My dear friend Ruth only has one week left in Los Angeles before she must return to Holland. Her work visa application has been denied. She was given just three weeks to leave behind her girlfriend of five years, with whom she shares a home and a life.
If Ruth had been with an American man for the past five years, there would be no problem. She would have been married and have a green card in her wallet by now, but because she has been in a monogamous relationship with a woman, the United States government denies her right to live and work in this country, and before you ask, even a legally recognized state marriage in any state that allows such, is not federally recognized. Her marriage to a woman would not give her the right to live and work in the US with the person she loves.
That state federal legislation deny queer people the right to marry affects us all. These are the civil rights we need to protect our children and families. The right of gay partners to share joint custody of children, share property, health insurance and tax returns and visit our sick partners in the hospital are all withheld without a marriage license. Even those in state recognized same-sex marriages are denied 1,138 federal benefits awarded to opposite sex-couples. The ability to marry a foreign national and give them a green card just as is awarded heterosexual couples is unavailable to queer American’s like Ruth’s partner and I. My girlfriend of two years and I will be moving back to the UK to marry when her work visa expires.The effect ripples out beyond us as queer individuals. Our families bear the brunt of our compromises as well. At very best, I will get to see my younger sister once a year over the course of her young adult life. The choices will be between a family Christmas or her college graduation, my father’s 60th birthday or her wedding.
Anti-queer marriage legislation asserts that the love we express as LGBTIQ people is less relevant than that of heterosexual people. The laws differ state by state but the punch line is always the same: “Your love is invalid so you don’t deserve to live with the same civil rights extended to heterosexual couples.” The Mandukya Upanishad simply states, “All here is God; the soul is God.” Indeed yogic philosophy would have it that there is no room for conditionality in the matter.
Traditional marriage beliefs uphold dichotomous gender norms stating that being born with one of two sets of genitalia entitles you to a certain gender role. A person is assigned a sex and gender role that is then mandated for them to fall in love with someone of a conceived opposite sex and gender role. This thought paradigm insists that sex and gender are static, fixed points of identity. That one comes into this world as a man, and is socialized to play with toy trucks, wear blue, later blue business ties, and fall in love with a woman who wears pink skirts, plays with dolls and now wants nothing more than to be a wife and mother.
My yoga practice has taught me that nothing is fixed, that everything is fluid. I have learned that nothing separates me from the person on the mat next to me, in the car next to me, in the relationship next to me. We are all sharing the same energy, the same Purusha (Absolute Truth), the same lifetime of working through Karma on our way to stillness and later Moksha (liberation). To say that social constructs of “gender” and “sexuality” can simply define who we are is as irrelevant as fighting over which religion has defined God correctly. The reality is that we are all so many things, so many gender traits, so many sexualities, so many expressions of love to so many understandings of God. Gender roles and sexual identities are social constructs we learn and recreate. They speak nothing of the true nature of our beings.
How can we stand by when some are denied rights based on something so irrelevant to love as gender and sexuality? To accept state and federal legislation against gay marriage, even though you think it might not affect you, is to say that a pure shared consciousness does not permeate us all. It is to say that at base, we are different, that we are not all entitled to true love, to our true nature and to peace. The Chandogya Upanishad states, “Tat Tvam Asi”, meaning, “God dwells within me, as me”. If it is important to you that your community honors the Absolute Truth in all of us, as all of us, speak up. Write your representatives, donate your time, and share your devotion to love with others.
“Hello, Washington? It’s me, civil rights!”
October 28, 2009
Just because you rallied in WeHo for Prop 8 don’t mean you’re work is done. The campaign for marriage equality is a national issue, and we need to support each individual state’s battle. Call your friends in Washington, Maine, and Michigan, TODAY.
Washington:
Who we are: Approve Referendum 71 is the campaign to preserve domestic partnerships in Washington State. By voting to approve, voters retain the domestic partnership laws that were passed during this year’s legislative session, including using sick leave to care for a partner, adoption rights, insurance rights, and more.
What we need: We need phone bankers to get our supporters out to vote. Washington is an all mail-in ballot state, and we need to ensure our supporters put their ballots in the mail. Also, youth turnout is a critical component of our campaign, and youth turnout historically drops in off-year elections. So we need a lot of help to turn them out.
How you do it: Sign up here to make remote calls for Approve 71. We’ll then contact you for a training, and you can make GOTV calls.
Maine:
Who we are: The No On 1/Protect Maine Equality campaign is working to protect Maine’s recently-passed law legalizing marriage equality for same-sex couples. Our opponents have put the issue on the ballot for Nov 3, 2009. Because of Maine’s early voting election laws, people are already voting at the polls, so we need help immediately to turn out our side at the polls.
What we need: We need you to devote a few hours to Call for Equality. Call for Equality is a virtual phonebank set up so that you can call Maine voters wherever you are. Much of Maine is rural, where canvassing isn’t effective, so we need to reach these voters- along with other supporters- by phone. All you need is a phone and internet connection. No experience required! We’ll provide the training, and all you need is a a few hours to help get a win in Maine.
