must remember livejournal.com is infinitely better than gay.com at least in terms of providing uplift. But I’m feeling under attended to. Hmmm, how to get more attention without losing job or getting arrested. hmmm… =)
PS, I skipped the gym this morning, but plan on hitting it this evening before I head down to hyde park for the don’t ask, don’t tell coffee shop coversation this evening.
As the office lesbian was heading out yesterday in her biker gear, I asked her if she wanted to attend, and she basically said it was better not to get her started on that point. When I probed a little further, she said she vehemently opposed removing the get-out-of-military-free card, without full equal treatment of homos and hets. In particular, married military folks can take their spouse with them. The only guarantee along those lines for homos is the get out of military free card. Otherwise, the military can force relationships apart by mandatory transfers.
15 years ago many of us activist ‘n’ out gay folk were surprised that presidential campaigner Bill Clinton was promising to allow gays to serve in the military. Many of us thought that one of the few perks of being gay was our immunity to military service.
I think many of us also thought that gay marriage was a frightful idea, that as gays we were free from the one-size-fits-all relationship pattern of marriage.
It turned out that lots of not-so-activist gays were actually middle-class conservative folk who wanted to serve in the military and get married.
“I think many of us also thought that gay marriage was a frightful idea, that as gays we were free from the one-size-fits-all relationship pattern of marriage.”
Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t understand this one. Making gay marriage legal wouldn’t entrap anyone into any particular relationship pattern – it makes one available that the government currently doesn’t allow. But if the folks in the relationship have no interest in it, there’s nobody forcing anyone to get married. So how does disallowing something make someone “free”?
Don’t take this as a flame, I’m honestly just curious.
I don’t take this as a flame. Were you not an out ‘n’ activist gay person 15 years ago? I’m simply describing how we thought back then. Times have changed a lot.
“Were you not an out ‘n’ activist gay person 15 years ago?”
I can’t say that I was.
“I’m simply describing how we thought back then.”
So it was just the mindset of the time? I’m more curious as to where the mindset came from, really. If there was logic behind it, or just a sort of groupthink kind of thing.
Thanks.
So it was just the mindset of the time? I’m more curious as to where the mindset came from, really. If there was logic behind it, or just a sort of groupthink kind of thing.
I’m going back a lot more than 15 years here (more like 35), but the logic was that the *institution* of marriage, per se, was itself reflective of larger societal inequities — that it was about ownership (husband owns wife), and institutional support of monogamy (which leads to support of capitalist institutions that, in turn, maintain and encourage inequities). There was the notion that homosexuality called into question societal norms (I think you can still argue that it does), that we were remaking society in a better (freer, more liberated) way. So the notion of a political fight for gay marriage was just wrong — why would you be spending political capital in support of an institution that you were rejecting — as part of a larger society you were rejecting.
It was considered, among some, an aping of heterosexual culture. And what we were about was rejecting heterosexual culture. Because look at what it did to us.
What you have to remember, though, is that at the time the notion that same-sex marriage would EVER in ANY WAY be within the realm of possibility or cultural acceptance was COMPLETELY inconceivable, except in a sort of radical sense. So what you were playing with was dueling notions of radicalism — the radicalism of same-sex marriage vs. the radicalism of overthrowing cultural institutions. To use the argument that you are not forcing anybody to marry, that other people marrying doesn’t affect you (and gives them much needed advantages and benefits), would have been bizarre at the time, since the notion of same-sex marriage was (I honestly believe) completely theoretical. In other words, you have to believe in some way in some part of you that same-sex marriage will ever be possible to entertain the argument you are bringing up here.
At least that’s what it seems to me in retrospect.
There are still people who feel it is wasted political capital to work towards same-sex marriage in the face of what they consider larger and more embedded issues — again, the radicalism thing — but once the reality of same-sex marriage is within conceptual possibility the underlying assumptions change.
It really is impossible, in some ways, to describe what things felt like 35 years ago.
I’m not sure this helps. It’s actually the first time I’ve thought about this particular aspect of underlying reasoning here — and tried to remember what this all felt like.
Thank you. That was definitely eye-opening, and I appreciate the insight.
I’d say another part of it is the uniformity of people under oppression. Unity is all, because they’re out to get us. =) Don’t sell out. (not saying it’s rational)
I’d hardly call a dishonorable discharge a get out of military free card. While yes, you’re out of the service, that discharge stays with you.
I always thought of DADT as a “get out of military free card” because gays could get out of being drafted, were a draft re-instituted. But I concur that if somebody is already IN the military, DADT does not translate into getting out “free”.
Except that DADT doesn’t necessary get applied when they’re desperate for people.
The guys I’ve talked to didn’t get dishonorables. That having been said, I’m not saying that it’s a good policy.
I’m amused by the way (I had thought) the Brits handled it.
For some reason I thought they had legalized it for their Navy before their other services — although I can’t seem to find any reference on it at this point.
in terms of providing uplift.
Oh for fucks sake, quit whining already …
j/k 😉
You can chew me out for being a whiny bitch, I’ll take it with good grace. =) How are you doing?