Court overturns Prop. 8
This afternoon, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California overturned Prop. 8 on due process and equal protection grounds (PDF of the decision). At last, thank goodness, we have a step forward–but really, it’s a step that brings us right back to where we were in May 2008, when the state supreme court overturned the previous ballot initative-passed ban on same-sex marriage. It’s not so much an unequivocal step forward as it is a halt to the backsliding and the Court hauling the state out of the pit half of the population hurled it into. Still, to the couples who married in the brief summer of 2008, to the couples who wanted to get married after that cold night when Prop. 8 passed, and to everyone who cares about civil rights and equality for all, this ruling is wonderful. It’s a sign that the court can protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority and that even when bigotry holds sway, we can win. Eventually, we will win.
Back when CA Supreme Court was ruling on the procedural legality of Prop. 8, I wrote,
This decision will be a ruling once more on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings. Yes, the ruling is about marriage rights, but it’s apparent from looking at the ads and rhetoric of the anti-marriage equality side that the issue at hand is much broader. Are GLBTQI people indeed people, or are we monsters? By virtue of our nature, do we deserve to be shoved into the closet and hidden away so that we don’t corrupt the minds of (assumed to be straight) little children with our existence? Are our lives political footballs to be punted around for points until the election’s over and we’re told to just wait a little longer, our expectations are unreasonable and our demands unimportant? …I love this city and I love this state, but if the government decides once again that I do not have the rights to equality that are inherent to me by virtue of my humanity, if it decides once again to codify my second-class status into law, not content to leave it unspoken, assumed, and societally enforced, what place will there be for me here? [May 2009]
The court has ruled, and it stripped all the “concern for the children” and “sanctity of marriage” horseshit away from Prop. 8 and exposed its truth, that it was a bigoted attempt to legally classify queer people as inferior to straight people. In the conclusion to his ruling, Judge Walker wrote,
Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that oppositesex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.
This decision was a ruling on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings, and it affirmed that we are indeed people, who have the right to live and love in public. For once, we weren’t told that we had to wait a little longer–the importance of our demands was acknowledged and they were treated as a serious question of law.
I honestly didn’t think this day would come until the Supreme Court took up the case–and I wasn’t confident that they’d rule in support of equality. The composition of the Court is too close. I was still going to try, of course, and was briefly involved in an effort to put a repeal of Prop. 8 on the ballot for 2010, and would have supported it in 2012. This decision, though, circumvents all of the time, money, and labor that another ballot initiative would have required, and it’s an affirmation that the court system can work as it ought to. Thank god.
There’s a rally this evening at Castro, and a march from there to City Hall. I recall the last time I marched down Market Street for GLBTQI rights, a few nights after the 2008 election. What a relief and what a joy it’ll be to march in celebration tonight.
Letters: ENDA
Via acrimonyastraea, gudbuytjane: “Barney Frank, get out of my pants.”
In response, I wrote an email to my representative; I urge you to write to yours (find them here), as well as to Pelosi in her capacity as Speaker of the House (contact link).
Dear Rep. Pelosi,
I am emailing you to urge you to support a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that will fully protect the rights of transgendered individuals. Transgendered people are vulnerable to discrimination, harassment, and outright violence in our society for no reason other than their gender identity, and it is up to our government to take a stand in defense of their civil rights by passing an ENDA that includes their rights as well as the rights of GLBQI people. I was appalled by Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-MA) transphobic comments about trans people, which were reported in RollCall on Monday:
“He said concessions were made in the drafting of the language to address moderates’ concerns. For instance, Frank said, transgender people with “one set of genitals” would not be able to go to a bathroom for people with another set of genitals.
And, Frank said, they also would have to have a “consistent gender presentation” in order to be able to sue for discrimination.
“They can’t sit there with a full beard and a dress,” Frank said.”
Those remarks call upon damaging and fearmongering stereotypes of transgendered people. Instead, I urge you to support a fully inclusive ENDA.
