Gay rights, gay marriage -- The problem isn't just fundies

The fundies get most of the denunciation around here on this issue, because they make most of the public stink about it. That and pandering 'pubs who want their votes.

But thinking about the problems I had growing up in New York City in the 60s and 70s, I say it isn't just fundies. There were no visible fundamentalists in my neighborhood in New York City, so who were those guys who gave me sh*t and sometimes beat me for being a 'faggot'?

I see homophobia as deeply ingrained in society.

We have made great progress since the 1970s, but we still have far to go beyond specific legal issues.

If it's just legal issues, I see three. Extending the federal civil rights laws to gays, zapping 'don't ask don't tell', and marriage.

The real problem is acceptance, and we all know from experience that attempted invisibility does not work.

Don't tell me that the folks who voted for state 'marriage amendments' are each and everyone, or even mostly, fundies.

No I don't have a patented solution, I'm just trying to stir the pot a bit get other gays' ideas.

How about it gay DUers?

I don't know of a solution either.

Dubya won Ohio with 52%. The very restrictive ban on gay marriage passed three-to-one. That means about half of the Kerry voters probably supported it. This ban not only prohibits gay marriage, but prohibits official recognition of any relationship (gay or straight) that approximates marriage. That means domestic partnership agreements and civil unions are out too.

Not in an insulting way, but several people I talked to were for the amendment until I told them that it banned everything, not just marriage.

They had no problem with civil unions, they just wanted to keep marriage to themselves.

Okay, I guess in some ways they were insultingly ignorant. . .

No, they aren't' Fundies in the present meaning of the word But I did go to Catholic School in the 60s in NYC and I did see it. My school was right down the street from the Stonewall Inn. Remember? You cannot preach the SIN of homosexuality without fueling hatred toward the person among some. Teenage boys from the school and the neighborhood would go out on a Saturday night and their fun for the night would be to beat up the neighborhood gays. It got so bad and violent that even the cops went to the school and the church and asked them to get involved to CONTROL their kids. The Priests lectured at Sunday Mass about "tolerance" and the parents of the entire school were called in for a meeting. The Mother Superior told the parents that if it was found that any of their children were participating in this act of violence, their children would be expelled and appropriate legal action would be taken. It helped a little, but never eliminated it. There was a certain ethnic culture of masochism in the neighborhood that prevailed among the fathers which could not be erased.

Yes, these things did go on even "liberal" NYC. I experienced the backlash myself as a 12 year old for having a black girl as my best friend. I was very fortunate that both my parents believed and taught me it is what is INSIDE the person that matters. Wasn't easy, though, so I can understand what you went through.

Lower East Side quondam East Village, myself.

Plenty of junior Mafia nominal Catholics to beat 'fags'. But I don't think they were motivated by religion as such.

There's a bit more to Stonewall than the usual mythology. Mayor Lindsay had an unofficial policy of cops not raiding gay bars in the West Village, elsewhere yes. There was an understanding.

But The Stonewall was owned by a Mafioso who was blackmailing some of his customers, one of whom complained to the cops.

When the cops came to arrest the owner, the clientele misinterpreted this not merely as oppression, but as betrayal of trust. Faced with opposition the cops went apesh*t.

Well the rest is history, but it wasn't just a question of cops oppressing gays.

The cops were initially doing a good job, but when it didn't go smoothly, they went apesh*t.

Fundie / RC, not much difference. I went to Catholic school then and gay bashing was the rage in Jackson Heights( now gay neighborhood). No talk of tolerance there. Kids used to run three blocks to see a "Queer".

The anti-gay marriage amendments really don't reflect homophobia (a fear or revulsive toward gays) as they do heterosexism (a belief the heterosexuality is somehow superior and an inability to empathize with the gay perspective).

The votes to ban same-sex marriage are more of a reaction to recent court decisions. In many ways, the situation is analgous to the civil rights movement in the '60s. As blacks began to seek equality, it created a backlash among some whites. If, instead of dealing with racial issues such as segregation and civil rights in the courts, those issues had been put before voters they would have gone down in defeat by the same margins now being seen in the anti-gay amendments. Unfortunately, the Republicans are helping to stir this backlash against gays.

The fundies will always be against gay rights ... but as time progresses, more and more of the people who reacted not out of hate but out of never having dealt with gay issues will come around.

