My Critique of the State of the Gay Rights Movement

There are many of aspects of the gay movement today that have gained my displeasure, to put it mildly.

First, the No on 8 campaign. I feel we got off to a slow start. The polls were on our side. We thought that Californians wouldn't really take away someone's civil rights. Also, we didn't seriously start doing any fund raising until the end, by which point, the Yes on 8 people had been gobbling up copious amounts of money from many special interest groups, often from out of state.

I also feel their strategy was ineffective. Why were people telling me at Castro and Market to vote no on 8? Sorry, but that one is a no-brainer. We should have been going into other communities. We should have been going into communities of color; we should have been engaging in dialog with religious communities (which, I would like to point out, were not all against us. .we could have used that). Our ad campaign was lackluster, at best. We were so timid, conservative even. I'm not saying we should have reverted to the lies the Yes on 8 people promoted, but we could have been aggressive with the truth. We didn't take the religious Right seriously. Urvashi Vaid said that one of the biggest mistakes that the gay community has made is that we have underestimated the power of the religious Right by writing them off as extremists. They may be extremists, but they know how to organize and they know how to raise money. And, ironically, the Yes on 8 people were using the exact same argument they used in 1978 with the Briggs Initiative: Save the Children. Have we learned nothing in the thirty years since Anita Bryant and John Briggs? I have an analysis of that, too. More on that later.

As for the gay movement, or gay community as a whole, where were we? Where are we? The spontaneous outbursts of anger after the election were inspiring. My husband and I have been to the candle light vigils; we've been to the rallies. They have been amazing. But why weren't we in the streets before the election? Where were we then? So many people I know felt that putting a No on 8 sticker next to an Obama sticker on their hybrids counted as activism. Activism is more than stickers. Activism is not being afraid to say no. No more.

Which leads me to my next criticism of the gay movement. I feel we have abdicated our power, our authority, to groups that have basically become political action committees. I feel the Human Rights Campaign and Equality California, among others, have their place. We need legislation; we need judicial review. These are the groups, though, that told people not to marry in California and go back to their home states and sue because the time isn't right. Who are they to tell us what is right for us? Do they really know what is best for the average gay person that has to deal with real life, not with the suits in Washington? We have also put too much faith in the Democratic Party. We assume they are on our side. Name one straight, national Democrat with any power that has come out and said they support gay marriage. There are none. Why should we align ourselves with a group that doesn't have the b*lls to come out and say this isn't right? (pardon my language). There is, I believe, no substitute for the power of the people in the streets.

I've been studying Harvey Milk a lot lately. I saw the movie which was very inspiring; my husband and I cried the whole time. I've been reading Milk biographies. I've been reading his speeches and his political that he recorded 9 days before he was assassinated. Let me make it clear that he is a hero of mine, but I don't idolize him. He was human; he did things that I don't approve of, for example, he told people he had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy for being gay, which he later told Anne Kronenberg he only said to get votes. But no one is perfect, especially in the realm of politics. It's what he stood for that inspires me. Milk always said that he wasn't the candidate; the movement was the candidate. He also bucked the middle-of-the-road gays that wanted to align with the Democratic Party. Milk also believed in the inherent goodness and capability of people to do what is right. Milk said one novice off the street was worth more than ten seasoned cronies.
I find it very sad what happened to the movement after Milk was assassinated. It fractured. Many of the people became the people Milk railed against. They followed the same tactics he abhorred.

Then, before the gay community even had a chance to regroup, AIDS hit. I think that, the beginning of the AIDS crisis, after Milk's assassination, was the single most disastrous thing to happen to the gay community. AIDS wiped out almost an entire generation of gay activists. I believe that AIDS broke the continuity of the movement. The activists that were still alive were too busy trying to fight AIDS, which the country was ignoring. President Reagan didn't even say the word "AIDS" in public until 1986, well after the epidemic started.

Now we have a generation of young gay people who don't know who Harvey Milk is (hopefully, the movie will change that). They don't know Cleve Jones, Anne Kronenberg or Harry Britt, while others, are not recognized for the work that they did, like Tom Ammiano. Ammiano was part of the movement in the 70s, but now he is primarily known for being a city/county supervisor and now assemblyman. They don't know what these people did for us; we have people coming out to their families at much younger ages; we even have gay public schools in some places. The reason that the dynamic changed is because of the work these people did. And most don't know who they are. We need to reestablish that continuity.

But we are living in a different historical moment. We no longer need to carry whistles in case we get jumped just for being gay, though maybe we should, there have been at least 30 gay murders so far this year. We don't think twice about walking down the street hand in hand. We also have all of this new, and wonderful, technology at our fingertips. Like Bruce Hartford, a veteran civil rights activist said, we should use the new technology, but don't get seduced by it. It can be a very powerful tool; we need to learn how to use it effectively.

In sum, we need to get back to basics. We need to get off of our asses and out into the streets. We need to stop relying on the "kindness of strangers," or the political clout of groups like HRC and EQCA. We need to stop believing that the Democratic Party will eventually give us what we want. Like Mr. Hartford said, no one is given their rights; they have to take them. We are angry. We need to express that anger. We need to take our rights. Get on your computer and shoot out a few mass emails, post a few blogs, donate a few dollars, but please, please, get out into the streets. Start talking to people. Don't just talk to your friends. Talk to strangers. Talk to people you wouldn't normally talk to. Harvey Milk said that if everyone knew just one gay person, we would win. And they did in 1978. If you're gay, come out. If you're straight, come out and say you support your gay friends, your brothers, your sisters, your coworkers, everyone you know.

I'll end with a quote from Harvey Milk that always makes me cry, partially because we haven't listened.

"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."