Same-sex marriage is now legal. But this is hardly the time to be resting on our laurels.
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I started coming out in 2003. (Of course, you never quit coming out until everyone in the world knows you’re gay.) The great big rainbow-striped version of America I stepped into looked a lot different then from what it does today. The spectre of HIV/AIDS still haunted the collective imagination of those who survived. Public homophobia–in politics, in mass media, and in the general populace–was the order of the day. And same-sex marriage was legally recognized in zero states.
Look how far we’ve come. We grow ever closer to a cure for HIV/AIDS. We can be out in the unlikeliest places, like public schools and professional sports. And same-sex marriage is the law of the land.
Do you see what I did there? I’ve just constructed a cherry-picked narrative, highlighting the positive while ignoring a great many negatives. HIV/AIDS is still ravaging much of the world, and the hoped-for treatments will likely be priced well out of reach for most patients. (In the U.S., a prescription for the HIV-prevention medication Truvada can cost up to $18,000 a year without insurance.) We still struggle for safety in public–even in gay–friendly cities.
Yet I often feel that the attitude we gay men have developed is that we won because we can now marry. I argue that this is hardly the time to be resting on our laurels.
Just because we have legalized same-sex marriage doesn’t mean all the victories have been won.
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First off, just because we have legalized same-sex marriage doesn’t mean all the victories have been won. Consider that, in 28 states, homosexuality is considered just cause for being fired from your job; in 29 states, your landlord can evict you because of your sexual orientation. Your wedding announcement can double as your termination notice, and the dream of moving in with your true love can turn into a nightmare. All told, these and other discriminatory laws impede the lives of roughly half of all LGBTQ Americans. (On which point, let me address that expression “LGBTQ,” because I’ve found we gay men are in the habit of using it, not for what it really means, but as a code for “gay men.”) And what about those of us who have no immediate plans to marry, or don’t want to marry at all? For them, it seems there has been only one real legal advancement, and it doesn’t affect them at all.
I feel like we’ve thrown the rest of our rainbow family under the bus. Never mind the persistent backtalk–using misogynistic terms for lesbians, erasing bisexual identity as “bi now, gay later,” reducing transgender people to slurs and body parts, remaining too ignorant of other queer identities to even talk about them. Though these are all important to address, there is so much more.
What are we doing about the fact that women, lesbians included, still suffer under the patriarchal system–paid less, charged more, and held back?
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Let’s ask ourselves some hard questions. What are we doing about the fact that women, lesbians included, still suffer under the patriarchal system–paid less, charged more, and held back? What are the consequences to bisexual individuals when we insist they don’t exist? What are we doing to help our transgender compatriots, who still suffer shocking discrimination with regard to health care and employment–even the basic biological right to use the bathroom – and are being murdered at an-all time high? Why are those who fought so hard for their own marriages to be legally recognized so quick to deny that same right to polyamorous unions? (The last I checked, there’s not much difference between two people signing a legal contract and three people signing a legal contract.) How do we fix a society in which 40% of homeless people under age 18 are LGBTQ? What are we doing to support sexual- and gender-minority communities that are just now finding their voice, like genderfluid and asexual people? What are we doing about the threats to life and limb for LGBTQ people in other countries, especially given that, in some cases, the homophobic threats were exported from the United States?
We pushed for decades to have the basic human right of marriage afforded to us by the law. But if that fight didn’t hone us into better people who work towards the betterment of all humans, I’m left wondering what it was worth.
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I find much inspiration in a lesbian couple I know who dedicated a great deal of time and energy in the push for legalized same-sex marriage in their home state. After marriage was passed into law, they asked themselves where they could begin paying it forward. So they poured themselves into fighting class and racial inequality.
We pushed for decades to have the basic human right of marriage afforded to us by the law. But if that fight didn’t hone us into better people who work towards the betterment of all humans, I’m left wondering what it was worth. Let’s remember that when we were down, dying of AIDS by the thousands, allies both queer and straight worked to ease our suffering.
My brothers, it’s time to pay it forward.
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Photo: Flickr/ambroochizafer
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