Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Finally!

Rachel Maddow makes my day. My friend CN told me about this interview, and I can't remember the last time I was so delighted by TV news. I know I'm a broken record with this issue, but for some reason it galls me, the ignorance of recent history in the gay rights movement. Honestly I don't even think it's that the gay rights movement has taken such a hard right turn in recent years that bothers me as much as the fact that everyone talks about "marriage equality" (don't even get me started on how much I hate that term -- about as much as "pro-life") like it's a progressive cause. If they're going to sign on to this reactionary agenda, at least be clear about what it is.

Maybe the best thing that will come out of the Prop 8 trial is that we will finally be able to straighten out the rhetorical mess. (It occurs to me that perhaps, if the gay marriage people had been honest all along about how conservative their agenda is, they would have made more progress with it by now. Hm.)

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I said in a comment to CN's facebook post regarding this interview:
The one consolation is that it makes for a very interesting era for queer politics, which excites the history geek in me. What if the right splits into a religious fanatic wing and a traditional conservative/libertarian wing (which looks sort of likely). The gay marriage people will find themselves allied with the traditional conservatives. Will they be able to stand it? Will the gay rights movement fracture as well, with more tradition-minded gays getting married and being subsumed into mainstream America and the rest of us going off to create a new sexual minority movement of some kind?

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