Syndicate and Hague

The common portrayal of gays and lesbians in the media is this: dual income, no kids; highly educated; artistic; relatively affluent; white. It’s been part of the argument some have made about gay marriage - think of all the money gay and lesbian people would bring in with their fancy weddings!

This observation is, of course, somewhat true. The only reason Megan and I are traveling out East for our wedding (along with a few friends, all of us contributing to the Massachusetts economy) is because it’s legal there and not here in Minnesota. Middle class people can travel, upper class people can travel and throw lavish affairs.

This perception was something that ran under some anti-gay sentiment during the arguments over proposition 8, and also reinforces the idea that gays are just rich, white, and privileged.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there are poor gay people. It shouldn’t surprise me that gays and lesbians are poorer than our heterosexual counterparts, but it did. The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law released the results of a study they did that compiled and analyzed data from the 2000 Census, the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and the 2003 and 2005 California Health Interview Surveys. via Echelon

Though poverty is on the rise among all Americans, the authors of the study–entitled Poverty in the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Community–suggest that unique social and political aspects of LGB life play a role in contributing to higher rates of poverty in this community, including vulnerability to employment discrimination, inability to marry and higher numbers of uninsured.

Key findings include:

• After comparing families with similar characteristics, gay and lesbian couple families are significantly more likely to be poor than are heterosexual married couple families;
• In general, lesbian couples have much higher poverty rates than either different-sex couples or gay male couples;
• African-Americans in same-sex couples have poverty rates that are significantly higher than black people in different-sex married couples;
• People in same-sex couples who live in rural areas have poverty rates that are twice as high as same-sex couples who live in large metropolitan areas;
• Employment discrimination, lack of access to marriage, and a greater likelihood of being uninsured exacerbate poverty among LGB people.
• Children of gay couples are living in poverty at a rate that is twice as much as the children of straight married couples. (this one is via Pam’s House Blend)

Also, a note about the the lack of transpeople in this study:

Because no representative data exist for transgender people, the report does not analyze poverty in that community. Previous Williams Institute studies, however, found that large proportions of transgender people report very low incomes, which suggest that poverty is also a major concern for transgender people.

This seems like an important analysis, and sad. It was really amusing to both Megan and me today when we drove behind some bigot’s truck with his “Marriage = 1 man + 1 woman” bumper sticker, pulled in front of them so they would be forced to drive behind my big ol’ rainbow-stickered car.

That is what life is like when you’re comfortable. You live in a big, liberal city and the bigots are out of place driving down 28th street. You don’t feel like the people who dominate this report. You have agency. There are parts of your existence you’re powerless over, but on the whole you’re not powerless. Hell, in my case, your life is filled with people - mostly straight - who go and buy you the stones for your wedding rings because you can’t afford them right now yourself.

I think it is important to recognize that those of us who are gay and comfortable - incomes we can live on, jobs we can be out at, relationships we don’t have to hide - are like refugees who have found the safehouses. It’s not like we’re truly ignorant of our status - people feel free to slap their prejudices on their bumpers, even in Minneapolis - but that we have the privilege to pretend they don’t exist at times.

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.

Megan and I went to see Milk yesterday. Aside from being a terrific movie in general–moving and sad, of course, but also something of a rallying cry–it’s coalesced what I’ve been pondering lately. Things came together for me.

I’m angry, sad, hopeful, and determined, and I don’t quite know what those things look like together yet.

Those people who thought that Prop 8 would pass and us gay folks would roll over and take it? Please. They obviously don’t know history. I plead with all you straight folks that I know–go watch Milk. Pay special attention to the opening. The old black and white tapes from when the police would go into gay bars and round up the gay men to arrest them because they were congregating in one place (there were points in time when it was illegal for us just to be around each other). Look at the misery–them turning their faces from the cameras, holding their hands in front of their eyes. Their quiet and horrific way the presence of police is hardly unusual. That punishment for their existence is a matter of course. That pain defined many lives.

It is never the “right time” for change. It is easy to remain the oppressor–either because you sincerely believe that being a part of the majority grants you special rights or because you don’t know or acknowledge your own privilege. It is easy to say this is not your battle when it’s not about your own survival.

And this is about survival.

