More on Marriage

First, this racist rant from Jasmyn Cannick. This is the sort of thing that leads me to think that the government is not the only dysfunctional aspect of this society:

As I pointed out before, it is a privilege to be able to focus solely on the issue of obtaining marriage for lesbian and gay couples. A privilege that many of us aren’t afforded.

It continues to be issue number one for the gay civil rights movement because for its leaders it is the last step in achieving parity with their heterosexual counterparts who already have the six-figure income, house, vacation house, an adopted son or daughter from somewhere in Africa or some other impoverished nation, and two or more cars.

This is the kind of argument we might see coming from Maggie Gallagher or Tony Perkins, except that I doubt either of them would play the race card quite so reflexively, as Cannick hastens to do. In formal logic, it's known as a "straw man" -- you invent a position or a condition that is supposed to represent your opponent's opinion or condition but doesn't do so accurately, then demolish it. It's an automatic "FAIL."

OK -- I'm white. I'm not rich, and I don't think I've ever been what anyone would call "privileged" (although I realize that to some, "white" and "privileged" are synonyms) -- I grew up poor, worked my way through college, and have at times been financially secure, but never what you'd even call well-off. I've never owned even one car, and the only thing I've ever adopted was a cat. So I think I'm quite legitimately calling "bullshit" on this one.

Add in that the post is factually challenged: marriage is the most high-profile issue right now because it's the most controversial, thanks to the fundies and, at the risk of ruffling some PC feathers, some high-profile leaders of the black community (although I'm very happy to acknowledge the role that black churches and the black community played in Washington, D.C., in securing our rights there). (Note to Jasmyne Connick: you won't get any sympathy from this quarter when you attack people who are actually fighting for equal rights for all of us and let Bishop Harry Jackson off the hook.) But marriage is not the only issue, and anyone who says that our organizations are not working for ENDA, DADT repeal, and any other facet of this struggle you care to name, both locally and nationally, is full of it. This is even more grossly distorted than it might seem at first when you remember that it was only recently that the national organizations even acknowledged the push for marriage rights as a legitimate area of concern and tried for years to redirect those efforts toward other issues. It's taken immense pressure from independent gay activists to reorient their priorities, and now Cannick is bitching because we haven't made black lesbians the main concern.

It's also a strategically critical issue: if we can get married as easily and freely as anyone else, if our families have the same legal and social recognition, if we have equal access to what is a core element of any society, denying us other rights becomes very obviously indefensible.

And now that I've vented my temper a bit, let me point out that none of these issues are either/or for most of us, and none of our national advocacy organizations is focusing solely on any one of them -- that's just more BS. We all meet prejudice in our daily lives, even in places where we least expect it. I don't see that the attempt to co-opt the gay civil rights movement into fighting racial prejudice on a day-to-day basis is helping anyone, frankly, and, trying to be as nice about it as I possibly can, Cannick's post strikes me as terribly self-centered and childish.

Dan Savage has a much more succinct rejoinder, underscored by the first couple to get their marriage license in D.C.