Category Archives: Gay Rights

I Cry At Weddings

I cry at weddings, and last week I had yet another opportunity to borrow a tissue.

I was invited to this particular ceremony by someone I have come to know through service on a nonprofit board. He’s the sort of quiet, solid citizen that others depend on, the guy down the street who works hard, who harbors zero political ambitions despite serving a couple of terms on his township’s school board, the guy whose neighbors know they can call on him in a pinch.

There wasn’t a large crowd at the church—the couple’s families (including my friend’s children by a prior marriage), folks from the neighborhood where they have lived for twelve years, others they’ve met through a variety of civic organizations. It was probably as racially diverse a group as I’ve seen in a church, perhaps because this particular couple is interracial. The crowd was not only black and white, however; among the people I knew, I saw Christians and Jews, Republicans and Democrats, gay and straight, young and old.

During the brief ceremony, there were readings from members of both families, including my friend’s children from the prior marriage. One of his daughters (the mother of his adored grandson) is deaf, so she signed her part, which was lovely and touching. I didn’t really tear up, however, until the part where the couple left the altar to present each of their mothers with flowers and express their gratitude for the years of love and support. (Hey, what can I tell you—I’m a mom too!)

Finally, after rings were exchanged and the ceremony concluded, the grooms invited everyone to join them at the reception.

Oh yes—I forgot to mention that this wasn’t a legally-binding marriage. It was a commitment ceremony. Although it was otherwise indistinguishable from other Christian wedding ceremonies I’ve attended, my friend and his life partner walked out of church still strangers in the eyes of the law. Although they have lived together for 12 years, although they publicly declared their intent to live together for the rest of their lives, although they have the love and support of their families, although they are law-abiding, taxpaying citizens, they won’t be filing joint tax returns.

Their relationship won’t entitle them to the 1012 legal incidents of marriage that my husband and I automatically enjoy—“special rights” like social security survivor benefits, hospital visitation, automatic joint ownership of the home they’ve shared, an automatic right to inherit property that they’ve jointly acquired, and on and on. For my friend and his partner, securing these rights requires copious and expensive legal documentation.

As if this denial of equal treatment isn’t galling enough, the Indiana Legislature is once again trying to rub salt in the wound of second-class citizenship by passing a constitutional amendment to confirm that status—and arguably prevent passage of any other legal recognition, including civil unions. If HJR 6 passes, it will send a strong signal that gay people are not welcome in Indiana.

One of the other people at the commitment ceremony was a woman I hadn’t seen since my days in City Hall, during the Hudnut Administration.  She is a very conservative Republican, and I was surprised to see her there. She explained that she had met our mutual friend through their joint service on a nonprofit board. Then she added something well worth pondering: “I consider myself a strong social conservative, but for the life of me, I can’t understand why same-sex marriage threatens my marriage or hurts anyone.”

I don’t understand that either. That’s one reason I cry at weddings.

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Progress is Hard Work

How does change happen?

Too often, we think of broad cultural changes as part of an inevitable sweep of history,  sort of like the process of maturation we go through as individuals: as we grow up, we understand more. This analogy conveniently overlooks the people who grow older but do not grow up. And it overlooks the role that parents, peers and educational institutions play in molding individuals.

Cultural change does not come about accidently either. A lot of blood was spilled in the fight for legal equality for African-Americans—and by forcing legal change, the civil rights movement began the lengthy process of changing attitudes. The evolution from “a woman’s place is in the home” to a society in which working women are a commonplace didn’t begin with bloodshed, but it did begin with suffragette marches and continued with the establishment of feminist organizations like NOW and NARAL. Similarly, the growing acceptance of gays and lesbians has been the product of hard work by gay civil rights organizations.

I mention that because, in my city, it is the time of year for Lambda Legal’s big fundraising dinner. On September 16th, members, supporters and supportive public officials will gather in downtown Indianapolis to hear Zach Wahls, a remarkable young man whose speech to the Iowa legislature went viral a few months ago. At 19, he is representative of a generation that symbolizes the changes in attitudes about gay families—changes that have occurred largely because of the work done by organizations like Lambda.

No organization of which I am aware has been more important than Lambda, although there are certainly many organizations doing great work on behalf of the LGBT community.

The reason I raise the importance of civil rights organizations is that there tends to be a “trajectory” of support for any cause. Early in the movement for equality—whether for African-Americans, women or gays—there is generally a dedicated, even enthusiastic, core group that supports and funds the organizations that have been formed. As those organizations experience successes, as they see progress, and as time passes, the early support dwindles and the enthusiasm flags. (Most recently, you could see this in the fight against AIDS; as new medications were developed and discrimination lessened, so did awareness. The sense of urgency abated.)

It’s well to remind ourselves that winning any battle, let alone the battle for equality, requires persistence above all.

It can be difficult to constantly pump ourselves up, to attend yet another fundraiser, yet another rally. We all get tired of emailing and calling our elected representatives, writing yet another letter to the editor. That’s why organizations are so important—they do the day to day work that absolutely has to be done if a movement is to be successful. Through our donations, we are paying others to be persistent for us. Writing a check is a lot easier for most people than doing the necessary nitty-gritty work.

Writing that check is the least we can do.

Do You See What I See?

Apparently not.

Our local Pride Festival has come and gone, but the annual culture war over it goes on. And on.