Any time you take a group, marginalize them, and mark parameters around their humanity, you quite literally kill members of that group. Whether that means people kill themselves rather than live in a hostile society or that means people kill members of the marginalized group for whatever reason, it doesn’t really matter.

Being gay is a somewhat unique marginalization. We come from everywhere, so there is no cultural, economic, ethnic, racial, gender experience that ties us together as a whole. That also means we have no inherent support structure. We have what we have built. We have the communities we have built. And the fact that so many of us flee the places we were raised to come to a place where we feel safer is a testament to the success of some of these structures.

We are imperfect and imbued with all the issues that affect the world. People with significant power in the gay community are often white, male, and wealthy. This reflects the world in which we live–where people with significant power are often white, male, and wealthy. This also means that the people with power are scared of change.

I’m not.

And I’m not with my radical friends in saying that marriage is unimportant, and maybe not a priority. I get where they’re coming from, but this is where the coalescing happened.

Without respect for our basic humanity, we have nothing. No rights. If we are second-class citizens, anything we’ve gained can be taken away. Without marriage, we’re second-class. Our relationships are second-class. Our lives are second-class.

By rejecting something the dominant society doesn’t want us to have, we are being neither radical nor activist. We are finding ways to justify capitulating. We are finding ways to reject society before society can reject us.

I’ve been out for 12 years. I come out to people as quickly as possible after I meet them. It’s actually quite easy to do without making a big deal of it. It’s as simple as saying “Oh, you have a cat? My girlfriend and I have two cats. They’re so sweet.” Sometimes it takes more effort. “Oh man, I totally had an ex-girlfriend who was like that.” I make sure people know.

Why? Gay people know why. The more people find gay people unexceptional, the easier our lives are. I worry about holding Megan’s hand the further we get from the city. And I don’t worry what people think. I worry that someone will hurt us or do something to my car or whatever. I worry about violence.

I should not have to worry about violence for holding someone’s hand. But this is a simple fact of life.

Similarly, I should be able to expect–after 12 years of being out myself–that whoever I choose to be with (Megan) is acknowledged fully and unequivocally as my…girlfriend?partner?significantother?lifepartner?domesticpartner?…language is an enemy here. And yet, my mother has a hard time calling her anything other than my “friend,” though she damn well knows who Megan is and invites her to family gatherings. I chastise her fairly substantially every time she does it, but she still hasn’t worked it out yet.

I feel like gay people are often patient to a fault here.

When mom offered that maybe Megan would like to go up to the Range to visit my grandma with me, I was actually a bit surprised. It threw me off so that her following sentence knocked me off my feet. “Now, if she comes, you have to say she’s your roommate.”

I said “I am hanging up the phone now,” set the phone down, and heaved.

And so here is the thing. No straight member of my family would be asked to do that with someone they’d been dating for even the briefest amount of time. And so, yet again, I am reminded of my status as second class. I’ve been asked to pretend that Megan is nothing more than someone I share the bills with. Nevermind that no one drags a roommate several hundred miles to meet a grandmother.

Whether or not we got married, if gay marriage was legal and normal, it becomes that much harder for people to try to force you into a closet, it becomes that much harder for them to try to force your second-class status.

I have paperwork that OutFront was handing out at Pride this year. It’s living will paperwork. I’ve put it off, it’s hard to think about death and what I would want done if I were seriously injured. I also felt like I could put it off, that my parents understood that Megan would get to make decisions for me.

I don’t actually believe that now.

I had become complacent. A lot of us have become complacent. Things now are not so bad as they once were. We know that. And so maybe this was as good as anything was going to get.

But what on earth is that? Gay people still get killed for being gay. The decisions of our “partners” could be overturned with the commitment of litigious parents. “Faggot” and “gay” are still popular insults.

I like that I won’t get fired for being gay. But that’s not enough for me anymore. That shouldn’t be enough for any of us anymore. Full equality. Nothing more, nothing less.

Straight people, I am recruiting you. If you think we deserve rights, get some education and talk about it. I will use every bullhorn I can, but I don’t think we’ll be successful without straight compatriots who aren’t afraid to talk about gay people when talking about gay rights.

In truly uncharacteristic fashion, I’ve not commented yet on the election at any length. Unlike many recent elections in which I got used to complete and utter depression after the votes were counted, this year left me torn.

