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(November 21, 2008)

            "Straight allies!" That was the call to those heterosexual of us attending one of last Saturday's many Proposition 8 protests, this particular event at Oakland's City Hall in California. "Straight allies!" I raised my hand as it seems I so often do these days, in support of good intentions but cringing from feelings of exclusion. Yes, I am "straight", and yes, I am aligned with those who voted "no" on California's Proposition 8, but I am more than just an ally. This fight is mine, too.

            When I began my own battle for same-sex marriage rights more than 10 years ago, it was because men and women are equal but not treated as such. Of course prohibitions against same-sex marriage directly impact the LGBT community, thereby affecting me through the oppression of friends and loved ones. But the laws adopted by an unenlightened 30 states including, now, California do not disallow gays and lesbians from marrying, only marrying for romantic love. There is no law that prohibits a lesbian from marrying a gay man. 

            "Semantics" someone will argue, a few of those someones being judges, no doubt. But the law’s gender designation is significant. At the core of homophobia are beliefs about the appropriate roles for men and women, sexual and otherwise. If these beliefs and the social and cultural pressures that support them had no great impact, there would be only slight recognition of gender in other people. There are many phenotypic human characteristics arising from specific DNA programming: eye color and attached earlobes to name a couple. The meaning placed on gender is a choice, just as in some cultures, a large earlobe is a sign of virility. The life of gender, like race, is breathed into it by social imposition, not because in and of itself it is significant.

            I am not blameless regarding the impact of gender on individual roles. While I am comfortable with not knowing – even being oblivious to – a person's race, I "need" to know gender. Is it "his" or "her"? Do I say "he" or "she"? I can attempt to leave pronouns out of my writing, spell "actor" with an "e" to gender neutralize it, but I have this prejudice, and unlike race, it is embedded into everyday language.

            LGBT leadership appeared to understand this relationship between gender and same-sex marriage having argued gender discrimination in the Marriage Cases, the ruling on which opened the door to same-sex marriage in California this past summer. It is little discussed that the California Supreme Court denied a discriminatory relationship on the basis of gender. Five years ago in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Scalia of the U.S  Supreme Court discarded analogies between gender discrimination and race discrimination of the kind at work in Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned State anti-miscegenation laws. He found White Supremacy to be at work when the issue concerned interracial marriage but was not insightful enough to find Male Supremacy at work when considering the gender roles designated in traditional marriage. ... but isn't that always the fate of oppressed groups? Decades and even centuries pass with the Courts and society in general finding the stereotypes and the assigned roles acceptable, entrenched as they are into their everyday. Women were once property. Women still earn less per dollar than male counterparts, and unlike most other minorities, hate crimes against them don't end up in FBI statistics even though most sexual assault and domestic violence is perpetrated against a woman in order to maintain a male's power. Hate crimes against women and girls are not considered crimes of "hate", just crimes. Regardless, if the LGBT stance on same-sex marriage is that gender discrimination is also at play, why aren't leaders touting it as my cause just by virtue of me being a woman?

            "Straight allies!"

            Men and boys are also losing out from imposed gender roles, denied socio-cultural permission to cry, be sensitive, excel in certain occupations and activities. I want men and women to be in this world as they actually are: equal. Same-sex marriage is just one piece to help put together that overwhelming puzzle.

            It certainly does not go without notice that LGBT leadership against Proposition 8 not only neglected gender discrimination in seeking public understanding of the issue, but also failed to publicize the sound anti-miscegenation comparison until the eleventh hour. Over the years when I expressed the need to make the analogy as part of a media advocacy campaign for same-sex marriage, movement organizers told me, "We don't want to offend Black people." Well, consider this one Black person offended, offended that leadership saw Black people as too stupid or reactionary to understand. First reported as 70%, the polled 57% of African-Americans who voted "yes" on Proposition 8 might have been better served by some demonstrated understanding of its relevance to their lives. Certainly the hundreds of thousands of people who suffered pain, anger, and anguish on November 4, 2008 would have been.

            "Straight allies!"

            I listened as the speeches continued, some calling for boycotts of establishments funding "Yes on 8", and I wondered where these same people were (and are) when San Francisco's Human Rights Commission found against the owner of Badlands for discriminating against African-Americans at his Castro Neighborhood bar. His many establishments are still well attended by "No on 8" folk. I stopped going years ago, before the Commission's findings, after an African-American friend said he wasn't let in at Badlands. .... I am reminded of another friend – now of the "former" persuasion and who no doubt voted "no" on Proposition 8 – who was so vehemently opposed to the idea of Hillary Clinton's presidency that he demanded the women in his life oppose her candidacy or he would have "no choice" but to call for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. .... I think of my service as a Director of a Board predominated by “No on 8” voters and my first Board retreat involving a game of celebrity with “Aunt Jemima” being pantomimed using me unwillingly as a prop. .… I will of course keep my money out of the pockets of "Yes on 8" funders as best I can, but I cringe, feeling fated as a soldier going off to fight a war for a country that fails to provide freedom at home … and wondering if in this age of corporate bailouts whether the likes of the Montgomery Bus Boycott would be as effective.

            As for the "yes" voters – who in the end are the ones to blame for Proposition 8's passage – they are 52% of California's population: White, Black, Asian, Latino, Native, immigrant, young, old, male, female, able and disabled, closeted gay and lesbian. They don't truly believe in gender equality, freedom of religion, and a number of other ideals cherished by the California or U.S. Constitution. These people – The People – weren't meant to decide such important issues. The U.S. Constitution is itself evidence the Founding Fathers didn't believe in pure majority rule, leaving only issues of less significance to the whim of the masses ... like whether chickens are entitled to yard time, a Proposition (2) that also passed in California this November 4. Founding Fathers knew that even they themselves were fallible, clarifying their intentions through the Bill of Rights and Constitution, the latter's under-cited Preamble serving as insurance (so they hoped) against their own mistakes. They sought "justice", "domestic tranquility", "general welfare", "blessings of liberty". They knew it was fate that if left to their own devices, The People would limit efforts toward a more perfect union.

            I am the direct descendant of Rockport, Massachusetts's first settler, part of a family tree growing here since before these lands became the United States of America. I can't imagine what Richard Tarr fled in his birthland in order to feel more at home in a new world. I can't imagine what he'd think seeing The People today, attempting to legislate their religious beliefs, no more embracing of others' freedoms of speech or association than when the Bill of Rights was authored. If it runs in the blood, my guess is he'd sigh, raise his open hand in solidarity with those supporting even a hint of liberty, and wish we'd realize that all of us are fated to serve on the front lines.

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