I find myself annoyed. In the short time since North Carolina's voting public passed Amendment 1, which put the (further) proverbial kibosh on its queer residents' matrimonial aspirations, my Facebook wall has been ablaze with angry statuses. These statuses follow two (more or less connected) patterns of thought: 1) That North Carolina's voting public is horribly backwards, mean, homophobic, spiteful, uninformed, etc. These statuses generally amount to "WHOOPS! NORTH CAROLINA SUCKS. BOO!" 2) That the tide of progress is inevitable, and that history is progressing unstoppably toward equality. Often these statuses come in the form of things like "We're not going anywhere!" I'll address both of these thoughts, in turn.
1) Blaming North Carolina voters does two things: First, I think it keeps us from addressing our larger national culture of homophobia that not only produces such an outcome, but also brings about a ballot initiative like Amendment 1 in the first place. And it's important to understand, gays of DC, how much we all contribute to this culture of homophobia, even though we bought HRC bumper stickers and LEGALIZE GAY t-shirts. [I would actually argue that DC's political gay scene plays a more active role in furthering national homophobia than your average Joe Homosexual].
Secondly, though, getting bogged down in a discussion of what a shitty state North Carolina is feels very much like saying "It could never happen here." Guess what, folks. It's happening in Maryland right now, as we speak, and it's happened historically all over the country.
2) Among other things, the idea that North Carolina is just fighting the general trend of history is a pretty useless strand of political thought. Hopeful though it may be, how much political traction are we really getting out of "It'll happen eventually?" Since when has the history of social movements in America been the lazy inevitability of progress? What we're trying to achieve here is a fundamental shift in American culture, not to mention law and public opinion. What could be less inevitable/simple?
If this all makes it sound as though I'm not upset by the evening's events, I'm sorry. This is a pretty significant hit for queers with marital leanings, and of course I regret the outcome. But I think that as a public, we are refusing to ask difficult questions, especially when the accompanying answers might implicate us in tonight's results. Making an enemy out of an entire voting public and distancing ourselves from moments like this feels politically irresponsible.
A final thought for some DC gays specifically: Does the gentrification that you're so fond of (and it's accompanying culture of race- and class-related inequality) contribute in any way to our national culture of homophobia, whose results we've seen tonight? Give it some thought, eh?
Spot on, Will Danger. That new job seems to be sharpening your political antennae. I've never been a fan of demonizing voters or regions of the country. Metronormativity is as damaging and dumb as any other normativity. Good post.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely dread that this might come up at work tomorrow...
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree that anger was misdirected, but rather than your uninformed facebook friends, let's pin some blame on NOM. Having realized it's fighting a losing battle, NOM has been purposely drafting misleading amendments and putting them on the ballot at times they know they can win (they thought North Carolina would be a hotly contested GOP primary). Plus, they've been framing the issue in churches as an infringement on religious liberty.
ReplyDeleteLet's not pin all this on the gays.
Well first, welcome to New Queer, Jake! I hope you're enjoying this cozy slice of the internet. I don't want to blame it all on teh gayz, but I do think we need to acknowledge the extent to which we often participate in systems of race/class/gendered inequality, and that these systems are exactly the same ones that enable ballot initiatives like Amendment 1.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, I don't want to pin the blame anywhere, necessarily. I'd rather we shouldered/examined the blame, in an effort to get at larger political and cultural problems.
Also, as a brief aside, I think it's important to note that these Facebook reactions aren't coming from the guy that sat behind me in 12th grade algebra, so much as the 20 and 30-something generation of active political gays in DC. These sentiments are coming from people who are likely to shape the future of gay political movements. Which fascinates me.