I never cease to be amazed at the descriptions of our Pride Parade emanating from the “family values” folks. Our local American Family organization sent out an email alert a couple of days before the parade, asking recipients to pray for the grievously damaged souls who participate in the debauched and immoral displays involved, and attaching photos from prior ‘exhibitions.”

I’m not a “family values” person—at least, not in the sense that phrase is typically meant—and I guess I proved it at Pride, because my husband and I took our youngest two grandchildren to the Parade. They had a great time.

The Indianapolis parade began seven years ago, with—to the best of my recollection—the same number of floats: seven. This year, there were 125. For the first year, and several years thereafter, there were small groups of protestors with signs urging participants to “Repent” and “Choose Jesus” (and the ubiquitous “Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve.”), but this year, if they were there, I didn’t see them, although it is possible that they were obscured by the crowd, which gets bigger every year.

So what sorts of inappropriate and sordid behavior did my grandchildren—ages 7 and 9—see?

Several political candidates and officeholders participated, as did local firefighters and police officers. (The police had announced their official participation, only to have authorization to do so yanked by the Mayor in the wake of the AFA email blast, but several participated anyway, on their own time.)

I counted at least four churches. There were dykes on bikes, our local PFlag Chapter and another one that had come all the way from Dayton, Ohio. There were radio stations, hairstyling studios and automobile agencies–plus gay marching bands, a couple of floats featuring local drag artists, and floats entered by a number of GLBT organizations—ranging from the Indiana Youth Group to the GLBT staff and faculty members from Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, where I teach.

The raciest float I saw was one featuring a bunch of well-muscled men in fairly skimpy bathing suits, dancing. The suits were pretty tight, but I’ve seen tighter at the local swimming pool.

Most of the people who participated in the parade threw candy, rainbow leis or multicolored strings of beads as they passed. (The candy was the least healthy part of the celebration—I finally had to call a halt before sugar comas set in.)

It is interesting to consider why the parade I saw—and felt perfectly comfortable sharing with my grandchildren—is so different from the parade viewed by our local “God Squad.” I guess it’s true that most of us see what we expect to see—that we view reality through our individual worldviews and social attitudes.

I feel sorry for those who insist on looking for the underside of everything—those who are intent upon seeing smut where there is none.

They miss all the fun.

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Going Down Ugly

According to a March, 2011 survey from Pew, 58% of Americans believe that homosexuality should be accepted, while 33% believe it should not be. Leaving aside what the individuals surveyed thought constituted “acceptance,” this is yet another indicator that the cultural tide is flowing in the right direction; indeed, when the survey responses were broken down by age, gender and such, the results confirmed numerous prior studies showing that younger cohorts are massively more supportive of equality—including same-sex marriage—than are their elders.

In the face of this rapid and positive social change, the Right is becoming increasingly hysterical.

A couple of days before this year’s Pride celebration, a friend forwarded a “Special Prayer Request” from the AFA of Indiana that illustrates how ugly that hysteria gets, and how intellectually dishonest these radical right organizations really are. It began with an admonition that the photos appended to the email were not intended to “offend” anyone. (Those photos were the usual, carefully selected “shockers” from previous Pride parades. I’ve gone to Pride events for the past twenty years, and these days, they generally include large numbers of parents with strollers, real estate and other sales booths, and a whole host of elected officials. Strangely enough, those elements of the crowd weren’t pictured.)

The email then listed “some of the vendors registered with Indy Pride” for this year, leading off with the Great Lakes Leather Bondage and S&M Society” (a new one for me), and including the Indiana Socialist Party. (Indiana has a Socialist Party??), “various apostate churches and fringe religious entities” (by their definition, I assume Episcopalians and Presbyterians are part of that apostate fringe), and others with “gender identity disorders” or who are characterized as “left-wing” and “pro-abortion.”

Micah Clark, the author of the email, makes the assertion—which he underlines—that “homosexuals are less than 3% of the population,” and he accuses the Pride organization (and, presumably, the photographers and reporters who cover Pride events) of exaggerating attendance numbers. Although reputable scholars suggest that considerably more than 3% of the population is gay, let’s just accept that number—and recognize the real argument being made here: that we shouldn’t have to treat such a small number of people fairly. Presumably, minorities don’t deserve equal treatment under the law.  Aside from the Un-American nature of that assertion, I can only wonder what he thinks the cut-off percentage is? Since extremist rightwing Christians are also a minority, albeit a minority larger than 3%, does their percentage of the population cross the magic boundary that permits them to assert constitutional rights?)

What seems to really outrage Micah Clark is that this year, the Indianapolis Police Department officially participated for the first time.

After engaging in some two and a half pages of twisted, dishonest rhetoric (including an astonishing assertion that the nation’s founders were “deeply troubled” by “this kind of thing”), Clark ends with a request that recipients pray for “those trapped by sexual brokenness and even those who oppose us.”

How ironically gracious of him!

Painting minority groups as irretrievably “other” is a time-dishonored tactic of bigots. It is one of the many ways in which the gay community has been marginalized and discriminated against over the years. And it’s not working any more.

President Obama’s favorite Martin Luther King quote is that “the arc of history bends toward justice.” That arc is by no means smooth, but we’re getting there.

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This Says It All

This Minnesota Republican veteran represents the party I used to call mine. His heartfelt, gutsy speech to the Minnesota legislature right before the vote to place a ban on same-sex marriage on the state’s 2012 ballot says it all.

File this under “must watch and share.”