When the news outlets called it for Obama, I felt it in my heart. He’s certainly mortal and will make decisions I don’t agree with during his time in office, but I have so much confidence in his ability to do more good than harm. That might sound like a backwards compliment, but it truly is a compliment. Every choice has a downside. But I believe that on the whole the choices Obama makes will be good.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s coming into office with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. We’re going to see a lot of changes. If you’re interested in some of the planning, Obama has a website at change.gov and I can’t tell you how elated I am to see the role of advancing technology in his administration.

But, of course, Obama’s resounding victory was not the only thing that happened on November 4th. The anti-gay ballot initiatives that passed in Florida, California, Arkansas, and Arizona were heartbreaking. (CA and AZ went against gay marriage, FL went against domestic partner benefits, AR outlawed unmarried people from fostering/adopting children).

I’ve been thinking about the way the Internet helps/hurts us as we process information. And I’m going to come out in favor of the Internet on this. In the wake of the passage of Prop 8 in California, a lot of media and vocal gays seized on the exit polling in California that said 70% of African-Americans voted for Prop 8. For about a week, the anger and hurt in some segments of the GLBT population blinded them to the racism that came pouring out because of that statistic.

But here’s the good thing - there are seriously awesome blogs run by people of color, like Pam’s House Blend, that led the online voice in calling BS on that line of thinking. Regardless of whether that statistic is accurate or not, the population of African-Americans in California is not large enough to have caused the proposition to pass or not pass. It’s a red herring.

And I think there is regrouping going on. I’m hopeful that the racism of the reaction of some white gays raises that issue for mainstream organizations like the HRC to what many other GLBT folks have said for a long time though - all these “isms” are gay issues.

What I’ve seen this week is people like Bill O’Reilly trying to entrench the racist narrative, and I think we’re too smart for that. Once O’Reilly’s ilk start exploiting something, I’m hopeful that even the most oblivious among us know to question its truth.

Anyway, while I know there are serious issues other than gay marriage that need to be addressed, I think this election was a wake up call to us as a whole. People still don’t respect us. If I’m being generous, I’ll say that they don’t understand and we’re not making compelling arguments.

Either of those statements make me depressed.

I’ll be at the Prop 8 protest this weekend, and I encourage anyone who cares about their gay family members or gay friends to do the same. Numbers mean something.

12:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Government Center downtown MPLS.

Just as I am sick of Tony Perkins and the bile of the Family Research Council that he runs, I am sick of the people on my side of the aisle who castigate the GLBT folks who have been working to win the right to get married because they see it as too normative.

Feministing highlighted an article off of Alternet by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore that just succeeded in irritating the hell out of me. I’m just going to paste the quotes in and dissect as we go. Have fun! If you get bored, check out this week’s Savage Love, in which Dan Savage reams some straight people who plan on getting married but are relationship idiots because Tony Perkins tormented him. (That’s all Perkins knows how to do.) Or you could watch Stephen Colbert undercut Perkins on The Colbert Report from last night. So those are your other options. On to me tormenting fellow lefties!

Sycamore begins by saying that she flat out doesn’t support gay marriage and, to illustrate why, says:

Gay marriage does nothing to address fundamental problems of inequality. What is needed is universal access to basic necessities like housing, health care, food, and the benefits now obtained through citizenship (like the right to stay in this country)…

Nope. It sure doesn’t address those things. When you start with sweeping expectations like that in an essay, it’s pretty impossible to argue. And yet…I continue.

Legalized gay marriage means only that certain people in a specific type of long-term, monogamous relationship sanctioned by a state contract might be able to access benefits. While marriage could confer inclusion under a spouse’s health-care policy, it does nothing to provide such a policy. Marriage might ensure hospital visitation rights, but not for anyone without a spouse. Marriage may allow for inheritance rights between spouses, but what if there is nothing to inherit?

Now, I hate to be nitpicky (no I don’t), but you don’t actually have to be monogamous–straight or gay–to get married. You just have to pick someone as primary partner. Other than that, there’s nothing Sycamore says here that is inherently wrong, but the inverse argument doesn’t really help. I mean, what if there is something to inherit? What if there is a health policy that can be provided? An argument that bases itself on absence isn’t very meaningful.

