Syndicate and Hague

There’s this really interesting thing that married straight men do when they get together (well, I mean, there are a lot of interesting things they do)…and that is to pretend that they are trapped by their wives/serious girlfriends.

It’s interesting because I know for a fact that guys I know who have participated in this sort of performance do not feel confined by their relationships - but when the group is making jokes like that, they play along anyway. The only other people I’ve encountered this with are butch/femme or trans/femme couples (in which the butch or trans guy plays off being trapped by his or her wife/gf).

It was funny to me because as the “my wife is keeping me down” buddying happened, I said that I really love being in my relationship and that I think being married will be great. I got kind of a blank look and then I realized that I’m a girl, so I’m expected to feel that way. Not everyone there knows I’m gay, and straight women’s feelings about marriage are assumed, so yeah.

Well, anyway. It was just sort of funny. And I thought about it as I drove home, listening to the State of the Union.

The first thing I thought about was Dan Savage, actually. This is going on a tangent from the conversation, but it’s based on what I feel underlies these kinds of conversations - that what this is secretly about is lamenting monogamy. It’s the sense that “she got me” and now I can’t have anyone else. Culturally, I think we tell men that even if they practice monogamy that they should constantly protest it. And that’s where this joke of being trapped comes in.

It’s silly, though. You don’t have to be monogamous to be married, nor do you have to be married to be monogamous. The pretense that you have to do anything is useless. If you want to have someone you’re married to, but want to run around and have sex with other people too, just marry someone who wants that. They do exist. So complaining (even in sort of a vague, culturally required way) about choosing monogamy is sort of boring.

But as much as I make fun of the fundies who run around waving their hands and screaming about teh gayz leading to the downfall of society and lack of morals, I guess being gay has given me some perspective about sexuality period. When you have to reject what society tells you is required (heterosexuality), then you are really open to look critically at all our relationship structures. So it’s entirely possible that for me, monogamy was a choice because I assessed my options and picked the one that works best for me; while for a lot of straight people monogamy was not a choice because they never had to deconstruct their sexuality.

I don’t know. What I do know is that people should be very careful complaining about how hard it is to be married to the old ball and chain. Because some of us don’t have the luxury to do that and have it recognized everywhere. Just sayin.

I think I couldn’t say it better than this: be careful who you hire as your legislative assistant, people.

I wrote a short email (about 3 short paragraphs) to Sen. Koering explaining how tired the phrasing “we have more pressing issues” is in regard to refusal to support the marriage equality bill in MN. I noted that, as a gay man, he should know better. That marriage is about economic security, among other things. That at this economically scary time this is in fact the ideal topic to be discussed because it affects GLBT people’s homes and health care and jobs. I noted that we’re leaving the state to get married in May (yay!) and are happy about it, but that not being able to legally marry here puts parts of our shared lives in jeopardy. With her parents being unsupportive to say the least, I’ll be frank, I’m nervous about what they would do to us in a crisis. I noted that marriage would provide protection for us on a number of levels, and repeated that he should know better. End of email.

This gem is what I got back. (Seriously, at least read the bolded parts. This is from Koering’s legislative assistant. This is professional communication.)

My name is Ken Swecker, Senator Koering’s Legislative Assistant. Senator Koering and I both would like to respond to the e-mails we’ve been receiving regarding his intention to not vote in favor of Senate File 120. I am currently responding to the e-mails to give you the Senator’s home phone number so that you might call him over the weekend and speak with him personally on the matter. This much he asked me to do.

To add to that, as a personal statement, is to say that SF 120 is something that the majority of the People of Senate District 12, the People that he was elected to represent, do not favor this piece of legislation. In case you have forgotten, we are a government of the People, by the People, and for the People. He was not elected serve his personal interests. I personally believe that instead of sending e-mails full of threats and hateful words you should take his example to heart and congratulate him on being a legislator who cares more about what the People of his district want than what he may want personally. You and I both know that this is a rare quality to find, and just because this is contrary to how you wish for him to vote, you must remember and respect he is here to represent the interests of his rural Minnesota constituents who voted him into office. As a constituent of his myself, I am happy to see him take non-personal votes on several issues. After all, I would not want another politician taking another vote that would serve his or her personal interests more so than the People’s, would you?

I can testify all day long about how much Senator Koering cares for the People of Senate District 12. He ran three consecutive times, being defeated the first two, and why did he put himself through so much hard work? Do you think it was because he needed another job? Absolutely not! He did it because he believed he was the best person to serve the People that he calls neighbors, friends, and family. And especially now, in a time like this, we are being bogged down with this completely pointless issue. There are People in Morrison and Crow Wing Counties, and across the State who are losing their jobs, their homes, their insurance, and were you to ask them if this is an issue that should take one second of precedent over these conditions they’re facing every day, do you believe, do you honestly believe that they would say to you, ‘Yes, please, waste the time of the State Legislature with a piece of legislation that will not help, but in fact, overshadow the current situation we’re living in? Please, waste their time with this piece of legislation while I tell my son and daughter that mom and dad aren’t hungry tonight?’