Sincerely,
[PD]
Feinstein on Nelson Amendment
On Wednesday, Senator Feinstein (D-CA) made a statement against the Nelson Amendment, which would have barred any health insurance plan that accepts a single government subsidy or dollar from providing coverage for any abortion, even if that plan is privately purchased by the patient herself. Basically, Nelson, which was successfully voted down, was the Senate version of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. The full text of the statement is at Feinstein’s Senate site, but this is the part that really stood out to me:
One of the problems in this whole debate is that everyone sees something through their own lens. They don’t see the grief and trouble and morbidity that are out there, and the circumstances that drive a woman to decide — married — she has to terminate her pregnancy for very good medical reasons. Nobody considers that.
This is all ideological and it really, deeply bothers me. So, I can tell you that I very much hope this amendment goes down.
This is why it’s important to elect more women, more people of color, more GLBTQI people, and more people with disabilities to office. We see things through different lenses, which are often influenced by our life experiences, which are in turn affected by our gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, able-bodied-ness, and class background. When we elect more people from marginalized groups, they bring their life experiences with them to the halls of government and strip away the ignorance that is born out of being privileged. “One of the problems in this whole debate is that everyone sees something through their own lens.” Many men, such as Stupak, Nelson, and the representatives and senators that voted for their amendments, look at abortion and see a chance to subjugate women and wrest away their control over their own bodies. They see a chance to dictate what women can and cannot do with their bodies and with their money. They see misconceptions about what sorts of women need to have abortions. To quote Senator Feinstein, “They don’t see the grief and trouble and morbidity that are out there.” They don’t see the real lives and the real pain and at the root of it all, the real women and the real girls who are full human beings with the right to decide what to do with their bodies, just the same as men.
I wrote the Senator an email thanking her for her statement and her nay vote on the Nelson Amendment. Californians can also write her an email through hercontact page
Escorting at Clinics: 40 Days for “Life”
Via Bitch Ph.D.: Operation Rescue will be protesting women’s health clinics across the country from September 23 to November 1 for their self-proclaimed 40 Days for “Life.” What are the 40 Days for “Life”? Their website claims,
40 Days for Life is a community-based campaign that draws attention to the evil of abortion through the use of a three-point program:
* Prayer and fasting
* Constant vigil
* Community outreach40 Days for Life takes a determined, peaceful approach to showing local communities the consequences of abortion in their own neighborhoods, for their own friends and families. It puts into action a desire to cooperate with God in the carrying out of His plan for the end of abortion in America.
I am a clinic escort at Planned Parenthood and on top of the usual protesters that show up every Monday and Saturday, my clinic was already targeted for the 40 Days for “Life” earlier this year. I can tell you that the 40 Days for “Life” are less about peaceful Christian fellowship than about harassing, intimidating, and shaming girls and women for going to Planned Parenthood, whether it’s for their annual check up or for an abortion. The protesters at my clinic carry giant signs with pictures of what they claim are aborted fetuses (said pictures look like dismembered plastic dolls covered in kung pao chicken sauce, but that’s just my non-medical expert opinion), which are meant to horrify and scare women and girls. They yell at the top of their lungs that anyone who goes into Planned Parenthood will go to Hell. They hand out pamphlets proclaiming the lie that abortion causes breast cancer. They shout, “Adoption is a better option.” With the pictures, pamphlets, and physical intimidation, the protesters try to prevent girls and women from entering the clinic, so that they won’t receive the medical care that they have chosen and need. Additionally, after Scott Roeder murdered Dr. Tiller, when any person with a sense of compassion or two brain cells to rub together would have realized that clinic patients, workers and escorts would be feeling rattled and scared for their safety, the local protesters stepped up their harassment. In an email shortly after the murder, my clinic’s escort coordinator wrote,
Since the appalling murder of Dr. Tiller, our protesters decided to show up the Tuesday before last … And one staff member told us that because there were no escorts present they were fairly aggressive. We had escorts at this clinic this Tuesday and although one of our regular protesters drove by, he didn’t stop because we were there.
and in a later email,
I’m truly amazed at the right wing response to Dr. Tiller’s death – how outrageous can they be? I thought that our protesters would be kinder/gentler and its simply unbelievable that they’re getting more aggressive. I (mistakenly) thought that our protesters would behave.
In retrospect, I believe that the protesters stepped up their harassment because they knew that people would be frightened by the murder, and they wanted to capitalize on that. Hardly a Christian attitude.
ACTION ITEM: The 40 Days for “Life” are targeting clinics across the country. Their website has a list of the locations. Check to see if they’re protesting in your area, and if they are, contact the clinic to see if they could use your help. Search for volunteer opportunities at Planned Parenthood here.
