Fighting Apathy Towards Gay Rights

[Skyhilist]

Recently, there has been a large push for marriage equality. While this is a step in the right direction and obviously homosexuals deserve to be treated as equals heterosexuals in marriage and all other aspects, I fear that people will become complacent with the rights that gays have now more than ever after the inevitable establishment of gay marriage. So how can we stop people from being apathetic towards the struggle for gay rights once gay marriage is established? Obviously under a capitalist system gays will continue to be persecuted, regardless of whether or not they have marriage rights, which many liberals fail to recognize. So how can we convince people that the struggle for gay rights is still important after marriage equality is ratified, and how do we show people that even with these marriage rights certain groups like gays will always be targeted under the capitalist system?

[Sidagma]

Man, people are already apathetic towards any material change in the condition of gays or any other oppressed group for the same reason they are anyone else's. Because bringing effective change to the oppressed is actually an incredibly difficult thing and change comes slowly.

Gay marriage is what we call a token issue -- it's something that lets straight people deflect responsibility for the condition of oppressed groups by being in favor of gay marriage. It's more a white lie that straight people tell to make themselves feel better than anything. Meanwhile, issues like homelessness, drug use, suicide, abuse, discrimination, etc go entirely unreported and uncared about because they're too depressing.

The gay rights movement is in shambles at the moment because we're too busy trying to get people to like us. We don't need people to like us. We need them to pay attention to what it is we actually need -- homes, recourse in cases of abuse, to not be dependent on our abusers, mental support, means of socialization that don't involve alcohol. We need to legitimately inconvenience people rather than telling them feel-good stories about how white cis gay actors can get married and be billionaires just like white cis straight actors. We are, after all, dealing with an oppressor group, whose society is structured in important ways on depriving us of our rights and freedoms. Social change needs to be as radical as economic change does.

[Emmeka]

So how can we stop people from being apathetic towards the struggle for gay rights once gay marriage is established?

I'd like to point out that many countries have already legalized gay marriage and that this turned out to be not so much of a big deal. I live in Canada, which has had legal gay marriage for the past 8 years.

But there's still widespread discrimination in our country. I personally have been the victim of a gay bashing, and violence towards queer people shows no prospect of winding down here anytime soon.

The biggest struggles to be won are those in schools - only one province (Ontario) and one territory (the Yukon) have laws in place which garauntee the right to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance. Even then Catholic schools (which are funded by the state in this country) have by and large illegally refused to follow laws requiring them to allow the creation of GSAs in Ontario. The only place that has enacted a law and enforced it on this subject is the Yukon territory (population 34,000), which has always been a bastion of social democracy in our country's far north.

With gay marriage laws in place you'd think that most Canadians would dismiss this issue, that "gays already have rights, why do they need more". But actually there's fairly widespread support for efforts to crack down on homophobia - going as far as our centrist party (the Liberal party) and our social democratic party (the NDP) making a concerted effort to back anti-homophobia legislation and to organize among urban LGBT populations.

It turns out that gay marriage getting passed didn't diminish from other LGBT issues. With that token issue out of the way, we're actually able to focus on other issues that really matter and generate real support for them, past all that religious bullshit.

[Broviet Union]

I am mostly of the opinion that homosexual marriage is a faux-left issue, attracting our energies because the ruling class cares much less where your penis goes than where your energy and money goes.

[RadioRaheem84]

I want to add to Broviet's point because I see that the they have really turned gay marriage into a token issue. I hear more about it than actual gay rights and discrimination. Not that I would be against homosexuals having the right to wed but they are really making this out to be as though this one move will somehow end years of discrimination overnight. LGBT youth remain I believe at high risk for homelessness and poverty, discrimination will still be a major issue and there will still be a problem of over development in LGBT communities.

I mean if they are comparing this to the Civil Rights movement then they are doing a great disservice to both movements because the Civil Rights movement did not just stop short of integration.

[Sidagma]

Man, queer movements need to get over our own segregation before we can even TALK about any civil rights movement. That shit is just straight-up petit bourgeois appropriation (in the SJ sense; that is, destruction of the meaning of a cultural symbol by out-of-context overuse by oppressor groups. lenin wrote about it, a li'l.)

Oh and let's not forget this debacle:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/10/01/president-obama-human-rights-campaigns-15th-annual-national-dinner

It's literally just Obama padding his image as MLK's successor. So like, case in point of what I was just saying.

[MarxArchist]

I want to add to Broviet's point because I see that the they have really turned gay marriage into a token issue. I hear more about it than actual gay rights and discrimination. Not that I would be against homosexuals having the right to wed but they are really making this out to be as though this one move will somehow end years of discrimination overnight. LGBT youth remain I believe at high risk for homelessness and poverty, discrimination will still be a major issue and there will still be a problem of over development in LGBT communities.

I mean if they are comparing this to the Civil Rights movement then they are doing a great disservice to both movements because the Civil Rights movement did not just stop short of integration.

Didn't you get the memo? We have a black president. Racism is over.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I support marriage equality, even though I think rights and privileges must ultimately be detached from marital status, so that family relationships are defined by the people in them, not the state or the church.

But liberation requires more than just reform, it also requires a revolutionary change in society. Full sexual and gender liberation for all people can only happen if existing social institutions are abolished and the archaic values they represent are swept aside with them.

[Jimmie Higgins]

So how can we convince people that the struggle for gay rights is still important after marriage equality is ratified, and how do we show people that even with these marriage rights certain groups like gays will always be targeted under the capitalist system?To a certain degree, we don't have to convince people of this because, as you said, marriage equality won't eliminate oppression.

