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OPINION LAMBDA - Volume XXVII - Issue 2 Marriage Equality: Take 2 A guest writer rallies the radical and mainstream around marriage equality As monogamous, child-raising middle-aged suburban gays, lesbians and bisexuals gain le gal and cultural equality, those of us with dif ferent identities feel more and more strongly marginalized. By Tim Stallman On March 24, a coalition of local LGBT orga nizations held a town meeting in Raleigh to discuss same-gender marriage and civil unions. St. John’s Metropolitan Community Church in downtown Raleigh was packed beyond capacity with all sorts of LGBTIQ folk and allies, from two Durham County men who had filed for a marriage license two days prior, to mothers with their middle-aged LGBTIQ daughters and sons. In the midst of hundreds of sexual and gen der minorities were about 50 men from the Upper Room Church of God in Christ, a local conserva tive Pentecostal congregation. Sitting together as a bloc, the men had clearly come with the inten tion of disrupting the meeting. By yelling Scrip ture verses, firing off violent homophobic slurs and using video cameras to intimidate others in at tendance, they succeeded in changing the meeting into a tense and hateful confrontation. Organizing against the proposed Federal Mar riage Amendment, existing LGBTIQ organiza tions around the country are joining with ad hoc groups to mobilize LGBTIQ folk with a new in tensity in this fledgling movement. Last summer, the Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, brought us the beginnings of legal equality, but legalities should never be our ultimate goal. From San Fran cisco to New Paltz, N.Y., we’ve sprung into the next phase - a vision of real equality for “accept able” same-gender couples and families, which is inspiring, radical and new. People throughout the country on May 17 are going to wake up to front page photos of happy same-gender couples from Massachusetts - this will be a big step toward our relationships becoming commonplace. However, as monogamous, child-raising mid dle-aged suburban gays, lesbians and bisexuals gain legal and cultural equality, those of us with different identities feel more and more strongly marginalized. It seems that in order to gain these new rights, we sometimes silence other folks and fragment our communities. For that reason many have decided to sit this one out. But like it or not, these days the struggle for marriage equality is the focus of the LGBTIQ movement on a national and local scale. It’s not too late for us to do it right. Here’s how: •Make the debate about love. The Human Rights Campaign and others are pushing a strategy of separating civil from reli^ous marriage and arguing that all we really deserve, legally, is the first. Is anyone going to be happy when we can go to a courthouse and get a marriage license but our re lationships are still viewed as illegitimate by domi nant US. culture? Our message should be that the love that exists within same-gender relationships is just as valid as that in different-gender relation ships. •Broaden the issue to freedom of relationships. Plenty of people who identify as queer, especially on college campuses, aren’t interested in ever get ting married. But the laws regulating relationships also interfere with young, radical queers in plenty of ways so let’s start talking about changing co habitation laws, adoption rights, domestic partner benefits (for straight and non-straight folk) and heterosexist age-of-consent laws. I.^t’s legalize the rights of people in alternative relationships and liv ing structures. •Build a real grassroots movement of our own. Larg er, national organizations are overshadowing lo cal groups and keeping the focus on traditional middle-of-the-road tactics. While this is certainly one strategy among many, we won’t be equal until Americans of all sorts change their heterosexist behavior, and no amount of legislative lobbying (or check-writing) is going to accomplish that. Let’s reach out to new folks and start building connec tions within our movements across lines of race, age, cultural background and more. Young radical queers need to stop thinking that marriage is not their problem, just as much as older mainstrean^ activists need to stop writing off “spiky-haired an archist kids.” I i I f \ s r g For better or for worse, we’re all stuck with together. When something as simple as kissing another boy or another girl in public is a radical act, each and every LGBTIQ person, just by being visible, is an acthtist for change - and for good ot ill, marriage equality will be a powerful tool in struggles. 0 ! r I ^ U f S ; n ' o: ' it ! at ! tr Guest writer and sophomore Tim Stallmann, a mathemah^ major from Raleigh, N.C., can be contacted lambda@a*nc.edu. ac fc 1 te ' St] I ja) ac pi;
Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
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June 1, 2004, edition 1
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