8 — OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS — DECEMBER 1998

‘SKEETER

 

BITES

 

BY SKEETER SANDERS

ell, the votes have all
been counted in last
month’s elections and

once again, the queer community
has taken a rock-solid ass-whip-
ping on the issue of legalizing
same-sex marriages.

I’m not the least bit surprised.
In fact, I’ll say it right now: It
was an ass-whipping we richly
deserved. We deserved it
because for the past three years,
we have allowed our assimila-
tionist “leaders” to sell us a bill
of goods, saying that we have a
right to many legally the same as
straight people.

We have fallen hook, line and
sinker for what is nothing more
and nothing less than an assimi-
lationist fantasy — totally ignor-
ing two fundamental realities
that we simply cannot escape
from.

Reality No. I: In the one mat-
ter about queer people that
counts the most — our sexuality
and our relationships —— queer
people are, by nature, fundamen-
tally different from straight peo-
ple. We always have been and we
always will be.

The assimilationists who hayeg

been campaigning for same-sex“

marriage have done so in total
denial of this reality and in the
process, have betrayed what it
means to be queer. The dictio-
nary partially defines “queer” as
“different.” To advocate that we
have a right to marry legally is to
deny the reality that we are dif-
ferent from straight people and
that to buy into this institution is
to surrender our queemess.
Reality No. 2: The legal insti-
tution of marriage is the back-
bone, the epitome —- indeed, the

same-sex marriage:
It Sellout to lleterosexist Patriarelrv

very LIFEBLOOD — of hetero-
sexist patriarchy. It was created
centuries ago as a means for men
to gain control of the wealth and
property of women. And for
most of its history —- even today
— legal marriages have had
more to do with property, wealth

and politics than with love and

commitment.

Today, straight people are
using the legal institution of mar-
riage for yet another purpose: to
give sanction to their feelings
that their relationships are supe-
rior to those of queer people and
even those straight people who
form deep relationships without
legal sanction. “We’re better
than you because we’re married
and you’re not,” they argue.

Never mind the fact that more
than 50 percent of legal mar-
riages today end in divorce.

Never mind the fact that
legally married people must pay
higher income taxes than their
unmarried counterparts.

Never mind the fact that
domestic abuse and violence
runs much higher among married
couples than among unmarried
couples.

Never mind the fact that you
can legally marry only one per-
son at a time _and~,thaLif.you’re
bisexual and/or polyamorous,
you’re shit out of luck.

And God help you if your
marriage goes down the toilet —
Especially if you have kids, for
unlike any other license that you
obtain, the government will not
revoke your marriage license;
you have to sue to get rid of it —
which can cost you a fortune, to
say nothing of a great deal of
emotional distress.

And therein lies the biggest
fallacy of all; that there is a
“right” to marry, forgetting that

you must obtain a license for
your marriage to be legal.
Anything that requires a license
to be legal is, by law, not a right,
but a privilege.

they argue.

Unlike the rights guaranteed
us by the Constitution and the
laws that back itup, privileges

are NOT guaranteed and can be .

taken away. When that happens,.
there ain’t a damn thing you can
do about it.

Contrary to what the assimila-
tionists have been telling us,
marriage is a privilege, and given
the fact that it is also the
lifeblood of the heterosexist
patriarchy, it is a privilege that
the patriarchy will stop at noth-
ing to reserve exclusively for
straight people.

The idea of legalizing
same-sex marriage is to the patri-
archy what the AIDS virus is to
our own blood: a deadly threat to
its very survival that must be
fought at all costs, V

But legalizing same-sex mar-
riage is also a threat to our own
queer culture and identity by
buying into the assimilationist
myth that we are the same as
straight people. We most certain-
ly are not, and we never will be.
To deny this reality is dangerous.

It is a massive betrayal of
those of us who fought for more
than 30 years to assert our right
to live our lives on own terms,
instead of living them according
to the dictates of the dominant
heterosexist culture.

