A Poem For Barack Obama

I am not a poet. In fact, while I've been writing for years, this is my first attempt ever at this kind of thing, so I ask your indulgence. Bad poetry it may be, but it's how I feel. I offer it in the hope that its message will supersede its failings in style and format.

As your big day approaches

I hope you realize

The hurt that you have caused us

Our feelings brutalized


As millions cheer your victory

We cry for what we've lost

To return an invitation

Is it really worth the cost?


We know you just don't get us

We're those who you avoid

I say this as a Lesbian

Transgender

Unemployed


For all your talk of changing things

For which you are renown

Did you really have to do it?

To kick us when we're down?


We thought that you knew better

We thought you'd understand

How you'd rip our wounds back open

By honoring this man


The message you have sent us

As clear as clear can be

Fairness, freedom, and respect

Are not for those like me


I will not come to Washington

Can't bear to see that day

When the values of a bigot

Are put upon display


I will watch it on TV

But I will tune in late

For I am an American

I will not honor hate

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

At least, I hope it is anyway.

Stonewall didn't do it. The Briggs amendment didn't do it. The Defense of Marriage Act didn't do it. The horrific misuse of Don't Ask Don't Tell to facilitate the most intense anti-gay witch hunt in the history of the US military didn't do it. George W. Bush actively championing a Federal Marriage Amendment didn't do it. Constitutional bans or laws prohibiting same-sex marriage in 45 states didn't do it. Only one issue over the course of our collective community history, HIV/AIDS, has even come close to doing it.

Unbelievably, it took the actual stripping of already existent marriage rights from gay and lesbian Californians to finally mobilize our community to loudly and proudly fight for our rights in significant numbers nationwide. At last, LGBT America has said "Enough!" and we're taking to the streets in protest all across our country. It's about damn time.

As a community, we've spent most of the almost forty years since Stonewall getting our asses kicked by the conservatives and the fundies pretty regularly and pretty soundly. Not once did we rise up all over the country in the kind of numbers we're seeing now in response to the passage of Prop 8. Maybe it's that people feel safer to come out and be seen now than they used to be? Well, all of the Pride events I've been to since the mid-90's when I first came out have drawn pretty good crowds, so I don't think it's a fear of being seen. Could it be that people are just selfish and don't care? Nah, I can't believe that either. Anyone in our community who lives anywhere in or near a major city or owns an Internet-capable computer knows that just isn't the case. Could it be that there's been no one to organize and coordinate large scale LGBT activism and events? Nope, that hasn't been true for decades now, and besides, these protests really don't have any organization or group of organizations leading this effort.

So then, what is it? Why did it take not simply being denied equality but having already-won rights stripped away before we finally began taking the kind of bold, wide-scale action we've desperately needed to happen for so long? I think we all know the answer, don't we? Yep, plain old laziness.

It's easy to be complacent when things are good, or at least, not bad. Just as many who have good jobs and nice homes don't seem to take a lot of interest in fighting to protect the homes and jobs of those who don't, people who aren't personally impacted by the lack of ability to get married haven't seemed especially motivated to stand up and speak out for those who are. That is, until now.

In a way, the passage of Prop 8 is probably the best thing that could have ever happened to our community. Stunning in its hatefulness and bigotry, cast into even higher relief against the backdrop of the election of Barack Obama, I believe it is that very juxtaposition of simultaneous events that has brought us out of our warm and fuzzy Queer cocoons at last. We watch our country and our world cheer as a new President prepares to take office, marking a major step forward in the history of racial equality and civil rights in America, but at the very same moment we see ourselves slapped down hard. As most Americans now look with anticipation and excitement toward what is now possible with a new and more progressive federal government, we ourselves are forced to face what has been taken away from us.

For me, and I'd bet for many of you reading this, particularly if you are transgender, the parallels to the recent past are pretty obvious. When the transgender community was stripped from ENDA, we responded in much the same way, though on a much smaller scale. For the past year or so, there have been regular protests at Human Rights Campaign events nationwide, and while significantly smaller in size, they've been consistent and they've been active. Despite their small size, the message has gotten out, slowly but surely, not by force of numbers but by constantly being out there, constantly promoting the same clear message of equality and fairness, and by never, ever, backing down or giving up on what we know to be right.

