking up cash, spending it, and ignoring on-the-ground needs of people in a range of places.
In a state with a tanking economy, this kind of reckless spending on a single issue campaign that isn’t even a top priority for most LGBT folks is blatant and unrestrained classism at its worst.
Some suggest that gay marriage is part of a progress narrative and that it is a step in the right direction towards more expansive social justice issues. This largely ignores a critique of power. Once privilege is doled out to middle class gay couples, are they going to continue on to fight against racist immigration policies, for universal health care, for comprehensive queer/trans inclusive sex education, or to free queers unjustly imprisoned during rabidly homophobic sex‐abuse witch hunts? Doubtful is an overstatement. It's more likely they will be enjoying summer vacations at an expensive bed and breakfast in Ogunquit while the rest of us are still trying to access basic rights like health care and freedom of movement. Let’s be real: Privilege breeds complacency.
And this has absolutely happened middle-class and wealthier queer people, especially white queer people, have absolutely ducked out of any kind of push for change. They're largely fine with assimilating, as evidenced by constant battles like "Should cops be at Pride?" (No) or "It's okay if corporations are at Pride" (No). They got what little benefited them, and the rest of us can get fucked (globally).
There really is a hierarchy in queer spaces, and it's got to go.
If we are to imagine queer futures that don't replicate the same violence and oppression many of us experience on an everyday basis as queer and trans folks, we must challenge the middle class neo‐liberal war machine known as the national gay marriage campaign. We must fight the rhetoric of equality and inclusion in systems of domination like marriage and the military, and stop believing that our participation in those institutions is more important than questioning those institutions legitimacy all together. We need to call out the national marriage campaign as opportunistic and parasitic. We must challenge their money mongering tactics to assure our local, truly community based LGBT organizations aren’t left financially high and dry while offering the few essential services to the most marginalized of our community.