Creating Change Convenes for I Ith Year

continued from front page ,

nary made it obvious to everyone
at the conference that sticky
questions like assimilation vs.
progressive politics, divisiveness
in the GLBT movement, and the
Millenium March controversy
would be debated energetically
and thoroughly,” stated Moore.

She was referring to the ple-
nary panel entitled “What Is This
Movement Doing to My
Politics” where panelists
described their frustrations of
conducting progressive activism
in a GLBT rights movement that
is being “mainstreamed”, “cor-
poratized”, and “marketed” by
some national gay rights advoca-
cy groups such as the Human
Rights Campaign (HRC). The
HRC was repeatedly lambasted
during the conference for their
decision to endorse Republican
New York Senator Al D’Amato
in the last election.

Although, D’Amato had been
supportiveof gay groups in New
York, he has consistently
opposed women’s access to

reproductive health care and
abortion. In response to the HRC
endorsement, New York gay
rights groups mobilized the gay
vote to elect D’Amato’s oppo-
nent, Democrat Charles
Schumer.

The HRC was further criti-
cized by the Ad Hoc Committee
For An Open Process for joining
with the Metropolitan
Community Church (MCC) in
unfairly dictating the planning
process for the Millenium
March. The Ad-Hoc Committee
has been meeting ever since the

two groups announced a
Millenium March on
Washington with the theme
“Faith and Family” last

February. Critics of the march
claim that it was organized with
a “top-down, corporate
approach” leaving out GLBT
activists and organizations on
national, state, and local levels.
The committee held several
meetings during the conference
and circulated a petition urging

national _organizations such as
NGLTF to resign from the
Millenium March planning
board in protest of the alleged
unfair activities of HRC and
MCC.

This controversy however,
was merely a backdrop‘ for over
200 workshops, meetings, and
caucuses spread over three days
and nine sessions at Creating
Change. The conference provid-
ed the opportunity for its atten-
dees to tailor their stay in
Pittsburgh to their specific inter-
ests. Workshops were organized
by tracks like “Ageing/Ageism,”
“Fundraising,” “Movement
Building,” “Queer Feminist,”
“Technology,” and
“Transgender” to help confer-
ence-goers pick and choose from
a wide array of opportunities.

Chris Moes, former Editor of
Out in the Mountains and resi-
dent of Putney, was invited by

 

CREATING CHANGE, PAGE 28

Nobody in the queer commu-

A nity knows this better than those

of us who have already gone
down the path of legal marriage
—— and have lived to regret it.

“We ’re better than you because
we ’re married and you ’re not, ”

I And isn’t it interesting that in the

great debate over same-sex mar-
riage, nobody bothered to ask
divorced queers for their opin-
ion?

I don’t have a problem with
deep commitments based on love
and afl”ection, nor do I have a
problem with spiritual marriages
that are blessed by religious and
spiritual institutions. Indeed, that

_ kind-of marriage has been a sacra-

ment for thousands of years and is
one of life’s greatest blessings.

In fact, because marriage is a
religious sacrament — and the
vast majority of marriage cere-
monies are conducted as reli-
gious ceremonies — the govem-
ment has no constitutional right
to either grant them legal sanc-
tion or to ban them. To do so vio-
lates the First Amendment sepa-
ration of religion and state.

Our relationships are none of
the govemment’s business. To
ask the government to give its
blessing to our relationships —
whether gay, straight, bi, mono
or poly —— is just asking for trou-
blc. To say nothing of selling out
to the patriarchy.V

Skeeter Sanders is the host of “The
Quiet Storm, ” a weekly radio program

of smooth jazz and soft R&B, which _- .

airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. on
WGDR-FM (91.1) in Plairfield and on
the Internet in Real/ludio at www. god-
dard.edu/wgdi: You can e-mail him at
skeeter_sanders @j20tmail.com.

|""""""""""""""""""I

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