For a long time, queers have married straight friends for citizenship or health care, but this has never been enshrined as “progress.” The majority of queers — single or coupled (but not desiring marriage), monogamous or polyamorous, jobless or marginally employed — would remain excluded from the much-touted benefits of legalized gay marriage.

Dude. Marrying straight friends has been what is known as “working the system.” Of course it isn’t progress. It reaffirms the double standard of what relationships are worth. As for the “majority of queers” remaining excluded from marriage benefits…how is she coming up with what constitutes a majority? Who does she consider queer? I’m in no way saying that marriage is a saving grace for the queer community, but let’s stop throwing around vague quantitative terms. Give me numbers, even rounded ones. I’d also argue that jobless and marginally employed folks wouldn’t necessarily not benefit–especially if their spouses were employed…

And let’s not forget the history of marriage as a legal method for keeping property within specific dynasties (property that originally included women and slaves). In fact, marriage still exists as a central venue for spousal and child abuse — there’s a reason divorce is so popular, and suicide attempts among queer teens so prevalent.

Marriage=venue for abuse=queer teen suicide. The leaps in logic here, ignoring the complete lack of data correlating these things…just, wow. Queer teens are harassed, are a part of society where queer relationships are denigrated, and are made to feel alienated by the larger culture. This happens with/without married parents. Show me data that says that queer teen suicide is predominantly taking place in households with married parents and I’ll eat my words. But right now…dumping bad things into a paragraph together doesn’t make an argument.

Also? Bringing up the history of marriage? The Family Research Council does that too. Moving on.

In fact, the push for gay marriage has shifted advocacy away from essential services like HIV education, AIDS health care, drug treatment, domestic violence prevention, and homeless care — all crucial needs for far more queers than marriage could ever be.

Agree/disagree. In the absence of the push for gay marriage, would these things be getting addressed better? I’m not entirely sure I buy that argument.

You know, I have a number of friends who have worked hard over the course of years and years to deal with domestic/sexual violence and the only constant I’ve seen in terms of funding is eternal crisis. There is never enough money, they are always overworked, severely underpaid, and stressed to an extraordinary point. Also, a lot of these things rely on grants in addition to private donation. Grants aren’t on the menu for marriage advocates, so that money isn’t even in the picture.

I can’t say for sure that resources aren’t being diverted, but I question whether a=b.

The spectacle around gay marriage draws attention away from critical issues — like ending U.S. wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, stopping massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the country, and challenging the never-ending assault on anyone living outside of conventional norms.

True that. But I’m afraid that arguing that we’re doing ourselves a disservice by drawing attention to ourselves is defeatist. There will always be more “pressing” issues (homelessness, war, etc.) than exclusively queer rights. And I’m talking about more than marriage here. Someone will always be able to argue that something like war trumps civil rights. But just because you can make the argument doesn’t mean it’s a good one.

While many straight people are reaping the benefits of gay liberation and discovering new ways of loving, lusting for and caring for one another, the gay marriage movement is busy fighting for a 1950s model of white-picket fence “we’re just like you” normalcy. And that’s no reason to celebrate.

Oh, come on! That’s how it ends? The trite “if you want something they have, you’re vanilla and boring and not one of us” line? Ugh.

Look, whether or not marriage is personally something I want or not, I think it’s terribly presumptuous to ask queer/GLBT people to identify as transgressive. There’s nothing wrong with monogamy, there’s nothing wrong with having a primary partner if you sleep with more than one person, and there’s nothing wrong with consenting adults figuring out their relationships however they’d like. My problem is with any of us forcing our values on the others.

Marriage is not the solution, but in a society where the very question of whether or not GLBT people should be allowed into the club sends our entire society into a manic episode, it’s not something to be so easily dismissed.

Back when I had a customer service job and had to interact with random people when I was younger, I found that a fake wedding ring made my life a million times easier. If some idiot hit on me and I said I had a boyfriend, it didn’t even dent his game–if I said I was married, it was usually over. Despite the problems marriage has in our society, it still carries with it a level of respect for the relationship that you just don’t get otherwise. It’s a big deal, culturally, and to pretend that it and all the privilege it gets you are some minor irrelevancy in the face of Big Problems like homelessness, war, etc…well, that’s just naive. Or willfully ignorant.