That's how this battle will be won. Not by marching and protesting for a week or even a few weeks, but by being consistent and unrelenting, by making our voices heard wherever and whenever they need to be heard, over and over and over, until the message finally starts sinking in to the community, to those inclined to support us, and eventually to average fair-minded straight Americans. We've seen it happen with HRC and ENDA, and we'll see it happen here, perhaps even more quickly because of the huge numbers involved.

Consider where the transgender community was just a few years ago. We protested, we yelled, we screamed, but we couldn't even get our own community media to pay attention for the most part. In my opinion, the biggest part of the problem was that we had just two protests in the summer of 2004 and that was it. Sure we had plenty of community-created media online addressing our issues, but the reality we quickly discovered was that the only people really interested in what we had to say were fellow transfolks, and preaching strictly to the choir just doesn't have much of an impact. The only time non-trans-specific media took even a cursory interest in our issues was when we finally got out from behind our computers and actually protested in front of HRC's headquarters.

Over the course of the last year we've seen that level of interest and support increase significantly, and I believe that's directly due to fact that we're not just shouting in the dark anymore. We've called out HRC on their home turf, their dinners and events, all over the country. First, our own community media began picking up the story and then it spread to mainstream media. Once that happened, things suddenly started to change.

As news stories and columns on the topic have run in mainstream newsmedia, we've seen more and more people step up and join our struggle. Where just four years ago the Democratic nominee for President publicly opposed our fair treatment and equality, we now have a President-elect who has publicly and repeatedly expressed his view that transgender people should be included in ENDA. Politicians all over our country have declined to attend HRC events because of the increasing public outcry over their selfish, discriminatory, and transphobic political games. States and municipalities all over the country have taken it upon themselves to extend workplace anti-discrimination and hate crimes protections to their transgender citizens. We've seen Barney Frank go from being publicly supportive of treating us fairly to non-supportive to supportive once more. The political playing field regarding the issue of transgender equality has changed drastically for the better over the last four years and that's because we've kept putting the message out there consistently.

It's taken us over four years to come this far and the battle is still far from over. The battle for same-sex marriage will take far longer because there's so much farther to go. As hard as it's been to achieve the gains we've already won, transpeople didn't have to first overcome laws and constitutional amendments prohibiting our equal treatment under the law as already exist in 90% of American states. It's far harder to argue convincingly that there are moral and religious prohibitions against treating people fairly in the workplace or protecting them from violence driven by hate than it is to make the case against same-sex marriage. That shouldn't be the case, of course, but it's nonetheless true, requiring us to either hope for a Supreme Court decision of a scope and impact on the level of a Roe v. Wade or Lawrence v. Texas, or we must resolve to engage in an intensive state-by-state battle that probably won't be completely won in our lifetimes. No, it isn't fair, but it is the unfortunate reality.

Stonewall got people to take notice, but it took decades longer before the promise of that uprising began to bear fruit in any significant way. In fact, it's arguable that it's only in the last ten years or so, long past the time of Harvey Milk and the repudiation of the Briggs Amendment by California voters, decades after the ACT-UP HIV/AIDS uprisings, that we've really begun making serious inroads toward equal rights and treatment for all LGBT people in this country.

We've made enormous strides over the last decade, despite suffering through the most aggressively homo/transphobic federal government in modern memory, and in the face of loss after loss in terms of the legal validation of same-sex relationships even as we've made great progress in other areas. Just as is being said about our current economic problems, things will likely get worse before they get better. Regardless, we must continue to persevere. As Dr. King said, the arc of history does bend toward justice, but it will not reach that point unless and until we are committed and relentless in pushing forward toward that goal.

