Take the Queer Movement Back to the Streets
by Elen Fauer
Feb. 2005
Queer liberation suffered a blow in the 2004 elections as eleven states passed state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, with eight of those eleven states including a ban on civil unions and domestic partnership. Leading LGBTQ rights organizations are trying to put a positive spin on this. For example, Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, notes that "Every gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender American who voted against an amendment was joined by at least five non-gay voters who stood with us for equal rights - that's remarkable."
That is true: gay marriage was put to a vote and a significant number of straight folks in the U.S. stood up to decry the attempts to legalize discrimination against a community of people. But it is also important to question why the vote even took place, and who the defenders of marriage for LGBTQ people actually are. After several decades of struggle, queer folks have made significant steps forward. While homophobia still exists in the U.S., we have advanced towards a society if not more accepting of queers, at least more tolerant. The reaction to the gay marriage amendments accentuates the drastic differences between acceptance and tolerance. If queer people were accepted in this society, such an amendment would have been a moot point. However, since queer people are only tolerated (like I tolerate my neighbor's loud, and in some cases quite awful, music), it is not hard to push this tolerance towards an anti-queer initiative.
Tolerance vs. acceptance
The danger with tolerance is that in many regards, the queer community has internalized intolerance. This is manifested in the way in which national, state and community organizations offer fervent support to the Democratic Party. In Michigan, for example, most queer organizations supported the candidacy of Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm in the last election. She had luncheons with queer folks, promising to represent our interests, and the queer community responded with "Get out the Vote" and gave free press to the Democrats and to Granholm. She was elected and the queer community was satisfied.
However, Michigan is one of the states that passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as "between one man and one woman," and went further, outlawing civil unions and domestic partnership. Outlawing domestic partnership means that state workers and union members lost a hard-won benefit in their collective bargaining agreements. This was the perfect opportunity for Granholm to make a name for herself in history as a supporter of oppressed communities. But alas, political expediency won out over principle, and Granholm chose not to add her name to the long list of heroes who have steadfastly sacrificed their careers and their very lives in order to defend oppressed communities. Gay state employees of Michigan (members of UAW Local 6000) were to receive benefits starting December 15, 2004. However, Granholm, in light of the anti-gay amendment, decided to "hold off" on granting these benefits. Sounds like a fair weather friend to me.
Historically, the gay movement made demands and was successful when those demands were not for liberation, but for assimilation. The assimilation of an oppressed community which contains radical and, potentially, revolutionary elements is in the interests of the capitalists. Therefore, ceding to certain demands gives some in the movement that which they are looking for—assimilation—while it in turn gives the capitalists what they need: the incorporation of an oppressed group into an oppressive, hegemonic society. This facilitates the accumulation of power by the very elite against whom the oppressed community's fight began! This in turn renders their community powerless.
A new table
This is the difference between demanding liberation, and looking for a "place at the table." Ironically, this is what a gay Kerry supporter said to me at the Motown Gay Pride rally in Michigan this past summer. When I told him that Kerry came out against gay marriage, he responded with "Yeah, but Kerry says he will meet with us! At least he is giving us a place at the table." I don't think Stonewall was about "getting a seat at the table," but rather about demanding a new table. But the assimilation of so many queer rights organizations has watered down our demands and made us forget what we originally sought. ACT UP provided brief hope that the movement would seek to return to its roots, as lack of AIDS research made people realize that tolerance only stretches so far. But again, gains were made, and people closed up shop.
Over the past few decades, the movement's apparent shift from liberation to assimilation is manifested in the movement's support for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is not a party for the people because it is not a party of the people. The interests of working people, queer people, people of color and women are antithetical to the interests of the Democratic Party. It is in the Democratic Party's interest however, to support assimilation, until the conservative vote tells them otherwise.
Silver lining?
It is hard to find the silver lining because we have, in essence, created the "back-alley family" in eleven states. Queer families will continue to exist and have children. A generation of children may well grow up understanding that we have termed their families illegal, much as we term undocumented immigrants illegal. Much as we called interracial marriages illegal. Much as we called African Americans 3/5 of a person. These children will grow up faced with ridicule, ostracism, isolation and perhaps in fear for their lives because they come from a family that we have outlawed.
We cannot go backwards. Legalizing discrimination constitutionally is a grave danger for anyone who has fought for, or benefitted from, civil rights and equality in the U.S. If queer people look bad today, maybe tomorrow, interracial couples will not look so good to us. Maybe the next day, U.S. citizens married to undocumented immigrants won't look so good either. And what about women? Can we really trust them to vote? And down that slippery slope we go, "advancing" ourselves right to the past. A bigoted, nativist, sexist and homophobic past.
Gay organizations that try to find the silver lining in this are not helping us. There is no silver lining in discriminatory legislation that has been accepted by the majority of people in eleven states. Major gains were taken away from queer people in just one vote. Decades of work and effort were stripped away at the ballot box because it was the ballot box that put them there, not the people in the streets. It is about discrimination, and queer organizations need to understand that, as history has shown time and again, the fight for civil rights and an end to discrimination does not take place inside the Democratic Party or the ballot box, but that it must take place in the streets. See these amendments for what they are. Bigoted, homophobic and most especially, dangerous.
[Jessica L is a member of Refoundation and Revolution and Solidarity in Detroit]