Why marriage?
After reading a book of the same title by George Chauncey (who testified in the Prop 8 trial) I began to think about the legacy of anti-gay discrimination against gay and lesbian people which included sodomy laws, firing from their government jobs whether civilian or military, losing child custody once you were found out...so many things in your world can come crashing down once they knew about you. You could be arrested after being propositioned by a plainclothes policeman and your name printed in the paper, where you worked and lived and there was nothing you could do about it.
Stonewall
After Stonewall, things changed though not overnight in many places. In NYC, when the LGBT community had enough, beer bottles, stilettos, rocks, and whatever could be found had been hurled at the policeman. THey had to take refuge in the same place they raided--the bar. I believe reinforcements came and they were routed, no one really remembers piece by piece what happened that night, but it was the shot heard around the world. No more would trans women be subject to humiliation, butch lesbians be forced to be who they were not, effeminate men wouldn't be forced to wear three pieces of masculine clothing--they would be who they are and no less!
Beginnings
In the beginning, it was all about stopping the policing of everyday life, of bars, places where gay men were known to frequent that were private, stopping entrapment by officers who would arrest you when they solicited you for sex and then offering to go to your place, all these tactics were used to humiliate gay men especially. Since sodomy laws were on the books, people would be branded criminals for engaging in something that is a normal part of adult life: Sexual relations. Political organizations were formed to address these things and by 1971 the Gay Activist Alliance split from the Gay Liberation Front, and then the women split so they could focus on women's issues--and it was a place that was full of lesbians. I care not what anyone else said: Lesbians played a big part in the feminist movement. Besides, it was the place where you could go to rally and find a date without going to a bar
Then came AIDS
After a while, it was all about getting laid in the gay male community and then came HIV/AIDS and the election of Ronald Reagan didn't help anything. He sat by while AIDS claimed so many lives and didn't utter the word AIDS until I believe 1987. When AIDS claimed a sitting member of Congress, it was no longer a gay male disease. In fact AIDS was once called GRID Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Many AIDS funerals were not attended by the biological family because they were tossed out of them upon coming out, and when they were their real family that participated in their lives were expected to 'behave' and not be gay.
After the funeral, the men went back home to find out that they couldn't inherit their partner's rent controlled apartment, and could be shut out of funeral arrangements entirely, they would be blamed for causing this 'destruction' in the life of their loved one and blamed that they made them gay. The family could lash out against the surviving spouse and take all he had built with his partner and the survivor could do nothing about it. This brought the reality home for many gay men, but it wouldn't be on the radar until at least 1993. However, the seed had been planted
DOMA
1993 Hawaiian case brought it to the limelight in Bear v. Mike (Bayur v. Meekay) that could've legalized marriage in Hawaii, the state legislature passed a mini Doma in 1996 the year that Congress passed theirs for federal purposes. One man said: Gays getting married caused more trouble than ACTUP ever did. They were right. This was a new problem, with gay rights advancing after Anita Bryant's save our children collapsed and the Briggs Initiative was stopped--with gay rights being threatened in many corners like CO Amendment 2 which was overturned in 1996 in Romer v. Evans, the next logical step seemed to be marriage
Massachusetts Goodridge decision
The case that lead to the 2004 decision that legalized marriage in MA triggered 11 states to put mini state DOMAs in their State Constitution, followed by many more in 2006 and CA in 2008, while three (MN, NC, PA) face theirs in 2012--I don't know if the PA one went through the Assembly or not. Years later, DOMA would be challenged and found unconstitutional as well, triggering pro family groups scrambling for cover as CT, VT, NH recognized the right to marry. Then they had to look to MD, RI and NY in 2011 as the three states looked into marriage there. MD can challenge a recently passed law to a referendum which it may not survive--as in 31 other states, RI Speaker Gordon Fox said that civil unions would be the best way to handle it, and in NY Governor Cuomo is pushing for a marriage vote before the legislative session ends on June 20. NY can be number 6
Why Marriage?
My State Senator Mark Grisanti said that some gay groups have come to him saying that civil unions is what he'd support, he knows for a fact that they are a legal quagmire and this isn't recognized universally like marriage is. When hard times hit, like cancer a person shouldn't have to worry about a lawyer or a durable power of attorney or if they'll get a sympathetic judge. you should be worrying about your loved one and hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. It is a time to fortify yourself and your partner instead of having a million worries on top of a terrible illness that could rob you of your partners presence. Family who disapprove could yank that all away from the survivor and since they're the next of kin, they could disregard you--systematically erase you from their life.
Why marriage? Because there is no relationship like it and gay men and lesbians are worthy of it. Civil unions don't cut the bread right. Civil unions don't mean anything and they don't carry across state lines. People don't have to recognize it, but they MUST recognize a marriage. It offers a security that the state and federal governments must give to you in a marriage as opposed to a civil union. It needs to be done and done NOW. I want to marry my partner, not domestically partner him because we'd already be living together. We are better than a civil union and so are American citizen, and we are much better than a system of first and second class marriages. It's because we are equal in the eyes of the law that it MUST be marriage--or nothing. I can't accept civil unions, I can't accept legislated segregation. Civil unions are just that, domestic partnerships are just that.
