David Mixner: Call It What It Is - Gay Apartheid

[Neecy]

We have poured over $100,000,000 in the last two years into efforts where Americans feel it is there obligation to vote on our freedom. The entire concept is repugnant and disgusting. That we for the last three decades have been drawn into this game of 'this is politics' and fighting these ballot box horrors so that maybe by in five, ten or twenty years we will have enough victories to force our federal government to protect our freedom is simply not acceptable anymore. Imagine the good we could have done with all that money. Imagine the civil rights movement we could have built if we had the leadership that was willing to think out of the box and put it on the line.

Second, call this campaign against us what it is - Gay Apartheid.

Refuse to allow any of our fellow Americans, President Obama or our allies to view this as a political issue who time hasn't quite come. America is in the process of creating a system of Gay Apartheid. We will not quietly sit and accept it. All over the place, this nation is creating one set of laws for LGBT Americans and another set for all other Americans. That is the classic definition of Apartheid. Either our political allies are for Gay Apartheid or against it. If they are against it, they must fight with us and no longer duck like President Obama did in Maine and Washington. There is no half way in fighting Apartheid.

Today many will claim that we must surrender the word marriage or accept some sort of separate but equal arrangement. It didn't work in the African-American struggle for freedom and it doesn't work for us. We want full equality with the same rights, benefits and privileges as all other Americans now. We say to those friends, allies and even in our own community who want to accept that second class citizenship, "Oh No You Don't!" We will accept no compromises, time-lines, incremental approaches with our freedom. Don't counsel patience as if this is a new issue. We have been fighting these ballot box bigots for over three decades. Enough.

http://www.davidmixner.com/2009/11/election-part-one-enough-no-more-enough.html

[Veruca Salt]

1. k&r

[susanr516]

2. K&R nt

[NMMNG]

3. If only I could rec this a thousand times.

Today many will claim that we must surrender the word marriage or accept some sort of separate but equal arrangement. It didn't work in the African-American struggle for freedom and it doesn't work for us. We want full equality with the same rights, benefits and privileges as all other Americans now. We say to those friends, allies and even in our own community who want to accept that second class citizenship, "Oh No You Don't!" We will accept no compromises, time-lines, incremental approaches with our freedom. Don't counsel patience as if this is a new issue. We have been fighting these ballot box bigots for over three decades. Enough.


Anybody who thinks rights are something to be decided at the ballot box should be the first to put their rights to "the will of the people". Funny none of these "let the people decide" types are rushing to put their rights on the chopping block. Ever.

[Ignis]

4. Wow. Really powerful article, K&R.

Thanks for fighting the good fight, Neecy. :hi:

[FiveGoodMen]

5. K&R

[Toasterlad]

6. If the People On Our Side Only Knew How the Word "Patience" Slices Me Across the Heart...

...they'd never use it. At least, I hope they wouldn't.

All day long I've been hearing about how we must wait, that everything will be fine if we just wait, that Rome wasn't built in a wait, wait, wait. "Just wait," they say, "and eventually enough people will agree with us. I know it's hard, but eventually it will happen. Just wait." It's just an "issue" to them. As much as they empathize, it's just an "issue", like school prayer or the stimulus bill or gun control. An issue that we will eventually have enough votes to win.

It's not an issue. It's my life.

It's my life.

No straight person in America, except a black person over the age of 50 understands what it's like to be LEGALLY barred from doing things the rest of the population is doing. How that fucking FEELS. How fucking HUMILIATING it is, to have to accept that you're a legal second-class citizen. And to hear all the people - the honest, well-meaning, optimistic people - rejoice about how far we've come.

Yes, we've come far.

They can't lock us up as mentally diseased anymore (although some truly evil parents still do that to their poor, under-aged kids). Many companies have policies protecting us, scant decades after being outed as gay meant being summarily fired. We can serve openly on many boards of directors, or hold elected office for more open-minded constituencies, whereas before we had to hide in the closet our entire lives in order to climb to any position of power. And it's now a federal crime to target us for injury or death just because we're gay.

But as long as there's one boundary that we may not cross, one line that separates us from "normal" people, we'll always be marginalized freaks.

It's our LIVES.

How can anyone get away with treating us this way? How is this allowed? And how can anyone tell us to be PATIENT when we live with this oh-so-correctable second-class status that NO ONE in a position of power is willing, or so it appears, to actually DO anything to correct?

It GNAWS at you. It fucking gnaws at you.

We just want the rights to which we were born. Why is that so hard? Why is that so much to ask for? Why must we wait?