The GOP and Gay Marriage: Let's Get it Straight

Maine leaped to the right side of history today with the passage of a gay-marriage bill through legislative channels. I'm impressed with the momentum of the LGBT movement post-Iowa, and it looks likely that advocates will reach their goal of marriage equality throughout New England by 2012.

What's overblown is all this talk, from Meghan McCain to Jon Huntsman, of the Republican Party "embracing" gay marriage. Not taken into account is what is sure to be a brutal 2012 primary decided largely by Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In a recent poll, only 3 percent of Iowa Republicans found candidates who favored gay marriage appealing. And does anyone seriously think Huntsman has a shot at the GOP nomination? Republican primary voters in early 2012 states are too conservative for him, and he's the governor of Utah!

More likely than the GOP endorsing gay marriage is that 2012 candidates will be racing to support "traditional families" the most. (Huckabee may get super-duper-married, instead of just super-married.) It's gonna get really ugly, further regionalizing the party and peeling away young voters.

Lead by the Huckabees, Palins and Gingriches of the party, opposing gay marriage will be a cornerstone of the 2012 Republican candidates. We haven't heard the worst yet.

Originally posted on The Hill's Pundit Blog.

Iowa Says Yes, We Can

Iowa's Supreme Court handed down an amazing unanimous decision striking down a 1998 gay marriage ban.

Equal protection under the Iowa Constitution is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike. Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights. The court found the issue of same-sex marriage comes to it with the same importance as the landmark cases of the past.”

This is great news. No doubt that the cultural zeitgeist is changing and Iowa is on the right side of history. This is the best thing Iowa has done since giving Barack Obama a big win in the Democratic Caucus.

Yesterday, I blogged about the disconnect between the American gay rights movement and the big picture. My argument stands that gay marriage shouldn't be at the top of our agenda. Bob Ostertag's brilliant piece on The Huffington Post is well worth a full read - but I'll give you a taste.

The fact is most of us won't marry even if we have the right to. We are putting all our resources into winning a right that only the few of us in long-term conventional couple relationships will enjoy. What's more, we are creating a social climate in which young queers are encouraged to recast their vision of the relationships they seek to favor the married couple. This is not only a loss for the vibrancy of queer culture, it is a disservice to young people who will not be well served by their nuclear family ambitions. Just consider the high number of gay and lesbian divorces (yes, the rate is already high despite the fact that we have not even fully won the right to marry yet).

It is no secret that marriage isn't working for straight people. That's why religious institutions are so up in arms about it. The institution of marriage is in crisis. On what basis does anyone imagine it is going to work better for queers?

Through years of queer demonstrations, meetings, readings and dinner table conversations, about gay bashing, police violence, job discrimination, housing discrimination, health care discrimination, immigration discrimination, family ostracism, teen suicide, AIDS profiteering, sodomy laws, and much more, I never once heard anyone identify the fact that they couldn't get married as being a major concern. And then, out of the blue, gay marriage suddenly became the litmus test by which we measure our allies. We have now come to the point that many unthinkingly equate opposition to gay marriage with homophobia.

As Bob says, marriage is a largely failed social institution. We're talking 40-50% of marriages fail, no small amount. Marriage doesn't have anything to do with my life, I only know it as something my parents did before they got divorced.

Gays Should Care More About Iraq Than Iowa

In the last couple hours I've gotten several messages on Facebook about Friday's impending Iowa Supreme Court ruling on Gay Marriage. Several of the activists groups I loosely belong to are planning a "celebration or protest" rally Friday evening in New York's Union Square from 6:30-7:30PM. The ruling is important, but it's likely to fall short of the full marriage rights that we're hoping for.

On the other side of the world, the idea of gay marriage is a total fantasy. In Iraq, over 100 gays have been scheduled for execution. They will be murdered by their government for being born homosexual.

Anyone brave enough to be a gay activist in Iraq is hunted down and murdered. One such activist group, Iraqi-LGBT, says:

“Raids by the Iraqi police and Ministry of Interior forces cost our group [to the extent of] disappearing and killing of 17 members working for Iraqi-LGBT since 2005.

“The death penalty has been increasing at an alarming rate in Iraq since the new Iraqi regime reintroduced it in August 2004.

“In 2008, at least 285 people were sentenced to death, and at least 34 executed. In 2007 at least 199 people were sentenced to death and 33 were executed, while in 2006 at least 65 people were put to death.

There isn't anything wrong with caring about gay marriage, it's certainly something we should work toward. But scheduling a rally to protest (or celebrate) the decision of Iowa's Supreme Court in the face of gay genocide in Iraq, rising HIV rates among young gays, and the increase in gay youth homelessness seems fairly trite to me.

Bottom line: It's time for the gay civil rights movement to expand it's agenda.