CALL YOUR SENATORS, WRITE THEM IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, TELL OTHERS TO! LET US GET THIS DONE AND LEAVE A LEGACY FOR OUR STATE! WE WILL WIN IT THIS TIME!
Stonewall
After Stonewall, things changed though not overnight in many places. In NYC, when the LGBT community had enough, beer bottles, stilettos, rocks, and whatever could be found had been hurled at the policeman. THey had to take refuge in the same place they raided--the bar. I believe reinforcements came and they were routed, no one really remembers piece by piece what happened that night, but it was the shot heard around the world. No more would trans women be subject to humiliation, butch lesbians be forced to be who they were not, effeminate men wouldn't be forced to wear three pieces of masculine clothing--they would be who they are and no less!
Beginnings
In the beginning, it was all about stopping the policing of everyday life, of bars, places where gay men were known to frequent that were private, stopping entrapment by officers who would arrest you when they solicited you for sex and then offering to go to your place, all these tactics were used to humiliate gay men especially. Since sodomy laws were on the books, people would be branded criminals for engaging in something that is a normal part of adult life: Sexual relations. Political organizations were formed to address these things and by 1971 the Gay Activist Alliance split from the Gay Liberation Front, and then the women split so they could focus on women's issues--and it was a place that was full of lesbians. I care not what anyone else said: Lesbians played a big part in the feminist movement. Besides, it was the place where you could go to rally and find a date without going to a bar
Then came AIDS
After a while, it was all about getting laid in the gay male community and then came HIV/AIDS and the election of Ronald Reagan didn't help anything. He sat by while AIDS claimed so many lives and didn't utter the word AIDS until I believe 1987. When AIDS claimed a sitting member of Congress, it was no longer a gay male disease. In fact AIDS was once called GRID Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Many AIDS funerals were not attended by the biological family because they were tossed out of them upon coming out, and when they were their real family that participated in their lives were expected to 'behave' and not be gay.
After the funeral, the men went back home to find out that they couldn't inherit their partner's rent controlled apartment, and could be shut out of funeral arrangements entirely, they would be blamed for causing this 'destruction' in the life of their loved one and blamed that they made them gay. The family could lash out against the surviving spouse and take all he had built with his partner and the survivor could do nothing about it. This brought the reality home for many gay men, but it wouldn't be on the radar until at least 1993. However, the seed had been planted
DOMA
1993 Hawaiian case brought it to the limelight in Bear v. Mike (Bayur v. Meekay) that could've legalized marriage in Hawaii, the state legislature passed a mini Doma in 1996 the year that Congress passed theirs for federal purposes. One man said: Gays getting married caused more trouble than ACTUP ever did. They were right. This was a new problem, with gay rights advancing after Anita Bryant's save our children collapsed and the Briggs Initiative was stopped--with gay rights being threatened in many corners like CO Amendment 2 which was overturned in 1996 in Romer v. Evans, the next logical step seemed to be marriage
Massachusetts Goodridge decision
The case that lead to the 2004 decision that legalized marriage in MA triggered 11 states to put mini state DOMAs in their State Constitution, followed by many more in 2006 and CA in 2008, while three (MN, NC, PA) face theirs in 2012--I don't know if the PA one went through the Assembly or not. Years later, DOMA would be challenged and found unconstitutional as well, triggering pro family groups scrambling for cover as CT, VT, NH recognized the right to marry. Then they had to look to MD, RI and NY in 2011 as the three states looked into marriage there. MD can challenge a recently passed law to a referendum which it may not survive--as in 31 other states, RI Speaker Gordon Fox said that civil unions would be the best way to handle it, and in NY Governor Cuomo is pushing for a marriage vote before the legislative session ends on June 20. NY can be number 6
Why Marriage?
My State Senator Mark Grisanti said that some gay groups have come to him saying that civil unions is what he'd support, he knows for a fact that they are a legal quagmire and this isn't recognized universally like marriage is. When hard times hit, like cancer a person shouldn't have to worry about a lawyer or a durable power of attorney or if they'll get a sympathetic judge. you should be worrying about your loved one and hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. It is a time to fortify yourself and your partner instead of having a million worries on top of a terrible illness that could rob you of your partners presence. Family who disapprove could yank that all away from the survivor and since they're the next of kin, they could disregard you--systematically erase you from their life.
Why marriage? Because there is no relationship like it and gay men and lesbians are worthy of it. Civil unions don't cut the bread right. Civil unions don't mean anything and they don't carry across state lines. People don't have to recognize it, but they MUST recognize a marriage. It offers a security that the state and federal governments must give to you in a marriage as opposed to a civil union. It needs to be done and done NOW. I want to marry my partner, not domestically partner him because we'd already be living together. We are better than a civil union and so are American citizen, and we are much better than a system of first and second class marriages. It's because we are equal in the eyes of the law that it MUST be marriage--or nothing. I can't accept civil unions, I can't accept legislated segregation. Civil unions are just that, domestic partnerships are just that.
CALL YOUR SENATORS, WRITE THEM IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, TELL OTHERS TO! LET US GET THIS DONE AND LEAVE A LEGACY FOR OUR STATE! WE WILL WIN IT THIS TIME!
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