Straight People for Gay Rights

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=291

I am the proud new maintainer of the group 'Straight People for Gay Rights'.

Come and join! :)

btw who requested I take over the group?

[Sea]

Wasn't there some website that was linked here a while back, called "white people for racial equality" or something, and nobody here could figure out if it was some form of satire or what?

Anyway, that's what I'm reminded of.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

I didn't make the group.

Someone just e-mailed me and invited me to take over maintaining it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with straight people supporting actively gay people's struggles, nor white people actively supporting struggles for racial liberation, as long as they aren't leading said struggles.

Of course as a white cisgender male I really couldn't hold any other position.

[Sea]

I didn't make the group.

Someone just e-mailed me and invited me to take over maintaining it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with straight people supporting actively gay people's struggles, nor white people actively supporting struggles for racial liberation, as long as they aren't leading said struggles.

Of course as a white cisgender male I really couldn't hold any other position.No, you see, the problem is that the group is specifically for straight people. Its very title is exclusive.

[QueerVanguard]

Instead of just being "straight people for gay rights" why not also challenge the artificial bourgeois gender binary itself?

[Sea]

Instead of just being "straight people for gay rights" why not also challenge the artificial bourgeois gender binary itself?Techincally I suppose it didn't not challenge it, since hetero, homo and related terms refer to same / different, etc, rather than male / female.

In any event, I'm almost tempted to start a group "job-creators for workers' liberation"...

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

No, you see, the problem is that the group is specifically for straight people. Its very title is exclusive.

But there are no joining criteria...:confused:

As with most groups of Revleft, the title of the group is merely the issue that is raised. So you get anarchists joining Rosa Luxemburg groups, Leninists joining Trot groups and so on.

If it helps, we could have a discussion on changing the name and description of the group to make it less exclusive.

[MarcusJuniusBrutus]

"Straight people for gay rights"

In other words, "People for rights." :)

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

should be the 'Cis-Het scum guilt group' tbh

I was raised a catholic, guilt makes sense to me

[Rosa Partizan]

Cis-het scum sounds like me.

10/10 would join.

[sixdollarchampagne]

The discussion raises the question of whether there are significant restrictions on the rights of gay people, in the US, for example. The one restriction I can think of has to do with marriage, and the last time I checked, same-sex marriage was legal in at least 18 US states and the District of Colombia, and the number of states where same-sex marriage is legal is quickly increasing, as judges unilaterally throw out state laws that prohibit same-sex marriage, so I think that V.I. Lenin's job as the "maintainer" of the gay rights group will turn out to be light labor.

[Ocean Seal]

I didn't make the group.

Someone just e-mailed me and invited me to take over maintaining it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with straight people supporting actively gay people's struggles, nor white people actively supporting struggles for racial liberation, as long as they aren't leading said struggles.

Of course as a white cisgender male I really couldn't hold any other position.
*Ahem* workers struggle.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

ok, so 'Cis-Het scumbags for gay rights'?

Have we got a winner here?

[Revy]

The discussion raises the question of whether there are significant restrictions on the rights of gay people, in the US, for example. The one restriction I can think of has to do with marriage, and the last time I checked, same-sex marriage was legal in at least 18 US states and the District of Colombia, and the number of states where same-sex marriage is legal is quickly increasing, as judges unilaterally throw out state laws that prohibit same-sex marriage, so I think that V.I. Lenin's job as the "maintainer" of the gay rights group will turn out to be light labor.

If interracial marriage was legal in "at least 18 states" would that somehow mean that there weren't significant restrictions on the rights of interracial couples? How about the right of women and minorities to vote? "18 states" I guess that's all you need to not "have significant restrictions on your rights". Never mind there are 50 states.

The fact that any state can still legally discriminate against gays and put them on a lower position legally still shows that gay people are still held back. Gay marriage isn't the only right to fight for too (it is an important one, but one among others, like protection from employment discrimination), and the US isn't the only country to be concerned about gay rights either, it is an international struggle.

"Quickly increasing". I don't think it counts as quickly, it's been a process taking years. 10 years for 1/3rd of the US to legalize gay marriage since the first state did. Gay marriage should be legalized federally but gay people's human rights are still up for "debate".