The “peaceful” approach of the anti-choice protesters includes:
- Approaching girls and women and yelling, “You’re killing your baby! Murderer!”
- Approaching girls and women and attempting to step between them and the clinic entrance, while shoving pamphlets about adoption and lies about abortion at them.
- Approaching girls and women and yelling, “Do you know what they do in there? They kill babies! If you kill your baby, you will go to Hell!”
- Approaching girls and women and yelling, “Adoption is a better option!”
- Setting up a sidewalk altar near the clinic entrance with statues of Mary and Jesus. Kneeling in front of the altar and praying loudly.
- Standing near the clinic entrance in groups of three or more and loudly saying the rosary.
- Standing near the clinic entrance in groups of as many as six or more and yelling at the clinic escorts: “You will burn in the flames of hell! And when you have a baby, God will kill him because of your evil!”
- Setting up chairs and a stereo on the opposite side of the street and blasting anti-choice Christian music.
- Holding large signs with graphic images that purport to depict aborted fetuses.
- Repeatedly violating San Francisco’s bubble ordinance by approaching patients as they exit and enter the clinic.
Far from depiction of the small, lone teenager that protests the abortion clinic in Juno, the protesters at my local clinic range in number from three to more than fifteen, often arrive in shifts, range in age from teenage to elderly, are male and female, are vocal, are loud, are physically intimidating, and often gang up on clinic patients so that patients must physically shove through them to get to the clinic. Yes, they are ridiculous, but their intent is to intimidate any girl or woman who so much as passes by a Planned Parenthood.
If you can, please consider finding the time to help out your local clinic by volunteering as a clinic escort or in another capacity. Escorts present a welcoming face to patients and employees as they go in and out of the clinic; deter the protesters from escalating their intimidation and aggressiveness; and help patients avoid the protesters, inasmuch as it’s possible.
More reading: Think Progress on Operation Rescue and Roeder
Shakesville: Breaking the Silence: On Living Pro-Lifers’ Choice for Women – a guest post about giving a child up for adoption.
Shorter Peter Singer: Being Disabled Sucks, Or, How To Wallow In Ablism
An acquaintance of mine shared a post that linked to Peter Singer’s latest piece in the NYT Magazine, “Why We Must Ration Healthcare.” Most of the article focuses on the fact that health care is currently rationed in the U.S., whether by price or by less tangible factors such as ER wait times. I don’t disagree with that part; that’s nothing more than a clear-eyed look at the reality that the American health care system has barriers to accessibility. Where Singer goes off the rails for a demonstration of Able-Bodied Privilege 101, however, is when he discusses how to put a value on human lives as a precursor to putting a value on health care. In order to demonstrate the utility of quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) in rationing health care, he uses the example of how an able-bodied person reacts to a hypothetical situation in which they become quadraplegic, and how their desire to live changes. He then goes on to present a situation in which persons with disabilities (PWD) are damned if they do and damned if they don’t: he suggests that if a PWD is happy with their life, they don’t need any treatment that would improve their lives, and if a PWD is not happy with their life, then it would be wasteful to spend money on treatment that would improve their lives. In Singer’s QALY model, he assumes that being able-bodied is the norm and any disability is a negative deviation that makes the lives of disabled people inherently worth less than the lives of able-bodied people.
Health care does more than save lives: it also reduces pain and suffering. How can we compare saving a person’s life with, say, making it possible for someone who was confined to bed to return to an active life? … One common method is to describe medical conditions to people — let’s say being a quadriplegic — and tell them that they can choose between 10 years in that condition or some smaller number of years without it. If most would prefer, say, 10 years as a quadriplegic to 4 years of nondisabled life, but would choose 6 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, but have difficulty deciding between 5 years of nondisabled life or 10 years with quadriplegia, then they are, in effect, assessing life with quadriplegia as half as good as nondisabled life. (These are hypothetical figures, chosen to keep the math simple, and not based on any actual surveys.) If that judgment represents a rough average across the population, we might conclude that restoring to nondisabled life two people who would otherwise be quadriplegics is equivalent in value to saving the life of one person, provided the life expectancies of all involved are similar.
