WTF??? Hand Wringing? To What End?

By John Ater on 06/10/2009 @ 01:26 PM

Tags:

In my morning web surf a few days ago, I ran across a VERY interesting piece about nine of our “leading” gay and lesbian organizations or supporters who encouraged all of us (queers who are not them) not to sue for equal rights. Their warning? That lawsuits could set back the progress for gay marriage. Their little entreaty is entitle Make Change, Not Lawsuits.

What a great idea!!! Let’s stay our tried and true course of the usual acquiescence. That has worked so well for so long. We certainly don’t want to upset the straight people.

I am doing my best right now to not type cuss words. WTF???

I counted up the times their entreaty used the word ‘ask.’ Then I counted up the times they used the word ‘demand.’ The score: Ask – 15, Demand – 0.

I’m tired of asking. All my friends are tired of asking. Every queer on Facebook is tired of asking. And the anger and frustration are spilling into the streets.

The authors’ tone in “Make Change, Not Lawsuits” reminds me of the current self-destructive by GOP party leaders, bankers and Wall Street barons. Tone deaf. Not a clue. Out of touch with reality. Without a single clue.

Did any of you “leaders” attend any of the rallies across the country after the California voters passed Proposition 8? Did you attend the marches and protests when the Supreme Court upheld Prop 8? I don’t believe you did.

Most of my young queer friends were in the streets raising hell over the bigotry demonstrated both by the voters and the court. Several of them got arrested. They are pissed. I am pissed. Now is not the time to stop and reflect, to wring our hands and worry about what will happen if someone actually does something other than talk, if someone (God Forbid) takes some action.

Cleave Jones got it right. The Harvey Milk protégé called for a march on Washington October 10 and 11 this year. Jones recognizes the anger and frustration, the interminable waiting, the energy and focus just waiting to be tapped that can push the government into recognizing separate is not equal, no matter how much make-up you put on the pig.

Now is the time to demand what is guaranteed us in the Constitution…equal protection under the law. EQUAL!!! NO civil unions, NO ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, NO DOMA! FULL EQUALITY – NOW!!!

I hope every queer in the country who gives a damn about getting legally married, who wants to serve our country openly in the military, who wants equality in every aspect of their lives, files suit in every jurisdiction of every state and every federal court, takes to the streets, marches, protests, shouts at the top of his or her voice, blocks traffic and raises nine kinds of hell. We ARE NOT going away. So deal with us…NOW!

David Carter, in his excellent book, Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution (1), interviewed Michael Fader, one of the participants in the Riots.

We all had a collective feeling [that] we’d had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn’t anything tangible anybody said to anyone else, it was just…everything over the years had come to a head on that one particular night in that one particular place…

Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was…the last straw. It was time to reclaim something that had always been taken from us…All kinds of people, all different reasons, but mostly it was total outrage, anger, sorrow, everything combined, and everything just…ran its course…

And we felt that we had freedom at last, or freedom to at least show that we demanded freedom. We weren’t going to be walking meekly in the night and letting them shove us around. It was like standing your ground for the first time and in a really strong way…

There was something in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we [were] going to fight for it. It took different forms, but the bottom line was, we weren’t going to go away. And we didn’t.

Historians Dudley Clendinen and Adam Nagourney, writing about the Stonewall Riots in their book Out for Good (2), stated homosexuals were

a secret legion of people, known of but discounted, ignored, laughed at or despised. And like the holders of a secret, they had an advantage which was a disadvantage, too, and which was true of no other minority group in the United States. They were invisible. Unlike African Americans, women, Native Americans, Jews, the Irish, Italians, Asians, Hispanics, or any other cultural group which struggled for respect and equal rights, homosexuals had no physical or cultural markings, no language or dialect which could identify them to each other, or to anyone else … But that night, for the first time, the usual acquiescence turned into violent resistance … From that night the lives of millions of gay men and lesbians, and the attitude toward them of the larger culture in which they lived, began to change rapidly. People began to appear in public as homosexuals, demanding respect.

The hand wringers in our community, those who would have us wait, seem to want us back in the closet, back in our places, back in the line. We’ll wait, they say.

Wait for what? Wait for the time to be right? The time will never be right. Had others waited for the time to be “right,” the time would never have been right for the Civil Rights Movement, would never have been right to confront a megalomaniacal dictator who would exterminate a whole people for racial “purity,” would never have been right for abolition, would never have been right to break from a cruel king and found a new country.

What if Dr. Martin Luther King, speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, had said, “I have a dream but we should wait until the rest of America is ready…” (From my friend, Tim Counts.)

Our “leaders” complicity centers around those who refuse to deal with their own homophobia, those we make uncomfortable by our very existence.

I do my best to treat everyone I meet with dignity and respect whether or not they treat me in the same manner, something I learned from my father. That has served me well. However, he also taught me that I never need accept unacceptable behavior no matter who the person, their position, their power or station in life.

So I suggest to you hand wringers that you move to the back of the bus and the back of the line and make room for those of us who are worn out with standing in line and riding in the back. You want us in the back of the line and the back of the bus, not making waves, not raising our voices, not making the heteros uncomfortable. Well, we’re riding in the front now and to hell with the line and the back of the bus. So, you can lead, follow or get the hell out of our way.

To paraphrase Michael Fader: We feel that we have the freedom to demand freedom. We aren’t going to be walking meekly in the night and letting you or them shove us around. There is something glorious in the air, freedom a long time overdue, and we are going to fight for it. We aren’t going to go away no matter how much you want us to.

1. Carter, D. (2004). Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, ISBN 0312342691
2. Clendinen, D. and Nagourney, A. (1999). Out for Good. New York: Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0684810913.

To contact John Ater, visit his website at http://johnater.com.