As for the group, I'm gay and my feeling about the group is it probably should change its name to Gay Rights, given that there doesn't appear to be a group for that. Just have a group called Gay Rights not Straight People for Gay Rights.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Right in all seriousness i'm changing the name of the group to LGBTQ rights and i'm not going to continue to maintain the group because I think it should be maintained by someone from the LGBTQ community.

Who should I offer it to?

[Leftsolidarity]

The discussion raises the question of whether there are significant restrictions on the rights of gay people, in the US, for example. The one restriction I can think of has to do with marriage, and the last time I checked, same-sex marriage was legal in at least 18 US states and the District of Colombia, and the number of states where same-sex marriage is legal is quickly increasing, as judges unilaterally throw out state laws that prohibit same-sex marriage, so I think that V.I. Lenin's job as the "maintainer" of the gay rights group will turn out to be light labor.

This post raises the question if you acknowledge or even understand LGBTQ oppression. Even if LGBTQ liberation boiled solely down to equal access to marriage (which it doesn't) then 18 of 50 states is still pretty awful.

The demand for marriage equality is just the demand for a basic bourgeois right that has been long denied. It's by no means the end of anything and rather pathetically short of what the LGBTQ community needs. There's job/housing/educational/healthcare discrimination, police brutality, 'random' street violence, huge homeless rates due to being kicked out of non-accepting homes, and the list continues. So to say it's really even up for discussion about if there are significant restrictions on the rights of Queer people is a bit offensive and completely put into bourgeois parameters.

[Aurora]

The group is kind of unnecessary no? As a website for communists the vast majority are for much more than 'gay' rights and much more than gay 'rights', also the title being exclusive to straight people is not very good, there shouldn't be any distinction between those within or without the LGBT in the fight for LGBT equality.

[sixdollarchampagne]

To keep it short and sweet: the 2011 median income of US households was $50,054 a year, according to the US Census Bureau. That figure represents a weekly income of about $962.58.

In contrast, according to the same source, the 2012 average household income of unmarried male-male couples was $129,069, which represents a weekly income of about $2,482.10.

Good luck to Workers World in convincing US working people that any couple grossing nearly $2,500 every week, is to numbered among the "specially oppressed."

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

To keep it short and sweet: the 2011 median income of US households was $50,054 a year, according to the US Census Bureau. That figure represents a weekly income of about $962.58.

In contrast, according to the same source, the 2012 average household income of unmarried male-male couples was $129,069, which represents a weekly income of about $2,482.10.

Good luck to Workers World in convincing US working people that any couple grossing nearly $2,500 every week, is to numbered among the "specially oppressed."

Are you comparing medians and averages? Are they both medians or what? I sense the books are burning from being over-cooked...!

I imagine that there is a duality here in that the alleged (though probably exaggerated due to corruption of averages) higher income for an un-married male-male couple is due to the disparity between male and female wages, a direct result of patriarchy.

Also, there are a great number of gay men who will not be living with their partner, and so will not be sodding rich. Perhaps you've forgotten about them, though?

[sixdollarchampagne]

Where I live, there are two of us, a retired worker and an unemployed worker. Our combined income is approximately $2,600 a month. So my heart bleeds for any couple that grosses *only* $2,500 a week. ¡Pobrecitos! – How will they ever survive?

[sosolo]

My heart bleeds for any couple that grosses *only* $2,500 a week. ¡Pobrecitos! – How will they ever survive?


WTF? As if some trend toward higher income obliterates our second class status? Gimme a break. It's still legal in many states (I'm at work, I'll get the stats later) to discriminate in employment and housing. It's a bit bourgeois to think that $$$= equality.

--sosolo

[Leftsolidarity]

To keep it short and sweet: the 2011 median income of US households was $50,054 a year, according to the US Census Bureau. That figure represents a weekly income of about $962.58.

In contrast, according to the same source, the 2012 average household income of unmarried male-male couples was $129,069, which represents a weekly income of about $2,482.10.

Good luck to Workers World in convincing US working people that any couple grossing nearly $2,500 every week, is to numbered among the "specially oppressed."

