Gay Girl / Straight World
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Last year at this time, I was preparing for a trip to the Bay Area to witness two friends take advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling that allowed same-sex couples to wed. It was a genuine celebration of two people’s love and 14-year commitment to one another. But it also was a political statement: They were two of the 36,000 people who fought for equal rights in a quiet, practical way—by saying “I do” to the person they love.
Gay Girl / Straight World
What a difference a year makes.
Then, California was the belle of the civil rights ball, a reliably blue state that helped to elect the nation’s first African-American president. Now, we’ve codified discrimination in our constitution and landed ourselves behind the progressive folks in the northeast and in the Hawkeye State.
In last summer’s flurry of pride parades and political rallies, support for Barack Obama swelled within the gay community, especially after he promised to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and reverse the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
It felt like Obama was living up to his self-description as a “fierce advocate” for gay rights. Then he was elected, and the first thing he did was plop Rick Warren, pastor of an Orange County mega church that ardently supported Proposition 8, on the stage to give the inauguration invocation. But gays turned the other cheek; Obama, after all, always gives us a shout out in his speeches, so that must mean he was going to take care of us, right?
Wrong, apparently. In the last month alone, the Justice Department has filed two legal briefs regarding Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA, each indicating that Obama is backpedaling on campaign promises to repeal those discriminatory laws. The language of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell brief indicates that the administration does not view equal rights for gays as “fundamental” (in legalese: keeping gays out of the military is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest” in maintaining unit cohesion). The DOMA brief equated consensual same-sex marriage between two adults to pedophilia and incest.
Not quite the “fierce advocate” I was hoping for.
This has an element of déjà vu all over again, if you ask me. Both Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and DOMA were signed into law by then-President Bill Clinton (in 1993 and 1996, respectively), another self-described gay rights advocate who also made campaign promises to integrate the military. Clinton claimed he was pigeonholed into supporting these bills because of the political climate at the time. While that may appease some in the community, I think that’s got to be one of the worst copouts ever constructed: Sorry, gang, but you were the easiest folks to put on the chopping block; if you were a less-hated minority, then maybe I could throw you a bone.
Yet here we are, more than 10 years later, with a president who campaigned on the theme of “change,” claiming to be backed into the same corner—now’s not the right time, what with multiple battlefronts and an economy in shambles; there, there, you’ll get your equal rights eventually.
At what point does the gay community say that we are done waiting for the right “political climate” to be recognized as equal members of society? When do we hold our politicians’ feet to the fire and say that today is the day we deserve our civil rights? When do we evaluate the last 16 years and recognize the truth to the adage "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"? When do we say enough is enough?
During last year’s six months of full marriage equality in California, a number of people wondered why my girlfriend and I chose not to get married. Simply put, we’re young and not yet ready to take that leap. But it’s revealing that we felt pressure to make such a commitment simply because our window of opportunity to do so might close. I don’t have to be ready to get married to know that I’m discriminated against. And I don’t have to enlist to know that I’m not wanted simply because of who I am.
That, to me, indicates that enough is enough.