The hardcore people who truly believe that homosexuality is a violation of God's Order Of The Universe are the roots of the problem. The axe has to get laid to the root, that's why focussing on the fundies has the importance it does.

Yes, the teenagers and tweens who actually beat up folks coming out of gay bars are the face of the problem. But it's the approval on some level by their elders and families, the idea approved of by more than their peers that society is improved by oppressing and suppressing gay people, that enables that.

Without people walking around talking with supposed authority about God's Will and nursing grievances against gay people under other forms of authority, it wouldn't be an active and virulent matter.

Then there's the question of why the focus and emphasis on preventing gay equality and the wierd excuse about 'destroying marriage' in the present. Well, there are studies that say it has to do with scapegoating for the current demise and long term misere of 'family values' in the Bible Belt, along with frustration at the way the Christian Right's young people are quietly deserting from the militancy of the (Lost) Cause and theocracy. The result is to blame all the messengers of the age- media, the overt presence of gay folk in the public arena, everything Modern- and deny the message.

This is probably naive, but do you think that homophobia is to some degree engendered by an individual's lack of personal knowledge of gay folks? That people define gay people based upon the one-sided sensational coverage of gays in the media? I grew up on the Lower East Side around the time period that you reference, on the block north of Tompkins Square Park. The block was a neighborhood, with working class families like mine on one end of the scale to several MDs who both lived and practiced in the same buildings. Before the drug epidemic sent the area downhill, our block had many long term residents. A number of them were gay. The buildings on that block are small and people knew a lot of each other's business. Neighbors knew which of their neighbors were gay, and seemed to find them as ordinary & boring as the straights on the block. We had a lesbian couple in the building next to mine who were artists and I remember visiting their studio w/o anyone worrying my virtue potentially being compromised. (The same could not be said of the heterosexual male architect who also lived on the block.) I went to Catholic grammar school and don't have a single memory of gays being discussed, much less condemned. That was also true for our Church services. We had a priest for a long time who was gay, who unexpectedly kindly appeared & concelebrated my father's funeral mass even though it was held at a different parish.The monsignor garnered a lot more gossip, given that he drank a lot more than sacramental wine and had a live-in housekeeper/cook in the rectory who did more than just turn the sheets down lol.

If you'll permit me, I'd like to relay a tale about my mother. I didn't like her too much (she's dead now), but one of her finest moments in my memory involved Ed, a gay neighbor of ours. Now, my mother had grown up in coal mining country in PA which was and probably still is a very bigoted area (the straights of each ethnic pursuasion hated each other); she never finished highschool. Not the perfect recipe for tolerance. She was a church-going, observant Catholic for her entire life.Ed had moved into the only other apartment on our floor when I was abt 12. He was a very nice guy in his 30's, who was quite outgoing and 'publically' gay. He also had 2 cats, the true test of someone's character. He and my mother, who was a homemaker at the time, hit it off from the start. When he wasn't doing anything at night he would often come over, sit down on the floor and watch television with us. After Ed had lived next door to us for awhile, my mother who was quite nosy, starting asking him abt his family. It turned out that his father was dead from a heart attack at a young age. His mother lived in Bergen County which is a short distance from the city. His mother however had broken off contact with Ed when he came out.

A little while after she learned this, my mother asked Ed for his mother's phone number. She called her up, identified her relationship to Ed, and then told her that she had a wonderful son and that she should be ashamed of herself for not accepting him as he was. She really laid into the woman.Two weeks later, we got a knock on our door; it was Ed with his mother, who had decided to come and see him, and wanted to meet my mother. I don't know whether their relationship was ever fully repaired, but to whatever degree it was, my mother deserved part of the credit.

Thanks for letting me tell the story.

PT

p.s. Then there was the time my mother gave temporary sanctuary to Ed's thriving pot plant. I won't bore you with the details as to why he asked her to take it but there was one very funny moment when my father noticed the plant and asked her what the hell she was doing with a marijuana plant in their bedroom window. My mother looked at him with a straight face and said " what are you talking about? You know nothing about plants, Frank. It's a begonia." I still laugh to this day when I remember that conversation.

BTW, I used to live at 533 E 11_th st ( I think)

none-the-less, we probably were in roof-shouting distance. I lived in the middle of 10th, between A & B.

expect it from. That's very sweet.

reminding her of her maternal obligations, or if she scared the wits out of her lol. His mother might have been afraid that she would find her at her front door the next day. My mother could be a tsunami when she wanted something.