But IMO, oppression does not automatically lead to resistance (though in a general way, of course the existance of oppression eventually leads to things which lead to resistance). US blacks are a pime example - oppression has become steadily worse, but we only see increased demoralization and lack of responce. In fact for people in heavily policied cities, many kids don't even try and use the legal rights they technically have... they assume the position and empty their pockets as soon as a cop stops them because they've been demoralized with a sense of helplessness that causes a level of practical adaptation to oppression. They know that there's a chance that if they don't allow a cop to illegally search them, the cop will find some other excuse and then be even harder on them, so it's better to just accept racist policing.

But a sense of "entitlement" and a sense of "winning" can counter this demoralization and contrary to some of the common logic on the Left, this is just as likely to lead to increased appitite for libertation as it is to lead to "complacancy". In fact, I don't think complacency ever comes from the winning of a reform, more the surrounding conditions in which that reform was won. If it's won from above, then the the union beurocracy or the liberal NGO might be legitimized and since they don't usually have an interest in mobilizing people to fight for themselves, they can then take that credibility and divert the aspirations of their supporters towards dead-ends like lobbying or the Wisconsin Recall effort for example which then re-inforce that sense of demoralization and helplessness among people once again.

With that in mind, the marriage struggle is a little split. On the one hand, people will come to the streets to a certain extent, but by and large the fight has been one "of above" and was quickly taken into the courts rather than towards mobilizing the now sizable percentage of people who would support this. That people are largely willing to wait-and-see what the court does is also not too promising. But there are a lot of dynamics involved in this and even if the courts smootly allow marriages to be recognized, other issues will come up such as the neglect of the oppression of Transpeople and so the sucess in partial rights could lead to higher expectations for things the liberals are even LESS willing to fight around (though marriage support has been organized largely through liberal groups and such, US political Liberalism in general has not supported marriage in anything other than equivocal language - Liberalism blamed Bush's re-election on LGBT Marriage and is constantly telling people to wait and "time is on our side" just as Liberalism tradditionaly does). This will cause a conflict and either people organize and push from below to overcome the Liberal impasse, or the establishment is able to convince people to settle and not fight. So really, IMO, it's a question of organization as to if winning a reform is likely to lead to "calm" or "increased expectations" and demands. If it's just up to NGOs and Liberal politics, then even the desired reforms are probably not going to happen - or only in a very partial manner, but if there is organizing from below that can mobilize more workers then it's likely to make people more able and willing to fight.

[RadioRaheem84]

What will the outcome be of all this guys?

[Skyhilist]

What will the outcome be of all this guys?

It's pretty hard to say right now for the immediate future. What I can say though is the the USA is trending more and more as time goes on to supporting marriage equality, although not necessarily equal rights for LGBT people (e.g. The right to not be discriminated against in any form)

[cantwealljustgetalong]

LGBT folx in the US will always face forms of culturally-embedded discrimination unless there can be a successful "cultural revolution" to destroy the white supremacist Christian ideological structure, and this by itself necessitates a full-blown revolution to be a real option. Bigotry in the US will never fade away, so long as we think of the majority of the country thinks of their cultural heritage in the traditional American way. Consider the discrimination blacks and women still receive in the US.

That being said, the fight for gay rights is one that leftists should (I think) take part in for its own sake, even if a lot of it is handled by reformists.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

It's pretty hard to say right now for the immediate future. What I can say though is the the USA is trending more and more as time goes on to supporting marriage equality, although not necessarily equal rights for LGBT people (e.g. The right to not be discriminated against in any form)
A very recent poll found 51% of Americans now support marriage equality. A very tiny majority, mind you, but a decade ago that would have been unthinkable.

[Revy]

I am mostly of the opinion that homosexual marriage is a faux-left issue, attracting our energies because the ruling class cares much less where your penis goes than where your energy and money goes.

A faux-left issue? Equality of gay people IS a left issue. I'm gay and posts like this just fucking disappoint me. Would you have said this BS about interracial marriage in the 60s? Interracial couples wanted the equal rights and freedom to legally marry the one they love. It is no different with gay people. Should the left have callously regarded interracial marriage equality as a "faux-left issue"? According to your logic.

The gay rights movement is not, and has never been solely about gay marriage. But gay marriage is an important issue, not a "token issue", as any issue of equality is. The law banning gay marriages actively discriminates against gay people, and encourages hate and discrimination by sending the message that gay people are unworthy of equal rights and equal treatment.

[RadioRaheem84]

A faux-left issue? Equality of gay people IS a left issue. I'm gay and posts like this just fucking disappoint me. Would you have said this BS about interracial marriage in the 60s? Interracial couples wanted the equal rights and freedom to legally marry the one they love. It is no different with gay people. Should the left have callously regarded interracial marriage equality as a "faux-left issue"? According to your logic.

The gay rights movement is not, and has never been solely about gay marriage. But gay marriage is an important issue, not a "token issue", as any issue of equality is. The law banning gay marriages actively discriminates against gay people, and encourages hate and discrimination by sending the message that gay people are unworthy of equal rights and equal treatment.

I think the point is that the media is turning this into a token issue. I know the gay movement addresses far more than just gay marriage but at the forefront of many of the gay groups who have a lot of media attention and support, like HRC tend to be more assimiliationist that begin with an apologetic tone in their relation with the status quo. Imagine them trying to tell America that straights should not see themselves as the neutral orientation?

The Civil Rights movement did not stop at integration nor did they fixate on that one issue. Even when their movement was split between the non-violent and the defensive, they still both talked about the same issues; social justice for people of color and then economic justice for all people.

I don't see that happening as much or at least that is not what the media is portraying. The gay rights movement is more than filled with a lot of assimilationist splinter groups and some of it's leaders could care less about the economic issues that affect LGBT people. A lot of them are capitalist and live off the "pink dollar". It's a market niche to other capitalists who think it's just bad business and bad politics to remain homophobic.

Older gay liberationists are like gadflys to them.