Ha oh wow, are you really attacking Workers World for our full support for LGBTQ liberation? We had members who were participants of the Stonewall Rebellion and will never be ashamed of our deep roots in the LGBTQ struggle.

And good job at clearly biased math. If you want to go with the long debunked homophobic myth that Queer people are dominantly bourgeois, urban, and thus unworthy of our support (because if followed to that logical conclusion Queer people must also be our oppressors and exploiters right? :rolleyes:) I'm going to ask you to stop the charade of you being any sort of Leftist.

It's clear to anyone who's not a homophobic asshole who's done even the least amount of research that the LGBTQ community is vastly in poverty, sick, homeless, and jobless compared to that of non-LGBTQ people. You're just a right-wing homophobe parading as a communist. With knowing these things (I'm assuming you do because you've at least looked at some statistics and had to fudge them to make them fit the argument you wanted to make) and mockingly denying the fact that LGBTQ people are oppressed, there's not a reasonable explanation for your awful position other than you just don't like Queer people.

[sixdollarchampagne]

I did not fudge anything; the numbers were copied exactly from the US Census Bureau statistics (and it was the Census Bureau that listed some figures as averages and another one as a median). As for the charge that I am some sort of secret right-winger, the fact is that I have been on the left since I first participated in the movement against the war in Vietnam, in the mid-1960's. It really isn't my fault if statistics describe a reality that conflicts with some group's politics.

[Quail]

It depends which average the number for male couples represents. If it's the mean then you can't really compare the two because the mean will be skewed by wealthy couples whereas outliers don't affect the median so much. I can think of some explanations as to why two men may earn more than a man and a woman, related to reproduction and the effect that has on a woman's earning potential and the kinds of jobs women are more likely to do, but that doesn't mean that gay men are not oppressed. That's complete bullshit.

LGBT people (including gay men) are more likely to suffer from mental health problems, substance abuse, etc. They're more likely to be homeless. Teenagers are still killing themselves due to homophobic bullying. I'm sure I don't really need to carry on. To deny that gay men suffer oppression because some male couples earn a lot of money seems pretty damn homophobic to me.

Let me remind you that we don't tolerate homophobia on Revleft.

[Leftsolidarity]

I did not fudge anything; the numbers were copied exactly from the US Census Bureau statistics (and it was the Census Bureau that listed some figures as averages and another one as a median). As for the charge that I am some sort of secret right-winger, the fact is that I have been on the left since I first participated in the movement against the war in Vietnam, in the mid-1960's. It really isn't my fault if statistics describe a reality that conflicts with some group's politics.

It was you that put them as if they accurately portrayed the illusion that LGBTQ people are bourgeois.
Oh I see so is it some sort of strange hangover from the older anti-Queer positions from the folks like the RCP and others? Is that how long you've viewed Queer people as some sort of enemies of the working class?
Your statistics don't describe anything you anti-Queer liar. And it's not just "some group's politics", WWP has been distinguished by our constant involvement in the struggle for LGBTQ liberation but the days of that being an anomaly in the revolutionary left are long gone so it's time to get with the times and recognize LGBTQ people as an oppressed group that is not some white bourgeois urbanite clique of rich men.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Where I live, there are two of us, a retired worker and an unemployed worker. Our combined income is approximately $2,600 a month. So my heart bleeds for any couple that grosses *only* $2,500 a week. ¡Pobrecitos! – How will they ever survive?

I see you can't really answer a number of questions raised - the dodgyness of your statistics and your complete lack of understanding of the specific issues that people of LGBT status will face, as Quail has highlighted.

Reductionism if there has ever been any. :rolleyes:

[Sea]

Right in all seriousness i'm changing the name of the group to LGBTQ rights and i'm not going to continue to maintain the group because I think it should be maintained by someone from the LGBTQ community.

Who should I offer it to?No need to get passive-aggressive about it. If being straight is the lifestyle choice that you want to make I'll totally be supportive of you all the way.

[The Feral Underclass]

'Straight People for Gay Rights'

Ugh. Vom.

[The Feral Underclass]

'Cis-Het scumbags for gay rights'

Cis-Het Scumbags for the Heteronormalisation of Queer People' is a more accurate name.