This is the basis of the quality-adjusted life-year, or QALY, a unit designed to enable us to compare the benefits achieved by different forms of health care. The QALY has been used by economists working in health care for more than 30 years to compare the cost-effectiveness of a wide variety of medical procedures and, in some countries, as part of the process of deciding which medical treatments will be paid for with public money. If a reformed U.S. health care system explicitly accepted rationing, as I have argued it should, QALYs could play a similar role in the U.S. [All emphases in the piece are mine.]
In this scenario, Singer assumes that being able-bodied is the norm. He assumes that able-bodied people are neutral arbiters of the value of life as a disabled person, which ignores the reality that in an ablist society, we are steeped in ablism from the minute we’re born. After a lifetime of living in a society that considers being able-bodied to be normal and best and looks upon any form of disability, whether physical or mental, congenital or not, visible or invisible, as a negative deviation that makes a person with disabilities a lesser human being than an able-bodied person, an able-bodied person can in no wise be an objective judge–or at least no more objective than a person with disabilities. Singer later makes the assumption that PWD are self-interested when it comes to evaluating whether or not the health care system should devote resources to PWD; their bias presumably makes them bad judges. This assumption of bias, however, draws a veil over the fact that able-bodied people also have a bias: Singer outlines a system where there is a limited amount of health care, which can be devoted either to PWD or to able-bodied people. In this situation, able-bodied people are equally as self-interested as PWD. As able-bodied people, they have a vested interest in the allocation of health care, and so, when they decide that it’s only logical and reasonable to devote health care resources to the treatment of able-bodied people, they are not neutral, objective arbiters. After positioning able-bodied people as the best judges of the worth of the lives of people with disabilities, Singer further normativizes the the idea of able-bodied person as objective judge by demanding that PWD prove that their lives are worth living.
Some will object that this discriminates against people with disabilities. If we return to the hypothetical assumption that a year with quadriplegia is valued at only half as much as a year without it, then a treatment that extends the lives of people without disabilities will be seen as providing twice the value of one that extends, for a similar period, the lives of quadriplegics. That clashes with the idea that all human lives are of equal value. The problem, however, does not lie with the concept of the quality-adjusted life-year, but with the judgment that, if faced with 10 years as a quadriplegic, one would prefer a shorter lifespan without a disability. Disability advocates might argue that such judgments, made by people without disabilities, merely reflect the ignorance and prejudice of people without disabilities when they think about people with disabilities. We should, they will very reasonably say, ask quadriplegics themselves to evaluate life with quadriplegia. If we do that, and we find that quadriplegics would not give up even one year of life as a quadriplegic in order to have their disability cured, then the QALY method does not justify giving preference to procedures that extend the lives of people without disabilities over procedures that extend the lives of people with disabilities.
This method of preserving our belief that everyone has an equal right to life is, however, a double-edged sword. If life with quadriplegia is as good as life without it, there is no health benefit to be gained by curing it. That implication, no doubt, would have been vigorously rejected by someone like Christopher Reeve, who, after being paralyzed in an accident, campaigned for more research into ways of overcoming spinal-cord injuries. Disability advocates, it seems, are forced to choose between insisting that extending their lives is just as important as extending the lives of people without disabilities, and seeking public support for research into a cure for their condition.
In this section of the article, the entire discussion of applying QALY to valuing disabled vs. able-bodied lives is nothing less than sheer sophism and poor logic, as the choice that Singer suggests between extending the lives of quadriplegic people and researching a cure for quadriplegia is a false one. Singer is essentially demanding that people with disabilities prove that their lives are worth living. The question is, prove it to whom? To Singer? To an objective judge? That assumes once again that PWD cannot be objective judges of their situations, making normative the idea of able-bodied person as objective and hiding the reality that able-bodied people also have a vested interest in the allocation of health care resources.
Furthermore, Singer’s doing a bait and switch. The premise of his argument is that a PWD has to prove that their life is worth living. If a PWD satisfactorily sucks up to the able-bodied masses and proves that life is worth living, even life as a PWD, then that means that their life is fine and so there’s no need to focus on research that would improve their quality of life (“If life with quadriplegia is as good as life without it, there is no health benefit to be gained by curing it.”). However, if a PWD admits that they require aid to get through the day, whether in the form of anti-depressants, therapists, or crutches, then that means that the life of a PWD is worse than the life of an able-bodied person, and so it would be wasteful and inefficient for society to spend money on research that would improve their quality of life. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. The argument is designed to be a no-win scenario that perpetuates and justifies discrimination against PWD.
