Equality is seldom a gift bestowed out of benevolence.
Human rights struggles are often long and tedious. They are rarely decided by monolithic, one dimensional measures.
Many of the gains celebrated by former victims and their decendants have been won through long series of incremental steps.Some represent true milestones, but most are morsels of minutiae when taken together represent discernible progress.
Confrontation, passive resistence, civil disobedience, civil dialogue, intercession by people of goodwill, and solid public relations, each in their own way contribute to the struggle.
These are the tools that, in their own ways, helped end apartheid, dissolve oppressive empires, win voting rights, abolish miscegenation laws and create a Jewish homeland.
Each of these tactics has value in an overall strategy. Discounting any of them leaves an empty chamber among the salvos that could speed victory.
Once again, the issue of gay marriage was co-opted for political purposes. This time though it was not successfully used to mobilize those roped into battling the issue to turn on their intended targets.
Still, the people who care most passionately about their desires to love as they choose have been left the bloodied victims on a battlefield of divisive interests.
The tragedy is that the issue of their love had little or nothing to do with the agendas of those who assaulted their cause.
It is now up to the victims to regroup and wrest the moral high ground from the hands of those who would target them as biennial mobilization targets.
Look at the elements of the issue and carry on the struggle on all fronts. Win the chess game over time, instead of employing a reactive defense when the opportunists venture forth to use gay marriage opposition as a cause.
1) The congregations of ministers who mount petition drives should be confronted with signs before services asking:
A) why they oppose love
B) selectively interpret the bible so that divorce, fornication and conception outside the bonds of marriage are tolerated if, as the bible says, "sin is sin." (Selective casting of stones at the weakest victims seems so unchristian)
C) how they explain such intolerance to the youngest members of their flocks (Walking past the signs before Sunday school has a real dramatic impact).
2) Keep the issue out there so it becomes less seasonal. This could help take the politics out of it:
A) Marital rights are sanctioned by the state (county, municipal, state, federal) and as such, they should not be private or religious accommodations. Push them as a matter of equal protection under the law... Make the U.S. Supreme Court rule again and again to whittle away at the universe of exceptions.
B) Identify the clergy that bless gay marriages and make sure the documents they use for heterosexual unions are identical.... If their denomination, synod or board chooses to differentiate, press them to read their bigotry into their church record.
3) Urge Involvement:
A) Benign acceptance is nice, but vocal support in the name of diversity and tolerance is better. Saying you cause no harm is not the same as speaking out against injustice.... history has taught us that.
B) Identify and encourage the people of goodwill. Their bravery to speak out regularly on your cause will carry weight with otherwise good people. Because they have no dog in this fight, they have nothing to prove but their desire for justice.
4) Publicize Your Victories:
A) Each municipal ordinance, each successful court challenge, each judicial review has value...
B) Give your politicians national clout... stick them out there and make them huge... (Julian Bond was just a lowly state legislature in the south but he was a national figure simply because he was part of a very broad constituency of victims.)
5) Educate:
A) Fostering bigotry is an old tactic used against many and it is still being used against you.
B)The motivation for that petition you are signing is not about me and who I love, it is about getting people who historically might have targeted you to come out and vote because their numbers are getting a little thin.
C) Discriminating against me will not make me love whom I love any less, but it could make it okay for someone to decide who you or your child may love in the future.
6) Use the Bible:
A) It has been used to justify each of the failed institutions mentioned in the fourth paragraph which I suggested were changed over time.
My point, if the issue is ever to be taken off the political playing field, then the people who need it must claim permanent ownership of it. If they do, then they may be able to build a full-time fortress around it so it doesn't get stolen repeatedly for political purposes.
That is the beauty of Stonewall: It did not solve the issue in 1969, but over time, that event and what it represented helped to end the morals charge/police protection racket for gay bars around the country.
That is the beauty of the Pro-Choice movement: When passionate matrons and their parish priests found success in fostering the Pro-Life position by showing up with their fresh-faced teenage daughters and the boys who love them, Pat Ireland and others got college girls and their guys to say we decide our future and we decide when we will reproduce.
That is the beauty of self-determination: When people were systematically oppressed in Europe, Africa, Asia or the New World, the victims found their Morris Dees, their Dag Hammarskjolds and others to argue on their behalfs.
That is the beauty of decorated Democrats: After five presidential election cycles of patriotism and vigilance being snatched away by the Grand Old Party, new Democratic heroes with unquestionable military credentials like Jim Webb and Wesley Clark arose and Republican Colin Powell reminded everyone that Americans of all descriptions serve and defend their country honorably.
The nation cannot champion human rights around the world when some of its states are willing to pass laws denying human rights for some on its own soil. One cannot be an honest advocate for human rights for any group if at the same time one can support less than equal protections for others... It is the ultimate disconnect.
I'm a heterosexual male who believes in tolerance and diversity. I've got no dog in this fight, but frankly, I am weary of seeing the Gay Marriage issue used solely as a motivator to get out the voters who are so easily manipulated by the need for divisive hatred.
Fight the war daily... build the wall now and reinforce it constantly... Congressional elections are less than two years away.
(My friend, Brigid provided this image. She is a talented photographer and an intelligent young person. Her pain helped motivate me to address this issue)