It's time for gay and lesbian people to heed the lessons not only from their own history but also from the struggles of racial and ethnic minorities and from their transgender brothers and sisters. We will win this war (and yes, we must consider it a war if we are to have a hope of winning it), but only if we understand and act on the undeniable truth that we are still closer to the beginning than we are to the end.

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

- The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again" (1971)

Forward Thinking

Of the GLB's (and T's) that are starting to blog about the post-Prop 8 world, there is a small but growing group of individuals that have come to the same conclusion, apparently independent of each other. These are D.C. lawyers and the like, political wonks, people that dig into political strategy for fun and have been blogging quietly in their own arenas.

The religious conservatives are going to keep their momentum going, they are going to build on the recent anti-gay ballot victories at the state level. Their plan is to move from state to state focusing their attention on enacting "marriage sanctity" laws in each state. They will be backed by large groups such as the Catholic Church, Evangelicals and the Mormons. And four or eight years from now, Republican neocons will use that platform to their own end as well.

They've shown us how they intend to organize and operate; that was their first mistake. Their second mistake is the decision to wage these state level battles to oppress gays. Once their political machine gets moving in a predetermined direction, it will be hard to turn. Lucky for us, they have already laid the aim and groundwork for their push. While they are focused on state level anti-gay marriage resolutions, we need to focus on the bigger prize. They are still thinking in Republican terms of States Rights over Federal, but this is a new era.

It is time to build the push for a fully inclusive ENDA.

We need to start rebuilding for a fully inclusive ENDA. Start making strong alliances, start reaching out, start laying the bare strategic groundwork for the next battle a year or so from now. Let the lawyers continue to fight to overturn Prop 8, it was in some respects a red herring primarily designed to build and test a religion-based political machine, but it did serve (hopefully) as a fertile source of lessons learned and an insight as to how we need to fight the upcoming fight for our rights.

Read the religious and neocon blogs daily. Get to know who we are up against. Start talking to and reaching out to those religious nuts you usually avoid or worse still, ridicule for their beliefs. They are the ones that will eventually need to be educated and turned, in a manner that does not put them on the defensive. Don't try to change their point of view just yet; instead learn why they think the way they do. Get inside their heads. I guarantee you'll find that their world view is *not* the mirror image of ours. Rather, it is a completely different view altogether and one that strongly affects their motivation to act. Think of why they are called Jesus' Flock and why wear that label as a matter of pride, wherein many of us would see it as mocking criticism to be called "sheep". Start thinking in terms of "group unity" and "the good of society overriding personal liberty". That is where the next battle for rights will be waged, not in the esoteric field of Constitutional Rights or Personal Liberty.

ENDA will form the foundation for our battles that lie ahead. Now is the time to build our push for Federal level legislation, while Democrats are in control. In the end, both the religious groups and we will have won our chosen battles. However, once ENDA is enacted, Federal civil unions will have something to build upon and at that point the battle over the "sanctity of marriage" will be moot and hopefully even forgotten. We will have overcome the bigotry and the hatred, we will have spoken to people's hearts in ways they understand. We will have earned our equality.

(Note: Yes, I wrote, "earned our equality". Think Barney Frank, think Joe-I'm-A Good Christian-Six Pack; to them rights are not inalienable and they are not imbued simply by Creation, they are earned by trust and union with those like yourself. It's an important distinction and one we need to learn to apply.)

People of color are not to blame for California passing Prop 8

First, let me just say this: This is a little ranty, and the ranting is not directed, as far as I know, at anyone on this blog or anyone I know personally. A good bit of frustration about the anti-gay amendments is spilling out in all kinds of different directions in all kinds of different communities. Some of it's been spilling over into blame-slinging racism from white queers. Now some of it's spilling over into blame-slinging at our not entirely effective marriage equality campaign, which didn't really do half a bad job considering what we were up against... but clearly we needed to do better, and we needed to do better in one specific area in particular: Involving people of color.

Okay, folks, there's been a good bit of noise in the blagosphere that if Black and Latino voters only hadn't turned up to the polls in record numbers to vote for Barack Obama, Prop 8 wouldn't have gotten passed and (presumably white) queers would have nothing to do but celebrate on November 5th.