How you do it: Click here to sign up for a training and your shift. There are lots of times available for your convenience.
Kalamazoo, MI:
Who We Are: The Yes on Ordinance 1856 / One Kalamazoo campaign is working in Michigan to support the City Commission of Kalamazoo’s twice approved ordinance for housing, employment, and public accommodation protections for gay and transgender residents. Opponents forced a public referendum on the ordinance so dedicated local volunteers, led by former Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jon Hoadley, are working to ensure voters say YES to fairness and equality and keep Ordinance 1856.
Why The Urgency: In the final weeks, the opposition has gone all out with aggressive disinformation and misleading red herrings to try to defeat the ordinance. This includes signs that say “No to Discrimination” (even though voting No actually supports continued discrimination of GLBT residents), transphobic door hangers and fliers, and now radio ads that falsely suggest that criminal behavior will become legal when this simply isn’t true. The Yes on Ordinance 1856 supporters are better organized but many voters who want to vote for gay and transgender people are getting confused by the opposition.
How To Help:
1) Help the One Kalamazoo campaign raise a final $10,000 specifically dedicated to fight back against the lies on the local TV and radio airwaves and fully fund the campaign’s final field and GOTV efforts.
Give here: http://www.actblue.com/page/3-2-1-countdown
2) If you live nearby and can physically volunteer in Kalamazoo sign up here. If you know anyone that lives in Kalamazoo, use the One Kalamazoo campaign’s online canvass tool to remind those voters that they need to vote on November 3rd and vote YES on Ordinance 1856 to support equality for gay and transgender people.
Contact voters: http://www.onekalamazoo.com/tellfriends2
National Equality Marches in a New Generation
October 15, 2009
Sure the National Equality March on Washington was an epic media failure and an untimely distraction from the localized battles for queer rights waged in Maine and Washington, but as Lydia DePillis at Campus Progress reported, the march brought an unexpectedly high turnout from young activists. De Phillis said ; “Young people came from colleges all over the country—some call them the Prop. 8 generation or Stonewall 2.0.” and as you’d expect the youth of today to be called to arms, David Valk, the march’s Student Outreach Coordinator, later explained he organized their attendance almost entirely through facebook.
Well shoot, I’m excited.
As a Californian, I received condolences from many a straight ally when Prop 8 passed in a blaze of Orange County Evangelical glory. My response though often further confused my only slightly interested straight friends. I told them that I had expected it to pass and while that was a shame, I was excited to see the response from young Californians that the election had engendered. After all this is a generation of first-time voters who spent high school watching Will & Grace in prime time and Britney kiss Madona on MTV. These are straight kids who respect their LGBT counterparts and don’t support their elders instincts to suppress and closet them and LGBT kids who might now have a slightly easier time coming out now than someone did 20 or even 10 years ago. I know that I’m making a giant oversimplification of current pop culture. Will & Grace gives visibility only to the white wealthy buttoned up male while painting his queeny sidekick in the same zany piss take Hollywood’s used since the 1920’s and Britney and Madonna’s kiss subscribed to every stereotype that satisfies the male exploitation of lesbian sexuality but these images help make today’s youth much more comfortable with sexuality than the cast of Happy Days ever did.
This is a generation who don’t think it’s such a big deal to be gay because their world was just that bit more welcoming than ours was. But as gay culture became a bit more homo-normative, lgbt youth seemed less inclined toward a politicized identity. So when Prop. 8 passed and students and young professionals poured out of UCLA, out of West Hollywood and onto Wilshire Blvd night after night, I mused aloud to my uninterested straight coworkers how it was a good thing that this new generation of queers and their allies finally had something general and communal enough to get angry about. So they marched and tweeted and facebooked up a storm and they learned that we still have so much work to do despite the attention focused on us in the 90’s as consumers from television networks and vodka advertisers.
Prop. 8 made youth take notice in California and nationwide. They are angry now, they are active now, and they have new tools. How do older activists engage these passionate youth and their new-fangled technological devices?
LA’s “Lesbian Attack” Gets Stuck by the Man.
October 9, 2009
“Lesbian Attack” is a relatively new action group with the mission,”to infiltrate Los Angeles’ best straight bars and gay ‘em up with the hottest women we know. We don’t make deals with the bars; we don’t warn them we’re coming and we don’t advertise. This is a grass roots effort. Just OUR favorite women and THEIR favorite women.”
Next week ’s event has been announced with plans to attend an irrelevant sports bar on Melrose. In her most recent announcement Jones explains, “Though we don’t take money or warn the bars, we do want to take care of you. So we’ve booked the VIP room upstairs for a “private social mixer” to ensure everyone entry to El Guapo. Downstairs, there will be plenty of brews and confused boys. Upstairs, you can take a break from freaking out the straights with our private bar tender and DJ.”
