That Straight Blind Spot

Of all the amazing things that have happened in the last two weeks, the discovery that a large number of straight people can vote to strip away our constitutional rights AND THEN BE SURPRISED WHEN WE'RE UPSET has to be at least second on the list.

Like the manager of El Coyote, an L.A. restaurant with a large gay clientele, a Mormon who contributed $100 to support Prop 8. Or the Mormon artistic director of the California Musical Theatre--of all things--for his support. Both expressed confusion and dismay that what they saw as a personal decision should have offended their clients, colleagues, and friends.

WTF???

What can explain that straight blind spot?

Well, lessee. What indeed?

First, there is a centuries-long tradition among heterosexuals of deriding, scorning, mocking, trivializing, and otherwise dehumanizing homosexuals. It can't be easy to break the habit.

Next, there's the intrinsic relationship between sexism and heterosexism, making it just as easy to deride, scorn, mock, trivialize, and dehumanize women. The two constantly reinforce each other. No surprise, then, that just about the time we begin to make progress on one front, the other starts eroding. After Putt-Putt, and thanks to the Family Research Council, keeping women and Queers in their place is conservative America's favorite family pass-time.

Then there's the longstanding media fiction that there really are two equally valid viewpoints when someone else's human rights are concerned. How many times has Larry King or Bill Maher or CNN or NBC staged a "debate" between a supporter of "gay marriage" and an opponent of "gay marriage"? It's always predicated on the lie that the quarrel is about a rite and has nothing whatsoever to do with the explicit constitutional rights of every person to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--any one of which touches directly on the choice of whom or whether to marry.

After all, they say, it's only a disagreement about "preserving traditional marriage." Not. Words matter. "Preserving"? "Traditional"? By implying that there's one monolithic institution, those words erase the truth that marriage has undergone a myriad changes over the centuries. Hetereosexually speaking, marriage has included mere contracts for financial convenience and to consolidate power. It has included divorceable marriage, assigned marriage, plural marriage, open marriage, drive-thru marriage, Britney marriage, serial marriage, mail-order marriage, and common-law marriage, almost all without drawing a peep from the Officially Godly Contingent about the "sanctity" of it all.

Implicit lies and distortions mount up over time. Sooner or later, there's an accumulated pseudo-reality, a backdrop of unstated assumptions against which we tilt all but in vain. It serves to erase fact--especially when, before Congress, or one notch over on the dial, a phalanx of fascist Christianists has been spewing lethal lies about us and/or our relationships for thirty years.

Not least is the mainstream media's famous penchant for ignoring crimes of violence committed by heterosexists against gay men and lesbian women and trans-gendered persons. We know about them because we are the victims and we know the victims, and because our media cover these crimes for the horrors they are. But, except for the most egregious horrors, mainstream straight media spare straight people the discomfort of ever having to connect the dots between between a Matthew Shepard, on the one hand, and the vicious carping of an Ann Coulter, the lies of Christianist zealots like Fred Phelps or James Dobson, and the way reporters and editors choose to portray or erase us, on the other.

I link straight surprise to straight denial. Given centuries of pretending that we don't exist at all, straight denial that we've ever been oppressed at all is actually not amazing. It's even clinically predictable. What better way to deal with the consequences of one's behavior than to pretend there are none? And if there are none, what on earth can we possibly be pissed off about?

Straight denial surely also plays a role in well-meaning straight counsel to us to tone it down, to choose another target, not the church. Together with enforced ignorance about heterosexism's effects for us--books about us are banned; sex education can't mention us; teachers, doctors, nurses, ministers, actors, firemen, cops, accountants, life guards, EMTs, athletes, kids, and all the rest of us still can't come out without paying an atrocious price--straight denial makes it possible to minimize centuries of heterosexist terrorization and oppression, utterly overlook the last 50 years in which we've tried every conceivable alternative means to gain full human equality, and ultimately see us as the cause of all this hostility, therefore accountable for toning it down. Oh please.

The fact remains: We didn't pick this fight. It began when we decided to take straight boots off gay and lesbian necks.

Straight people of good will, our allies and friends, can do something about straight denial. You can walk with us in protests, speak out for us in voice and print, join and donate to causes and organizations supporting our liberation, join us as amicus curiae in lawsuits to protect our rights, and educate, educate, educate other straights with whom you come in contact. I recommend the tried-and-true method born, not coincidentally, in the Women's Rights Movement, called consciousness raising. There are numerous resources out there to help you plan and conduct a CR group at church, at work, at the neighborhood coffee shop.

But whatever you do, don't wait. Next it could be your son or daughter who's savaged. For everyone's sake, don't get stuck in straight denial.

