(x-posted from my lj)
On the way home tonight, I was struck by a story aired during All Things Considered on NPR about "Milk", a new movie starring Sean Penn about openly gay 70's politician Harvey Milk. I have always known of Harvey Milk, but never knew much detail. I knew he was an LGBT rights activist, the first gay elected official in the nation, and that he was assassinated in '78. What I didn't know is just how much of a voicebox he was for our community. He helped strike down Proposal 6, which was aimed at keeping the LGBT from teaching in public schools. He encouraged the LGBT community to come out of the closet so that the general public could see that we really are just like everyone else, we just love differently.
It got me thinking about Prop 8 and the other anti-gay amendments passed recently, as well as all of the anti-gay marriage amendments passed in 2004 - including in Michigan. I am inspired and moved by the wave of outrage after Prop 8 passed in California, but I think we are too easily forgetting the measures that were also passed in Arizona, Arkansas and Florida. Should we not be equally as outraged for what happened in those states? And furthermore, where was this outrage and series of protests in 2004 when Michigan and several other states added discrimination to their state constitutions? Don't we deserve some protest and media coverage? Aren't the measures passed in our states just as outrageous, or is it only because California is supposedly a more "progressive" state and the rest of us are supposed to lie down and take it (no pun intended) just because our states were at one time considered more "conservative"?
Where is OUR Harvey Milk? Sure there's Barney Frank, Rosie O'Donnell, Ellen Degeneres and Melissa Etheridge, but they're more like celebrities that happen to be gay. I don't feel like the LGBT community has one person to unify our movement and bring us to equality. The religious right has James Dobson and mormons. Black civil rights leaders include Martin Luther King Jr and Jesse Jackson. We had Harvey Milk until he was assassinated. Where is our Harvey Milk of today?
I've read several articles and blogs written by members of the LGBT community recently and there seems be one resounding message: indifference. We were all so pre-occupied with getting Obama elected (which is fantastic by the way, and by no means am I trying to take away from its importance) that we stupidly assumed the LGBT equality movement could survive on the back-burner. Now everyone's up in arms about Prop 8 passing. I feel like if we had a Harvey Milk, our fight for equality would have NEVER been a backseat issue this election.
/soapbox.
Comments? Theories?
P.S. If you haven't yet seen it go watch Keith Olberman's commentary on the passing of Prop 8 in California on YouTube. It brought tears to my eyes.
1 comment:
I think the greater outrage has occurred in California because: The governor vetoed marriage bills twice, saying that the courts should decide. The courts did decide, and said that the California constitution's equal protection clause covered the rights of all persons to marry. Then, by simple majority vote, those rights were taken away from the minority based on religious reasons. It is always egregious when constitutional amendments are passed, but this is worse because it took away an already existing right, where the others did not. Then there is the whole argument about this now being a constitutional revision vs. constitutional amendment...one requires much stricter procedures. I won't continue writing a crazy novel in your comments, so if you want some articles I can send them to you -- I've been collecting them as part of my job the past week.
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