Rachel’s Musings

First his administration files a brief in defense of DOMA – the defense of marriage act, which “defends” marriage against people identifying as LGBT who’d like to get a piece of the marriage pie. And as AmericaBlog points out:

I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn’t just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn’t motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn’t be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles). He argued that DOMA doesn’t discriminate against us because it also discriminates about straight unmarried couples (ignoring the fact that they can get married and we can’t).

And now, Obama suggests that some detainees in Guantanamo should be kept indefinitely. No charges, no trial. As Amnesty International puts it:

Indefinite detention without charge violates US and international law, international human rights standards, and the core principles of justice, liberty, equality and fairness on which the US legal system is founded.

Is he already this tired of being President that he’s doing whatever he can to avoid reelection?!? We are watching, Mr. Obama! Actions speak louder than words, especially for politicians!

Two things converge today: The Pride Parades and the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. As a newly released anthology chronicles, the Stonewall Riots sparked a radical movement for gay liberation. But as Tommi Avicolli Mecca pointed out in a recent interview, the movement quickly morphed into something that was acceptable by mainstream: Instead of fighting for liberation – something that would lay the seeds of a different society – assimilation was promoted. The LGBT movement was born, which now seems to be the same-sex marriage movement, a single issue platform with the goal of normalizing. Husband, wife, 2.5 kids, and white picket fence. Sure that husband and wife are of the same sex is different but that is the only difference. Otherwise the family is normal. As Michael Warner so eloquently decried, any attempts to move away from the dictates of “normal” – a dictate that makes everything else abnormal – have been given up. People who want to live differently are left out. Other ways of living are no longer honored, though some still dare to explore them. At least, that’s what the national scene looks like. Amazingly enough, there’s a pocket in Salt Lake City where “mainstream assimilationists collaborated with radical activists to develop talking points, coordinate strategy and change homophobic policy.” Something that honors the legacy of Stonewall but is also more effectively fighting for the rights of all people, not just those folks who want to get married. As Lisa Duggan points out, the Utah strategy that fights for anti-discrimination protection rather than same-sex marriage is brilliant.

The brilliance of the strategy is its ability to refocus public opinion, put conservative opponents on the defensive, shift public perception of the barriers to LGBT equality and broaden the scope of action to include the needs of people living in nonconjugal households, be they straight, gay or other. [my emphasis]

Furthermore, the broader struggle in Utah – required by a Super DOMA, which not only defines marriage as between one man and one woman but also restricts “marriage like” entities – has brought to the forefront

a simple but often overlooked fact: many basic rights and protections for LGBT citizens, including some on the CGI list [Common Ground Initiative, a platform that fights for a list of rights beyond marriage], are not guaranteed by marriage. Housing and employment discrimination, for example, could continue against married or cohabiting couples as well as single people. That point is very well taken in the current political climate, when marriage equality often stands in for all civil equality.

Getting around the Super DOMA forces activists to look at all relationships, not just marriage-like couples. The end result is that they are fighting for equality for all and really mean all, including the uncoupled.

This also has another beautiful side-effect:

Such proposals begin to make the diversity of households and interdependent relationships visible and highlight the limits of a marriage-focused gay rights agenda that prioritizes the needs of the conventionally coupled.

The work in Utah embraces the spirit of Stonewall and moves it ahead by fighting for all family constellations, including alternative ones. The critique of the exclusive focus on same-sex marriage seems to be getting louder (see also here and here and here). The time is ripe to build coalitions around marriage inequality and follow the Utah model to fight for rights for all people. It is time to call for full civil equality for all and really mean all!

Hat tip and big thank you to Nancy Polikoff for making me aware of Duggan’s great article!

Thanks to your help, I’ve raised $328 so far, about a third of my goal – not bad! I look forward to more support from you for my uphill battles. And I really needed the knowledge that there are people out there supporting my physical uphill battles. The urge to just hop on the bus and go home was pretty good. It’s gray and overcast here in San Francisco and the thought of scaling up those hills was just not very appealing. But you would know! So, I decided I better go – and I am glad I did because I listened to yet another interesting podcast and the physical exercise improved my mood: I have a nice sense of accomplishment now!

I listened to an interview with Tommi Avicolli Mecca and Paola Bacchetta as they remember the radical activism of the 1960s and 1970s.      Continue reading this post » » »

There have been quite a few posts on singles blogs recently about sex, in particular on how to deal with sexual energy when there’s no obvious outlet like an intimate partner (for example, the Onely post and Bella DePaulo’s writing). It seems fitting, then, to summarize Chapter 8 of Edwards and Hoover’s “The Challenge of Being Single” even though the topic of sex on a blog feels somewhat dicey… Again, I am struck how current this book still is – it was published in the early 1970s, yet so little has changed. For example, I think that this is still true (even though many of us would rather not admit to it):

In our society, getting sex in perspective is no small achievement. On the one hand, since childhood many of us have been subjected to repressive teachings that result in guilt and embarrassment where sex or almost anything to do with the body is concerned. In or out of marriage, few of us are able to overcome this unfortunate upbringing completely. On the other hand, we now live in a sex-obsessed culture that hard-sells sex in movies, TV, and magazines, on billboards and at the corner newsstand. (161)

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I have mused here before about the various types of discrimination we face depending on the kind of relationship we are in. I suggested there that

• We fight Relationship Status Discrimination (RSD) by preventing that any relationships carry special benefits.
• We support offering automatic legal protection to relationships when they dissolve whether through break-up or death.

What would a society look like when we’re all done, when we’ve eliminated RSD?

A world without Marital Status Discrimination might look like this:

• Values all couples for their commitment no matter what institution sanctioned them.
• Expands rights/ privileges/benefits to all couples. E.g.:
  • One can get health care through a partner.
  • Tax benefits for couples.
• Coupling is assumed as the highest form of maturity.

To me, this is still very couple-centric, which is something I would like us to move away from. That is why I suggest that we take on Relationship Status Discrimination.

A world without RSD would look something like this:

• Values all people for who they are not who they’re with.
• Either expands all rights/privileges/benefits to all people or eliminates special treatment. E.g.:
  • Health care for all rather than health care for the working and/or coupled.
  • Everyone is taxed equally.
• People are viewed as fully human whether they’re in a relationship or not.

I like this much better because it is striving toward equality for all and really means all, not just married or coupled folks.

It is important to me, though, not to eliminate all protections for people in special alloparents to raise our children collectively. This might be a lofty ideal, which will proof ultimately unrealistic. On the other hand, the trajectory we’re currently on seems to lead to the extinction of at least the human race. So maybe it’s worth trying something else.

During a recent discussion amongst footloose femails, we bounced around some idea for self-descriptive labels that don’t come with truck-loads of baggage. Single or spinster came up, of course. One woman had the idea to look at thesauruses, which revealed a boatload of singlism.

According to Reverso, these are synonyms for unmarried:

bachelor, celibate, maiden, on the shelf, single, unattached, unwed, unwedded, virgin

Celibate? Virgin? Unattached? Unless I’ve replicated virgin birth, I am obviously no longer a virgin because I have a child. Why does a single person have to be celibate? And what’s up with being on the shelf? As if being unmarried means that you cannot possibly live your life; you are waiting to be picked. Only then can you get off the shelf to finally enjoy life. What matrimanical bs!

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