The Marriage War: Strategy Considerations

My wife and I got married in San Francisco, CA, in February, 2004, when Mayor Gavin Newsome first gave gays and lesbians the option. So I've got a more than a little interest in this matter. I'm not now nor have I ever been writing about it from a neutral perspective.

Of course I think GLBT people should be able to marry. I've written fairly extensively about why. In my way, I penned a somewhat contrarian analysis of why the issue matters so much to Republicans and what else it brings into their gunsights, and took a sarcastic swing at Cathi Herrod, doyenne of the Arizona Gay Haters' resurrected anti-gay proposition, Prop 102. Recently, I took up strategy, too.

We will succeed. So long as we have a Constitution, states such as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut are reliable bellwethers. But our strategies will determine how long we have to fight, and what additional costs we'll pay. Some thoughts:

(1) It's trendy now to blame African Americans for passing Prop 8. That's really not smart. In the first place, it may well be because of young, new, first-time African American voters that the margin wasn't greater than it was. Olberman made that point last night, showing the numbers.

In the second, didn't we learn anything from the Obama/Hillary dust-up in the South Carolina primary? The LAST thing we need, as progressives, is a split in the ranks. No matter how bitter the irony of Black opposition may be to a community over-represented in the Civil Rights movement, we need to be clear about defining the real enemy. Instead of singling out African Americans when Hispanics and others are equally complicit, and instead of denigrating the African Americans who voted for Prop 8 and its ugly cousins in states like AZ and AR, we must target the racist, sexist, and heterosexist fundamentalists and evangelicals who, after all, are the real foe. Remember: African Americans who voted for Prop 8 or Prop 102, or any other anti-gay measure, didn't do so because they're African Americans. They did so only because of hateful, lying anti-gay propaganda from Far Right Christianists like Howard Ahmandson, Jr. THAT's the source of the problem. Let's keep our eyes fixed on the correct target.

(3) The energy we save by not attacking African Americans can and should be used for outreach and education in all conservative communities, including African American, Hispanic, Native, Asian American, and Anglo. Follow Obama's example: Never cede territory to the foe.

(4) I think it's stupid to picket churches. Think about it: A picture speaks a thousand words, right? The negative PR image is louder than anything we can shout. It doesn't help us to hand message validation to Christianists on a silver platter! They're saying that we're un-churched, godless, and opposed to everything holy and good. And sure enough, there we are, lined up screaming outside a church. Duh.

(5) Instead, I support targeted boycotts. Mormon leaders made the LDS church an aggressively public party to this struggle. Let's let them know, in no uncertain terms, that while we support their right to vote, the LDS decision to intervene militantly, across state lines has consequences. They are free to use the power of their institution and their money to pursue their objectives. So are we.

But I don't get limiting the boycott to Utah and Mormons. After all, Baptists and Catholics and others have been there long before the Mormons decided to put their feet on our necks.

Any group, corporation, organization, municipality, or state that waves an anti-gay flag doesn't deserve and should not receive gay dollars. In this recession, that message can have a major effect.

And this is critical: Not only the churches that actively urge hate, but also those that choose safe silence in the face of clear injustice are complicit in our oppression. Let them all feel what it means when GLBT people, our families, and our friends withdraw our support.

This can be tricky when denominations take a pro-gay stand but local member congregations choose silence or opposition. Know who's who and what's what.

(6) Similarly, anyone who supports us, we should support strongly. We must make it our business to know that PepsiCo gave PFLAG a half-million dollar grant, and buy Pepsi. As long as Coors funds the Far Right, drink Pepsi.

(7) Words matter. Use them wisely and well. Instead of using terms that affirm the lie that Christianists mean us no harm and hope only to oppose "gay marriage," we should begin now to talk simply about marriage. Not gay marriage, not straight marriage. Just marriage. From our point of view, the goal is not "gay" marriage, whatever that might mean. Our goal is equality in marriage.

And let's not talk anymore about "anti-gay marriage." From the Far Right point of view, the "marriage" angle is just a cover. This is not anti-gay marriage. It's ANTI-GAY. Period. Make no mistake about that. Let's strip the facade and take away the sophistry. This movement is only and always about oppressing gay and lesbian people, never merely about who has access to marriage rites. Let's not contribute to the confusion, OK? Call it what it is: Anti-Gay.

(8) Instead of re-inventing the wheel, it seems to me that activists across the nation would be wise to study the tactics and strategies of Evan Wolfson, often called the father of the marriage movement. When there's an expert hanging around, why not utilize his experience and knowledge? And there are strongly successful state law models out there. Washington State's is one of them. Let's go with what works, stay focused, and stay on message.