But Dan Savage can bite me.

If you really think that statistically speaking, Black and Latino homophobia is to blame for Prop 8's passage, first go here and read this, then get back to me.

Here? Okay, good. To recap, there are insufficient numbers of Black and Latino voters in California to have ensured Prop 8's passage all by themselves. If they voted for Prop 8 only in the same proportions as white voters (which, one exit poll suggests, they didn't), the Proposition still would have passed by a narrow margin. If every Black and Latino voter in the country stayed home, maybe Prop 8 wouldn't have passed... but we'd definitely be looking to John McCain and Sarah Palin to uphold our rights on the federal level, which, let's face it, is an unlikely prospect at best.

Need more numbers? Maybe simpler ones? You're excused for another few minutes to look here.

Okay, but the exit poll says that Black and Latino voters voted for Prop 8 in greater proportion than white voters did. Leaving aside the notorious unreliability of exit polls, why might that have been? I'm hearing from the Dan Savage quadrant that it's because Black people are homophobic. Chil', please, as any number of white gay men might say.

Proportionally more people of color supported Prop 8 because Yes on 8 did a better job asking for their votes. No on 8 didn't bother. We tailored our message to straight white women. We didn't do any coalition building with communities of color. It was a reasonable course of action from a political standpoint. After all, Hilary Clinton was a foregone conclusion for the democratic nominee. And when it turned out she wasn't after all, we still knew white women were going to be the decisive factor in the election; all the media said so. It was all about whether white women would vote for Obama because he's young and good looking, or whether they would vote for McCain because they were disillusioned and angry with the Democrats and the Obama campaign, or whether they were for Palin or against Palin. Why, we had no way of knowing people of color would get to the polls and actually vote. You know, after fighting so long and hard for that right, a fight that continued during the elections this year, given (as it happens, ineffective) voter suppression attempts aimed at people of color.

Still and all, many Black and Latino people, gay and straight, found a way to support marriage equality. The NAACP came out opposing Prop 8, without much fanfare from the No on 8 campaign. President-Elect Obama officially opposed 8, even though he did cave and make the obligatory "marriage etc etc" statement that the Yes on 8 people twisted in their dirty robocalls. And many more regular people would have if the Yes on 8 campaign didn't get to their families and churches first. Because believe it or not, Black civil rights leaders have a history of supporting gay rights. Jesse Jackson and the NAACP were there at the 1987 march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights. Gay rights leaders don't have the same history of supporting Black civil rights. And in the gap between what white queers owe the Black community and what they owe us, it's just possible that marriage fell.

So if anyone would like to continue to pin the responsibility for Prop 8's passage to Black people, go right ahead, but only if we actually learn something productive from it instead of just slinging blame—and that's that we can't win our rights without the help of people who've had many years more experience at it, and we've got to earn that help by lending a hand unasked in the continuing fight against racism. (And no doubt about it, it is a continuing fight: just because Barack Obama was elected President doesn't mean there aren't millions of young Black men, maybe some just as smart and talented, behind bars for no crime or for a crime a white man would have got off for.) If you won't acknowledge the context so we can learn from our mistakes, then you'd better chalk up those extra few votes to bad luck and start organizing for the next four years. Just don't make the same mistake.