I know very well that you will respond to this e-mail of mine with some probably quirky, snide, and very thoughtless comment that will make me out to be a bad person and threaten the Senator even more just as most of the absolutely tactless and disrespectful e-mails we’ve received have been written, but really, don’t waste your time. We’ll just put your e-mail where it belongs, in the trash.

The Senator’s home number is
xxx-xxx-xxxx

He’s free on the weekends.

Very Sincerely, every word of it,
Ken Swecker

P.S.
I hope you do not believe that this e-mail was written specific to the one that you sent, this is a blanket e-mail, being sent to everyone who has e-mailed us on this issue and I’ve already wasted too much time in responding to you. Good day.

Senator Paul Koering
District 12
131 State Office Building
St. Paul, MN 55155-1206
Phone:651-296-4875

Can I just repeat that the very things Swecker goes positively loony tunes over are the things I addressed to Sen. Koering in my letter? I mean, I know they don’t read those things. But couldn’t they have sorted the letters out and responded to reasonable ones like mine with a less bitchy letter? Ah professionalism…

I had a brief conversation with a friend today over his identity divisions between various social networking sites. He said that since he was going to be known professionally in X way, that was his professional persona, whereas his Facebook persona is different.

This got me thinking–and took me far beyond what he was talking about/our particular conversation. But as someone who truly believes in the feminist mantra that the personal is political (and vice versa), and as someone who has been in the business of writing opinions pieces, essays, and poetry, my public and private personae are pretty blended.

This is a potential problem. One that I don’t think is one that has a solution, but I recognize the difficulties that could emerge as I go into a profession that is more “researchy” and less “creative.” The masks we put on for professionalism don’t fit everyone - and this comes up with any marginalized group - sometimes wearing the mask of a profession means betraying yourself and your community.

For example, I’ve been writing on GLBT issues since 1997. In public. In papers. Back then, I didn’t entirely understand how big the risk I was undertaking was, nor how brave (or naive) it was to do that. I’m bull-headed and charge forward without thinking at times. But now that I’m older and supposedly wiser, I still do it. I put forth personal stories and critiques of culture at large to drive home messages I think are intensely important. This means sometimes being brutally honest, sometimes being foolishly honest, and sometimes writing something that is raw and wonderful (that is the rarest).

These things are too important for me to stop doing, and so living in private - completely masking myself professionally - just isn’t an option. Taking on the veneer of professionalism, if it means erasing contentious/controversial parts of my personae (and I do mean that in the plural), is too destructive to what I hope to construct in the world.

To be fair, I have a savvy enough understanding of the Internet that I can influence which searches on my name lead you to which affiliations I have - but you can still find the more personal stuff (like this blog) pretty easily…

So there’s going to be a marriage equality bill of some sort weaving its way through the Minnesota legislature this year, and it’s nice and will lay good groundwork for the future, but with Pawlenty in office for the next two years, nothing is going to happen. If anything does happen, I will happily be rendered speechless, but in the meantime…

State Sen. Paul Koering came out a few years ago. He’s a Republican, which is relevant in that his status as gay has not equaled any sort of desire to protect peoples’ civil rights. According to the MN Independent, he said that “he would vote against it because the state faces bigger problems.”

I think that’s the new Republican line. It’s a crisis, we have no time for gay rights! Except that, well, marriage is also a financial structure and when people are losing their jobs…relationships with a little government backing have another layer of security in place. A crisis is actually a very compelling time to right the wrongs that we have entrenched into our laws.

But tonight I’m mentally throwing my hands up in the air. They always have some excuse for not dealing with things - politically and personally. If we have a relationship that’s public, we’re “flaunting our sexuality,” and if we keep things private, we’re lying to them. There’s never the right time, the right place, the right venue to have conversations about our lives.

And, yes, I’m totally talking around something right now. But it isn’t mine to wave around online, in public, so I’m trying to make a roundabout argument and failing. So here’s what I’m going to say:

Get over yourselves.

I’m so sick of bigots acting like seeing gay couples holding hands is the equivalent of having hardcore pornography paraded down the street (*think of the children!!*). I’m sick of bigots moping and whining about how hard it is to have to endure the existence of people whose lives don’t mirror their own. Yes, it must be so freakin hard for you to wake up every morning knowing somewhere two guys got out of bed together and are eating cereal. The agony!

This entire blog post sucks. I’m not eloquent, I’m not crafting a damn thing…I’m just exhausted and pissed off. I’m pissed at the bigots and I’m pissed at people like Koering whose capitulations just encourage them.

In other news, my mom got in a fight with a conservative friend of my dad’s the other night during which time I believe she called W a baboon. Which, if you knew her, would be hilarious. I also got her thinking about calling Pawlenty to yell at him about how her daughter has to leave the state to get married. That would be awesome.