In reality, the situation is not an either-or choice. It’s possible to spend money and resources both on extending the lives of PWD and on researching ways to improve their quality of life. It’s also extraordinarily stupid to suggest that if a PWD enjoys living, then they’re satisfied with their lives and would be averse to improving it. Human beings, whether disabled or able-bodied, generally seek to improve their lives. The constant search for something more, something better drives our lives, and even the happiest person in the world, if given an opportunity to be even happier, would likely take it. Demanding that PWD be satisfied with their lives as-is and never allowing them to seek improvements seeks to articificially keep PWD behind.
The question of how to make health care both accessible and affordable is difficult, and Singer is correct in that it’s necessary to address the question of how to distribute health care resources. However, his QALY model discards people with disabilities from the start and ensures a system where their opinions are never as valid as those of able-bodied people. It is a system that perpetuates the ablist prejudices already pervasive in our society. In his next piece, perhaps he should actually talk with people with disabilities, both congenital and, for lack of a better word, acquired, rather than hypothesizing about how he, as an able-bodied man, thinks that PWD would think.
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NOTE: I am able-bodied and am trying to work through the social conditioning and able-bodied privilege. Feel free to tell me when I mess up.
Further reading: posts that I’ve found informative and broadening. Reading the words of PWD talking about their own experiences is different from reading about able-bodied people speaking about and for PWD.
amandaw‘s writing about disability and able-bodied privilege particularly her guest posts at Feministe. Her posts on Things That Make My Life Easier (Shower Chair, Symphony Pillow, Heat, Cute Pill Case, TENS) particularly came to mind when I read Singer’s implicit demand that PWD prove that their lives are worth living–and then seek no further improvements in their quality of life. These are things that make amandaw’s life easier and enable her to improve her quality of life and do more, but Singer’s argument would deny her both the medical devices (e.g. the TENS) and the expanded opportunities that they allow her.
Pocochina’s posts on living with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS). It occurs to me that both amandaw’s and Pocochina’s disabilities don’t precisely fit into the most common image of disability, which is mobility (e.g. the disability signifiers wheel chairs, ramps). Typically, it’s also the image that Singer uses, that of an able-bodied person who becomes disabled. I wonder what that means?
The posts on disability at Hoyden About Town. Lauredhel’s “Can I Have A Seat?” was also at the back of my mind when thinking about how Singer assumes that a need for accommodation automatically makes a PWD worth less than an able-bodied person.
Astraea’s post for Blog Against Disablism Day is about being neuroatypical and the positioning of neurotypical as the norm that everyone needs to adhere to.
Diary of a Goldfish hosted Blogging Against Disablism Day 2009 and has the links collected.
Marriage Equality…
…pass it on. To echo Keori, the terrifying face of marriage equality: John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney (the link is to a PDF of their plaintiff statement in Woo v. Lockyer).
SF PRIDE banner in a MUNI station (the ad is also up on bus stops all over SF). Gee, the happiness and love on their faces is just terrifying, innit?
Prop. 8 Case
[I wrote most of this on Wednesday and hadn't finished it by the time the Court announced that it would be ruling on Prop. 8 on Tuesday, May 26 (PDF).]
So, head down in cooking, dance class, going out, and figuring out things with the +1, I’ve mostly put thoughts of Prop. 8 out of my head. The CA Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments back in March and had 90 days from that date to issue their ruling. Since all the protests last fall and winter, I’ve dropped out of the local activist scene entirely. When the oral hearings began, I marked down the 90th day out in my planner and then avoided thinking about it.
June 4: dinner for three at Maverick. June 5: Court ruling? Schubert's Great at the SF Symphony
June was tucked safely away behind many, many pages in my planner, but now, it’s nearly here. The Court normally publishes opinions on Mondays and Thursdays, with announcements of forthcoming opinion filings going up the Friday or Wednesday before. Next Monday is Memorial Day and so any opinion that would have been published on Monday will be published on Tuesday, with an announcement going up on the website on Friday. According to Day of Decision, the Court will rule by June 3, which leaves three possible dates for the ruling: Tuesday (5/26), Thursday (5/28), and Tuesday (6/2). God, we’re so close.
