There’s been a huge uproar over the passage of Prop 8 over in California, but is it really worth it?
Think about it: What positive results have come from protests to anti-gay legislation and actions?
Look at what happened after the attacks and deaths of Harvey Milk, Brandon Teena, Matthew Shepard, and Lawrence King.
Little, if nothing.
I’m going to ask you one question: Where is our anger?
What the gay community needs to do, in the aftermath of Prop 8, is to rethink the plan for equal rights.
During the Civil Rights Movement of the ’60s and ’70s, the main concern was not interracial marriage, it was about discrimination in the workplace, education, services, health care, housing, as well as other issues. If the gay community wants gay rights to be considered as the Civil Rights Movement of the 21st century, then we should be looking back at what worked, and what didn’t work, back then.
It was things like peaceful protests and boycotts that got the attention of those who didn’t want equal rights for African-Americans, and I think that we, as a community, could do the same.
Not literally, since gays aren’t forced to the back of the bus; nor are we have seperate schools, water fountains, and bathrooms. But what we can do, is find ways to do our own form of boycotting and peaceful protests.
Instead of demanding marriage, which is something that has proven to work against us as well as, if not better than, working for us, we NEED to demand equality.
Equality in the workplace. Equality in our public schools. Equality in housing. Equality in health and social services.
If we continue to allow our straight counterparts to continue pretending as though we don’t exist, eventually, we won’t. For those of you who remember the AIDS crisis first hand, think of those who were left to die without health insurance and a family that loved and cared for them.
Think about Brandon Teena, Matthew Shepard, and Lawrence King, as well as the aftermath of their deaths. If we continue to allow our rights as human beings to be trampled on, we will die out.
Gay Marriage is the icing on the cake. What we need to do now, though, is bake the cake in which to put the icing on. Until then, no more talk about it. There are more important things to work on.
