Some on the Radil Queer Left Still Thk Gay Marriage Is Bad for the LGBTQ Communy

Contents:

• GAY RIGHTS ADVANCED SIGNIFINTLY THE LAST 25 YEARS — NO THANKS TO CONGRS
• SENATE PASS HISTORIC GAY-MARRIAGE BILL, NO THANKS TO RICK STT AND MAR RUB
• GAY MARRIAGE: THANKS BUT NO THANKS?
• GAY MARRIAGE? NO THANKS, WE'VE GOT MORE IMPORTANT ISSU TO WORRY ABOUT
• SOME ON THE RADIL QUEER LEFT STILL THK GAY MARRIAGE IS BAD FOR THE LGBTQ COMMUNY
• GAY MARRIAGE

GAY RIGHTS ADVANCED SIGNIFINTLY THE LAST 25 YEARS — NO THANKS TO CONGRS

Senate voted on two bills alg wh gay rights.

Those rults sent a clear msage to all sis of the gay rights bate: Any effort to w marriage rights natnwi faced broad ristance, but Congrs was on the cp of liverg basic civil rights 25 years sce are notable for both the progrs and lack of on those issu.

Nearly half of the untry’s LGBT populatn liv plac where the right to wed appears vlate, but the risk of beg “married on Saturday and then fired on Monday for jt that act, ” as feral judge Ilana Rovner has scribed , the last quarter-century, the gay rights movement’s major policy gas were livered by a fortuo batn of succsful ligatn, rponsive urts, key polil victori a handful of largely left-leang stat and a helpful Whe Hoe. But a 1974 bill to ban anti-gay discrimatn many of the same areas, the Equaly Act, never ma beyond a Hoe mtee or won a sgle Senate Ain Amerin legal strategists, who had first challenged Jim Crow through the urts, gay rights activists did not ially turn to the feral judiciary.

SENATE PASS HISTORIC GAY-MARRIAGE BILL, NO THANKS TO RICK STT AND MAR RUB

The one signifint attempt to do so backfired spectacularly, when the Supreme Court led 1986 that stat uld ntue crimalizg private, nsensual sex acts solely to exprs moral disapproval of homosexualy. That precent, which wasn’t reversed until 2003, dited that any effort to e the urts to w feral civil rights protectns for gays, lbians and bisexuals might fail. By the early 1990s, there were two openly gay members of Congrs, as many as two dozen reprentativ who saw the LGBT muny as a signifint nstuency their districts, and a Democratic ngrsnal learship generally receptive to lobbyg om tert groups like the Human Rights Campaign and the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Bill Clton beme the first print elected as a gay rights supporter, the groups dropped the amb Equaly Act for somethg that stood a better chance of passage, monstratg a prevly unseen tactil no navigatg Congrs.

(A Gallup poll at the time found that 80 percent of Amerins believed gays and lbians served equal job opportuni. “If ‘gay’ was gog to enter the nversatn, that’s where you wanted to have — where we had the strategic advantage, ” Daniel Zgale, then the Human Rights Campaign’s polil director, told when Democrats lost Congrs that fall, they also lost the abily to ntrol that nversatn. ), the Senate’s leadg pro-gay Democrat, a promise: If Democrats dropped their efforts to amend DOMA, Lott would schle a stand-alone vote that same day on ENDA.

GAY MARRIAGE: THANKS BUT NO THANKS?

10 of senators takg almost simultaneo vot on related issu om oppose angl: one to advance gay rights and one to curtail them. Morate Democrats wary of beg associated wh a gay rights bill were more willg to do so when they uld at the same time vote for a higher-profile anti-gay-rights bill.

For Republins, offerg gay people job protectns seemed like a most ncsn pared wh regnizg their fai.

In the quarter-century sce, ngrsnal iative on gay rights has been srce. A new Equaly Act was troduced 2015 to wre sexual orientatn and genr inty to the Civil Rights Act; appears stuck the the meantime, marriage rights graduated om a lol Hawaii issue to a natnal e, richetg through state pals until feral urts — now more sympathetic to gay rights s than they were two s earlier — were fally forced to reckon wh .

GAY MARRIAGE? NO THANKS, WE'VE GOT MORE IMPORTANT ISSU TO WORRY ABOUT

Clayton County that gay men, lbians, bisexuals and transgenr people were already vered by the Civil Rights Act’s cln of “sex” as a forbidn tegory for job discrimatn.

SOME ON THE RADIL QUEER LEFT STILL THK GAY MARRIAGE IS BAD FOR THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

The Senate's 50 Democrats were joed by 12 Republins — a seemgly clear reflectn of a natnal trend toward acceptance of gay marriage. LGBT is still a popular term ed to discs genr and sexual mori, but all GSRM are wele beyond lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr people who nsent to participate a safe space. I’m om New York Cy, and I was celebratg my birthday the night that the Marriage Equaly Act passed, signalg that gay marriage would be legalized the state of New York.

The timg uldn’t have been more perfect: wh NYC Pri that same weekend, the cy was poised to celebrate a signifint achievement for gay and lbian equaly not only for our state, but for our untry.

GAY MARRIAGE

In “Competg Universali, ” Judh Butler argu that the fight for gay marriage (and gay upl’ adoptg, laws ncerng gay and lbian participatn the ary, and other policized issu regardg grantg non-heterosexual bodi the rights that straight bodi’ have) is a fight that ultimately aims to serve the domant orr.