This decision will be a ruling once more on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings. Yes, the ruling is about marriage rights, but it’s apparent from looking at the ads and rhetoric of the anti-marriage equality side that the issue at hand is much broader. Are GLBTQI people indeed people, or are we monsters? By virtue of our nature, do we deserve to be shoved into the closet and hidden away so that we don’t corrupt the minds of (assumed to be straight) little children with our existence? Are our lives political footballs to be punted around for points until the election’s over and we’re told to just wait a little longer, our expectations are unreasonable and our demands unimportant?
I’m not married and never plan to be unless it’s fully legal everywhere in the country. At the moment, I’m going out with a straight man. And still, this ruling matters to me, because it’s a judgment on my very worth and dignity as a human being. I know that eventually, Prop. 8 will be repealed, if not in the next two weeks then in the next decade or so. That is cold comfort, though, and the legal justifications for upholding Prop. 8 are equally cold comfort. No matter how much I cherish rationality, logic, and the rule of law over emotions, there comes a time when the law is wrong and people of principle must not acquiesce to it.
I love this city and I love this state, but if the government decides once again that I do not have the rights to equality that are inherent to me by virtue of my humanity, if it decides once again to codify my second-class status into law, not content to leave it unspoken, assumed, and societally enforced, what place will there be for me here?
Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of the White Night Riots (h/t Faith). This summer will see the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Activism and change are not always peaceful, are not always conducted within the stately halls of the legislature by calm, soft-spoken people who are expected to sigh, shrug philosophically, and accept it when their humanity is decried and they are accused of being perverts, child molesters, unnatural, disgusting, sick, sinners, and abominations that will destroy society. Homophobes unleash hatred and vitriol and attack GLBTQI people and batter and kill them. And yet, it is we who are admonished not to raise a fuss, not to defend ourselves, not to overreact, not to say a word about our lived experience of homophobia.
But how can you overreact to the persistent harassment and persecution? The admonishments to behave lest there be a backlash and the demands to go quietly into the good night, those are demands to keep heterosexism in place. Those are demands to not disturb the status quo and not disturb the illusion that things are OK and that queers will get our rights some day, if we only wait long enough and quietly enough, closeted enough. Those are demands to not make people uncomfortable with the fact that homophobia is a constant, active presence for most people who aren’t straight. Those are demands to hide our dead and our wounded.
Every time I go home to my parents’ house and see their old church friends, I get asked if I have a boyfriend. They assume I’m straight. They all voted yes on Prop. 8. I want to tell them that no, I don’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and thus challenge their default assumption of straightness by making it clear that loving a girlfriend is an option for me. I have to weigh that against my parents’ reaction, though, because if I so much as mention Prop. 8, homophobia, queer rights, or anything queer-related, let alone suggest that I’m not straight, my mother will pitch a screaming fit. She’ll ask me why I have to be so “outspoken,” why I have to talk about “those people,” why I can’t just “get along,” why I have to make everything “political,” why I can’t just be “quiet.” She’ll sulk the rest of the weekend and potentially for weeks afterward. She’ll never acknowledge that by demanding that I not disturb the social peace, she’s demanding that I lie about myself and hide. She’ll never acknowledge that she’s flaunting her heterosexuality every time she goes somewhere with her husband, calls him “honey,” and invites people over to the home that they’ve made together, where there are pictures of our smiling family all around the house: female parent, male parent, and two kids. She’ll say that her old friends have “the right to have their own opinions,” not realizing or not caring that those opinions are hatred for her daughter. Sure, our family friends think queers are sick and perverted sinners, but in my mom’s mind, saving face and preserving the gay atmosphere of a dinner party is more important than how I feel about breaking bread and quietly sitting at a table with people that say that people like me are subhuman, enjoined to say nothing in my own defense. The church friends don’t know they’re talking about me when they say that gay couples will destroy marriage, but I’m not allowed to tell them they are talking about me. I’m out of the closet everywhere but at my parents’ house, even though I’ve come out to my immediate family. For the sake of the fragile peace with my mother, I’m a hypocrite.