Ed eventually moved to California, and still sent my mother a gift each Christmas. Then we didn't hear from him for a long time and mail sent to his address came back as undeliverable. My mom was very sad, thinking the worst. Then a year later, he wrote to her and explained that he had had a massive heart attack, and had a long recovery. She heard from him again the next year but never again. I suspect he probably had another heart attack which he did not survive.

I think it is to some degree. Most people assumed that if someone is gay, that automatically means they have someone special in their lives AND get laid ALL the time. It's not true, but that's what most people assume.

when the Gay Pride parade is covered for example, you see an awful lot of shots of the drag queens riding in limos, wearing tiaras, as opposed to shots of the boring, ordinary folks walking along behind a banner of an organization to which they belong. I actually wonder if on some level, people have become so rabid abt gay marriage because they think it means 4 men mincing down the church aisle in bridesmaids dresses and a wedding dress.

(Please do not be offended at the word 'mince'. I'm not supporting a stereotype; it's just a word I like and rarely have an opportunity to use in a sentence!)

Not all glbt people fit the stereotypes. I've had situations happen when I have heard people talking about people they THOUGHT were gay who weren't and they just assumed they were. People have said some pretty nasty things TO ME about lesbians because I don't fit the stereotypes and they assume I am straight. I had one particularly painful incident from someone I would never have expected it from last year, a teacher, I thought was great, because she wasn't racist and other good qualities she had. I'm still not over that one. I thought highly of her before that so it really affected me. People would be surprised if they only knew.

gay folk, wishing to create a vibrant, creative gaylbtqq culture are under attack from all quarters.

not since the greek golden age have gay folk had the opportunity to build an ''out'' gay community that stonewall gave us.

and yes -- it can be and is undermined and attacked from fundies, straight liberals and other gay folk.

people, for whatever reason find the emerging gay community threatening.

i try to take comfort in the addage that whatever doesn't kill us, makes us stronger.

but i'm a bitter, tired queen sometimes -- and i need my beauty sleep -- i wish these folk would leave us alone and let us get on with our lives.

and that has much more to do with it than religion.

Don't change my cultural norms! I'm not listening! I can't hear you! La-la-la-la!
:nopity:

I would also add that federal hate crimes laws should include sexual orientation and transgendered people ( I don't know it they are necessarily considered the same thing).

You voiced an opinion that I rarely hear from people that it is more than just the fundies that hold us back from our full potential in life. Imagine what it would be like if we didn't have to go through roadblocks in so many parts of our lives just to accomplish anything. How much farther in life we'd get.

I'm glad you feel the same way about it.

How about let's start with plain old federal anti-discrimination law by extending the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

That was high on the list, say 15 years ago. Don't hear much about that any more.

I think its not just fundies too but also macho guys who are insecure or are just freaked out if they see a homosexual public display of affection or assume that all gay people are like folks who appear on daytime talkshows and that those people are going to be raising kids.

Last year I was working for a progressive advocacy non-profit association that works on a variety of issues at mainly the state level, including human rights. The association's human rights task force asked the state board of directors to vote on taking a public stance in opposition to our state's anti-gay marriage initiative. I was at the meeting in which debate on this issue took place, and it was surprisingly bitter.

The board did ultimately vote to oppose both the state and federal measures, but two board members resigned over the vote, right then and there. And one of them was a member of some 30 years who had previously been board president and is extremely devoted to the organization. I had the chance to read his resignation letter, and in it he cited what I considered to be some astonishingly lame reasons for voting against opposing the measures. The two primary reasons given were that it was insulting to the Civil Rights movement for 'some activists' to compare the struggle for gay rights to the Civil Rights movement (not that anyone had made such a comparison to the board); and the other reason was--get this--that gays don't need the benefits of marriage because they, as a group, make more money than other people. I just about screeched at that one.

So, as shocking as it was to me, even traditional liberals may have a hard time getting behind gay marriage, or gay rights period. I think it's a combination of ignorance and residual prejudices.

I forgot to mention: that other board member resigned, she said, because she was a Christian and could not condone what was being done. Yet, what was 'being done' was opposing the amendment of our state's constitution, not supporting gay marriage explicitly. I was happy to see her leave.