Gay marriage odds-n-ends

Lots of developments this week, probably because this is the beginning of the year and all the legislative bodies are decided what will be debated this year. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these measures in our favor just fizzled out. The ones against us, though, have to be done before 2008, of course.

• A Michigan appeals court decided that the anti-marriage amendment passed this past year in that state denies any benefit to same-sex couples who work for the state or state universities.
• Two Democrats in Connecticut announced their intention to propose a bill to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry.
• Two bills (an anti-marriage amendment and a DOMA) were defeated in committee in New Mexico. Shocker, it fell along that party line.
• An anti-marriage amendment passed the Senate Judiciary Committee in Indiana, once again along that party line.
• In New Hampshire, a Republican will introduce a bill for "Contractual Cohabitation" for both same and opposite sex partners.
• The Wyoming Senate passed a bill to prevent recognition of same-sex marriages performed out-of-state, because their own ban on same-sex marriage, the federal DOMA, and Massachusetts' own law preventing out-of-staters from marrying there aren't enough.
• Hawaiian Democrats introduced bills in the state House and Senate for civil unions.
• Christine Quinn, the New York City Council Speaker, introduced a bill to patch up the city's domestic partnership registry.

GOP will have an edge against the Democrats, we're stuck in the midde losing something we didn't have

Bil Browning has a post up about the Indiana Senate Judiciary Committee's "debate" about the anti-marriage constitutional ballot that we have going in this state. Here's what the whole thing came down to:

Senators Lanane and Broden tried to amend the resolution, but both amendments failed along that damn party line vote - 7 to 4. Senator Steele asked the pertinent question that I was waiting for. "Will this set the amendment back?" In other words, if we agree with your amendment and vote for it, will this take this off the 2008 ballot? (That's when it would go in front of the citizens for a vote. *gasp* It's also the same year that the governor and president are elected. Coincidence? I don't think so.) Senator Lanane responded that it would indeed set back the amendment, but perhaps it was best that we be deliberative about amending our constitution. Sen Steele brushed him off though. If it wouldn't make '08, he wasn't interested - no matter the damage just described to him.

The whole thing ended up being passed along the same party line. *Sigh* This isn't about us, really. It's just about, as Coolio said in Gangsta's Paradise, "Power and the money, money and the power, minute after minute, hour after hour." I really feel the speech that should have been made would have just explained that having this on the ballot won't help the GOP in 2008. It would have at least cut to the point.

Logic isn't an even playing field when arguing with heterosexual supremacists

I've been a little late in showing love for Bil Browning's post that made it all over the world, far too late considering he's a fellow gay Hoosier. Basically he asked for any and all gossip about heterosexist Indiana politicians, but especially a few who he suspects are closet cases giving head in cars and visiting bathhouses. He wants to make it harder for them to oppose the Hate Crimes and Civil Rights legislation and to support the proposed anti-marriage amendment.

So I'll show him some love now by responding to what he says is the only negative feedback he's gotten: the Indianapolis Star's blog. There's a lot of "Let's repeat all the things we agree on", followed by some "Here're some broad, sweeping statements that aren't backed up and actually kinda contradict each other", and then a "Here's what I really wanted to write about". After that, there's this paragraph:

Given the comparisons gay activists make between their movement and that of the civil rights movement for Blacks in the 1960s, they should actually do more of the things that made the latter successful: Dramatize -- and humanize - their struggle; argue the legal merits of demanding recognition of their rights and privileges to marriage; fight the long-term political battle to stem efforts against gay marriage through grass-roots efforts.

There're a few problems with this.

First, while he's right that a lot of people compare the gay rights movement to the civil rights movement in the 60's, the two groups have some significant differences. One important one is that there were no secretly Black racist politicians to out. This strategy simply doesn't exist for Black people. Second is that since gay people often come from families where no one else is openly gay, they find it much easier to turn their backs on the community. I haven't heard of any prominent Black politicians in the 1960's who were in favor of segregation. But there are gay people in the government who do support heterosexist legislation.

Second, this is a grass-roots effort in a political battle. I don't see any established gay rights groups officially helping Bil Browning out. And this is part of arguing the legal merits of the case: it shows that the privacy and equality that we want exists in practice for a small privileged group of people.

But third I take issue with the idea that we haven't somehow articulated our position well enough yet. Time and time again we show why we are deserving of full equality, making logical argument after logical argument, all to be put on a CNN talking heads show with someone from Focus on the Family who shows up with no logic and no research, just lies and fear-mongering, and to be told, well, the conservatives are probably right that you're asking for too much. The logical argument playing field is not even; if it were, we would have won a long, long time ago. Heterosexual supremacy is not a momentary ignorance, it's a complex system of demeaning and understanding GLBT people as inferior. Facts can't enter that system, because if they did, it would collapse, and heterosexists have far too much riding on that system. Facts aren't going to change people's realities. A dramatic display of the hypocricy of that worldview will.

Consider on the national level - Mark Foley was outed, that aided the Democrats polling numbers dramatically and probably allowd for them to take back the Senate. Is a Democratic Senate better for GLBT people? Yes - far from perfect, but better. The Indianapolis Star wants us to keep playing by a set of polite rules that haven't worked because they just can't work, they're set up so that we fail, and we shouldn't keep repeating the same failed experiments over and over hoping for a different outcome.

At the very least, if Bil gets any dirt, it will be very entertaining. And when you live in Indiana, you take your entertainment any way you can get it.

How are you spending the next two years?

Not hearing about silly anti-marriage amendments being rejected in the US Congress!

Paying attention in class

The kids at Good As You have been working on a new way to get rid of those pesky anti-gay equality amendments. Check it out.

Things that make you go Awwwwwwww

On the POGA:

[NGLTF exec. director] Foreman [...] pointed to the defeat of anti-abortion ballot measures and to a failed attempt to ban same-sex marriage in Arizona as signs of gay success at the polls. Seven other states voted to approve constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage: Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. Similar amendments have passed previously in all 20 states that considered them. But Foreman said there was still progress because the bans succeeded by narrower margins.

One thing we can't say about the gay activists is that they're spoiled. This movement's pluck, gumption, and other 1920's qualities are refreshing after looking at what that Christian rights movement has become.