I believe in the importance of being out and used to speak about it as the most important component of changing the hearts and minds of Prop. 8 supporters. They assumed they didn’t know anyone who was queer and so they voted for Prop. 8. If they knew that their daughters, parents, children, friends, colleagues, and neighbors were queer, that would do more to change their minds about GLBTQI equality than anything else. That is what I said. For the sake of family, though, I’m not living what I believe: I’m out to my friends, out to my family, and have no problem talking with homophobes, but the stress of parental relationships makes me a hypocrite at heart. I’d rather keep the peace with my mother than live according to my principles and correct their friends when they assume I’m straight or go on about Prop. 8. I dread going to my parents’ house if I know that their church friends will be around. And it’s all my fault, of course, for having the temerity to think that I deserve equal rights and for thinking that I should be unashamed of who I am, rather than hiding in the closet.
I think P#1 knows I’m queer, given that I’ve mentioned working with Marriage Equality and local activists on Prop. 8 protests. There are also pictures of me wearing an “IN love with my girlfriend” t-shirt floating around on Facebook. If I were in his shoes, I would assume queerness, but I tend not to assume that someone’s straight unless ze explicitly says as much. Whatever way the ruling goes, it’ll open up a chance for conversation–either way, I’ll call him up for drinks, whether it’s, “CELEBRATORY DRINKS W00T!!” or, “I need to cry on someone’s shoulder.” I hope he understands.
The mess that is my mother’s uncomfortable relationship with my non-straight sexual orientation is a major part of why I haven’t told them about P#1 and don’t plan to either, in the foreseeable future. My mother would be relieved that I’m seeing a straight man and would assume that it’d mean that GLBTQI rights don’t matter to me anymore and would assume that it makes me not-queer enough to not care about GLBTQI equality. As much as she yells at me now for so much as mentioning Prop. 8 in casual conversation with family friends, it would be even worse if I told her about P#1, because she’d think that, since I’m seeing a man, Prop. 8 and homophobia have no relevance to my life.
I can’t deal with this. The Court is ruling on Tuesday.
I’m still bitter that when I organized a protest against Prop. 8, not only did my mother try to convince me that I shouldn’t and couldn’t do it, neither of my parents bothered to show up or even wish me good luck. I think that that action, right there, said everything I needed to know about how they feel about me, despite all my mother’s pretty words about how it’s okay that I’m queer. When I came out to her and my father, she said that, and then she yelled at me because she thought I was having a hard time with the conversation–”Is it so hard to talk to us about this? Are you so scared?” Yes, mother, I was scared, because your words say one thing and your actions say something completely different. You lie.
If I can’t feel safe and comfortable in my own skin with my parents, what else is left? We’ve never been close, but I guess I just need to get used to having this icy patch between us: we’ll skirt around it but never broach the topic directly, because it just won’t be productive.
Tax Time
I just did my taxes today. Usually, when I think of taxes, I think of schools, public transit, Medicare/Medicaid, and all the other happy benefits that serve the common good. I also think of wars, nuclear stockpiles, torture, surveillance, and tax cuts that favor the wealthiest in this country. This year, I thought of Stuart and John (PDF) and John’s speech at the anti-DOMA rally in January, where he held up a 1040 (the primary federal income tax filing document in the U.S.) and talked about how the federal government forces him and every other married same-sex couple to commit perjury when they file as Single.
John Lewis, holding a 1040 form, and his husband, Stuart Gaffney, at the January 10, 2009, anti-DOMA protest in San Francisco.
Due to the Defense of Marriage Act, married same-sex couples in MA and CT need to do an extra set of tax forms. State tax forms rely on the federal 1040, and although same-sex couples can file state taxes as Married Filing Jointly, they have to file their federal taxes as Single, because the federal government does not recognize their marriages. Therefore, they have to fill out federal 1040s as Single, redo a dummy 1040 as Married Filing Jointly, and use the second 1040 to fill out their state taxes. The humiliating reminder that same-sex marriages are considered fake, invalid outside of MA, CT and NY, and inferior to opposite-sex marriages is further aggravated by the fact that this routine is required by government institutions. Being discriminated against by private individuals is bad enough; tax season brings constant reminders of marriage inequality and government-perpetuated discrimination in the form of every casual conversation and complaint that people make about taxes. Having to pay higher federal taxes than you would if you could file jointly, and having your nose rubbed in that fact by the dummy 1040s that you have to fill out, are just the cherry on top of the insult-ridden sundae.
