What If We Lose Marriage in CA?

Who, if anyone, will deserve the blame? In the Gay City News, Kelly Jean Cogswell writes an understandably frustrated article about the very real possibility of losing the just-received right to marry in California:

Apparently, there's some fixed amount of freedom in the world, like oil in the ground, or gold, and anybody in their right mind tries to hoard it. That's the idea I get, anyway, when somebody's explaining why you can't give more rights to women (or people of color or immigrants). It'll be coming right out of their pocket, and they can't afford it.

. . . And what are embattled queer people countering that with? Ads with reassuring heterosexual faces explaining that we're not going to take over the world. That's right. The voice for same sex-marriage is embodied in smarmy hets like San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. If you want straights, you should at least get them from Massachusetts where they can attest that after several years of gay marriage nobody's civil or religious freedoms have been abridged. The sky didn't fall. Just a few maple leaves.

If the Proposition [8] passes, ending same-sex marriage, I'll blame national gay leadership, especially Democrats, that already agreed to be invisible in the Obama campaign. By banning us from the camera, they make us seem like a bunch of pervs. It's for our own good, of course. Always for our own good. Mesmerized by their homophobic voices, we've lost our pride, and the belief in our own American stories of loss and striving, like our fights to visit our partners in hospitals, share health insurance, make lives together, all the stories that could persuade a reluctant audience that does, essentially, value equality and civil rights.

How can we not all share this anger? Although there is no specific mention of Obama, his name is certainly clear here. I support Obama. I think he is a remarkable man and politician. His brilliance is what makes his failing in this area--gay marriage--so heartbreaking. When Obama, a man who has spoken and written so beautifully about his understanding of the minority American experience, refuses to support marriage for gay people, he sends a message to everyone, not just his political opponents, that we are not equal. And what are we supposed to do with that?

More after the jump.

Obama has shifted his stance on any number of issues (FISA, gun control, off-shore drilling, Reverend Wright), but he has remained firm in this -- no gay marriage. (Remember during the VP debate when Biden practically had to choke out his agreement with Palin regarding gay marriage.) In an interview with The Advocate, way back in April during the primaries, the Advocate interviewer pressed Obamaon this:

Both you and your wife speak eloquently about being told to wait your turn and how if you had done that, you might not have gone to law school or run for Senate or even president. To some extent, isn’t that what you’re asking same-sex couples to do by favoring civil unions over marriage -- to wait their turn?

Obama: I don’t ask them that. Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit -- I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, "Wait your turn." I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” where he says to the white clergy, "Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom."

. . . but my perspective is also shaped by the broader political and historical context in which I’m operating. And I’ve said this before -- I’m the product of a mixed marriage that would have been illegal in 12 states when I was born. That doesn’t mean that had I been an adviser to Dr. King back then, I would have told him to lead with repealing an antimiscegenation law, because it just might not have been the best strategy in terms of moving broader equality forward. That’s a decision that the LGBT community has to make. That’s not a decision for me to make.

Is it fair for the LGBT community to ask for leadership? In 1963, President Kennedy made civil rights a moral issue for the country.

Obama: But he didn’t overturn antimiscegenation. Right?

Cogswell, in the Gay City News, writes:

. . . Like with children, I suppose the only counter to miserly behavior is to explain the benefit of sharing. In the case of same-sex marriage, we could argue that it strengthens an institution plenty of heterosexuals are turning away from, and also guarantees that we queers take care of our partners so that they don't become burdens on "society."

On the other hand, if our fellow citizens refuse to share the wealth with same-sex couples, maybe we should shift our focus altogether, and demand they quit awarding any special rights to heterosexual marriages. Then we can all share the loss.

I know that pushing for marriage equality might cause a backlash. How could I not understand that? But I am listening to Obama when he says, "It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, 'Wait your turn.'"