Here's my suggestion for a plan of action for the marriage equality movement for the next four years:
1) Reach out to LGBT of color organizations first. Cop to the mistakes we made in organizing against Prop 8, eat some crow, and ask them what they need to be involved.
2) Having done that, offer help to queer-positive anti-racist organizations. Acknowledge that in the past, mainstream gay organizations haven't been doing all we could in the fight against racism. Follow through on commitments we make at this time.
3) At the same time, build inroads in mainstream communities by lending a hand in community projects. Go out with teams of VolunQueers to work on explicitly non-gay related projects that affect the lives of Black people, Latin@s, Asians, Native people, and poor straight white people. Volunteer at their churches' food banks. Be hard working, open hearted, and humble.
4) Ask moderate church and community leaders what it would take to make a counter-amendment palatable to them and their constituents. WHAT?!? Yes. Not every demand could possibly be met without failing in our aim of equality—but you might be surprised, for several groups to get on board, it might take as little as the addition of a line that explicitly states that no church will be required to marry same sex couples, just to counteract the lies Prop 8 supporters have been telling. Perhaps the next marriage amendment will state that religious organizations are responsible for defining the meaning of the word marriage for themselves, and the state is required to recognize every religious marriage and civil union equally—but that would still work for me.
5) Value people of color's work. Give thanks and reciprocate. Follow up and maintain the coalition. Call every so often and ask if there's anything they need, find out what they're working on and volunteer to help.

We're in the equality caucus together.

It Was The Best Of Times...

A friend of mine posted this on a Yahoo! Group we both participate in:

"OK, let me state for the record that I voted for John McCain because I thought and still believe that he was better qualified. I don’t think that my vote makes me a racist (Besides, most of you who know me, know better than that)."

I don't believe for a moment that everyone who voted for McCain is a racist. I do believe though that, in general, the concept of and quest for equality for all Americans is further down McCain voters "to do" list than I am comfortable with.

I could never vote for any candidate that stood opposed to full equality for lesbian and gay Americans in committed relationships. So long as the Republican party (or any party) bases that intolerant and discriminatory aspect of it's political platform on evangelical religious doctrine, I will never understand how anyone professing commitment to human rights could vote for them.

Let me ask a question of McCain voters: If everything else about John McCain's campaign remained the same with the following exception; instead of opposing "gay marriage" the Republican party and its candidate opposed the right of an African-American to marry a Caucasian, would YOU still have voted for McCain?

I was a Hillary Clinton supporter. I believed that our nation was finally going to see someone from the majority binary gender ascend to the highest office in the land. I believed that she was imminently qualified and ready for the job. Yet, despite my dedication to Hillary, I told anyone who would listen that our nation was so very fortunate to have (in my opinion) at least two highly qualified and visionary candidates running to be President of The United States of America.

I voted proudly and enthusiastically for Barack Hussein Obama because I believe he was the most qualified candidate. I believe his steadiness, good judgment, even-temper and impressive intellect are exactly what this country and the world desperately need in order to recover from past eight disastrous years.

I've waited almost 40 years for someone to truly inspire me to believe that America is still a place where hope trumps fear, where equality overcomes discrimination and intolerance, where intellectual curiosity, scientific knowledge and competence takes precedence over ignorance, authoritarianism and arch-conservative religious doctrine. To some degree, the wait ended Tuesday night.

To paraphrase the words of Michelle Obama, I have never been more proud to be an American than I was on November 4th. I was not, however, as proud as I had hoped to be.

On the same night that millions of progressive minded Californians helped elect Barack Obama President, a majority of those same Californians voted to take away the existing rights of their lesbian and gay neighbors.

It hurts to realize that while I was casting my vote for Barack Obama in Oregon, a majority of African-American and Hispanic voters down the coast in California were saying "yes" not only to discrimination, but "yes" to the removal of existing rights from Americans like me.

70% of African-Americans voted to ban "gay marriage"
53% of Hispanics voted to ban "gay marriage"

The irony is immobilizing: The inspiration and hope that drove so many minorities (and majorities) to the polls to vote for Barack Obama also (temporarily) doomed existing marriage equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Californians.

An America that takes an historic step forward while simultaneously stepping on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans is standing tall on a shaky foundation. We have much work to do.

On election night Barack Obama said;

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, GAY, STRAIGHT, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America."

Cher (my partner of 26 years) and I remain proud of our vote for President-Elect Obama. We believe that America's best days lie ahead. We believe in his dedication and commitment to returning America to a place where its better angels speak louder than the demons of hate, prejudice, self-righteousness, greed and imperialism.

We believe. We believe as much as second-class citizens, in second class relationships with second class families can believe.

We shall overcome.