As for couples in California…I don’t even know what to say. They have to go through the same extra 1040 routine that couples in MA and CT do, but looming over it all is the fear that the state Supreme Court might invalidate their marriages. Originally, I wasn’t sure if couples that were married between June 15, 2008, and November 5, 2008, could even file as Married Filing Jointly in California, since same-sex couples are no longer allowed to marry in this state, but I think they can, since the court hasn’t yet ruled on the validity of same-sex marriages (obviously, if you’re in this boat, talk to an accountant and ignore my speculations!).
Tax time is just another reminder that queers are not equal in the eyes of the law, one in a string of constant reminders.
Note: If any idiotic tax protest spammers comment, I’m deleting and banning them.
In Defense of Life
Womens’ lives, that is. Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two landmark cases that recognized that women are thinking, intelligent human beings capable of making decisions; autonomous human beings that have the right to bodily integrity, beings that own the flesh they inhabit. Women are human beings, not property, and it is their right to decide whether they’ll abort, prevent, or carry a pregnancy. No one else, not her pastor, her family, her politicians, or anti-choicers who’ve never met her, has the right to make or limit that decision.
Every year, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) introduces the Sanctity of Life Act:
H.R. 227: 1/7/2009–Introduced.
Sanctity of Human Life Act – Declares that: (1) the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human and is the person’s paramount and most fundamental right; (2) each human life begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, at which time every human has all legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood; and (3) Congress, each state, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories have the authority to protect all human lives.
I’m not linking to it,* but Broun posted this statement on Redstate:
As we ring in the New Year and begin the 111th Congress, the need to protect the unborn remains front and center in the national political debate. Each year, in keeping with my promise to my constituents, the first bill I introduce provides Constitutional protections to unborn children.
His first bill, his trademark, his symbolic opening every year, is a bill that proclaims that women have fewer rights to their bodily integrity than corpses; that women cannot and should not make decisions for themselves; that women are worthless and unintelligent. He stakes his commitment not to human rights, or fighting poverty, or helping children get a good education, or ending war, or making healthcare affordable, but to degrading and infantilizing women. Broun is a symbol of the stubbornly misogynistic anti-choice movement and their determination to destroy our rights wholesale, if we do not remain wary and committed to fighting for reproductive justice.
The 2009 Blog for Choice topic is “What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress?”
My answer: Repeal the global gag rule immediately. I was hoping that Obama would do that via executive order today, as Clinton did on the 20th anniversary of Roe in 1993, or explicitly repeal the HHS rule change, but he’s failed to do so thus far.
You have to be pro-choice every day, or the anti-choicers will win. This Saturday, 1/24, the Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights (BACORR) is staging a pro-choice, pro-GLBTQI, pro-immigrant rights rally at Market & Embarcadero, to protest the Walk for “Life” WC.* The Walk for “Life” brings tens of thousands of anti-choice misogynists to San Francisco’s Embarcadero to demonstrate against the humanity of women. The anti-choicers have historically outnumbered the pro-choicers, so please come out! There will also be a pro-GLBTQI “Pieces of 8″ performing arts street fair along Embarcadero, celebrating creativity, love, and civil rights.
* As part of general SEO strategies and not driving traffic/revenue to offensive sites, I’m not going to link to sites I find offensive. In the interests of citing and being accountable, though, I will provide enough information that anyone interested in doing so will be able to find the original post or image herself.
FSM, Let It Be!
I love the Guardian:
The image is a screencap of guardian.co.uk, and it says, “Obama shuts network of CIA ‘ghost prisons,’” and the subheader is “New US president embarks on wholesale deconstruction of George Bush’s war on terror.”
I’m so happy about this news–positively elated! I haven’t felt this way about anything coming out of the White House in a long time. Shutting down secret prisons and closing Guantanamo is merely taking the country back where it should’ve been, but these days I have a newfound appreciation of how much work it is “just” to do what’s right (hint: a whole fucking lot). I’m waiting to see how these orders will be implemented, whether or not they’ll be carried out in fact and in spirit, but in the meantime, at least this step is in the right direction.
I love the tone of Suzanne Goldberg’s article – here, I’ll just copy it wholesale rather than try to snip my favorite bits. Read the rest of this entry »
