11.13.2008

thoughts on prop 8 and equality.

The question everyone has been asking, the questions I've been asking, after the passing of Proposition 8 in California, and the further attack on the concept of equality, has been the obvious one: How is it that in the same day, a nation made such a clear step towards moving beyond racial bias, and intentionally decided to re-institute bias on the basis of sexual orientation.  How did one of the most liberal areas in America decide that they were okay with a black man running the nation, but terrified by loving gay couples getting married.


The core issue is that inclusive messaging across aligned groups leads to a united front with mroe influence, where exclusive messaging leads to self-directed, but less influential, groups.  To expand:

There are a lot of 'reasons' society is uncomfortable with gay rights issues; the relatively short amount of time people have been openly homosexual, the willingness to pretend this issue has anything to do with religion, etc etc etc.

The short truth is that arguing against gay marriage is like arguing against inter-racial marriage.  It taps into bullshit generational ideas about what is for who, equality, who counts as a person, and who gets to make decisions about the lives of others.

It wasn't thought of as this, due to a failing in most fights for equality.  I owe everything I have to the civil rights movement, but it was clearly cast as a matter of black people getting equal treatment under the law.  This was inevitably an equality issue, but it was presented as, and approached as, the rights of one group versus the majority.

The women's rights movement is the same thing.  A clear issue of equality, but approached as the rights of women, and a struggle specifically against male oppression.

None of this is wrong.  But it's not as right as it could be.  Very soon, most western nations will have more 'minorities' than straight, christian whites.  May countries already do.  If we insist on arguing each fight for equality step by step, everyone has to suffer through the same long struggle.

If the message was 'everyone deserves equal rights and treatment', rather than 'MY group deserves equal rights and treatment', we'd have a stronger united front, serve long term universal interests, and hopefully make the world a better place.

We're just going to keep letting each other down until it stops being about equality for blacks, equality for gays, equality for latinos, etc, and just starts being about equality for all of us, without exception.

No comments: