Dear Gays, It's Time to Shoulder the Blame

If the passing of Prop 8 taught us any lesson, it was that we gays have been far too generous. We have been bandying about accusations. We have been wagging fingers at the Mormons, at the blacks and Latino evangelicals, at anyone and everyone we can pin blame on.

Consider for a moment -- for sake of argument -- however, that we, the LGBTQ community and our friends and family, are responsible for the discrimination, the intolerance.

I won't begin to break down the demographics of the people who voted in support of Prop 8. Lots of people have lots of things to say about who those people are and why they voted the way they did to protect or defend whatever they felt was worth protecting or defending or sanctifying or whatever, and I'm happy to let them carry on with that important work. Instead, I'd like to hypothesize that, whoever these people are, we've let them take for granted our finest minds.

Supporters of Prop 8 might be able to imagine a world without artists Walt Whitman or Gertrude Stein, without Alice Walker or Lord Byron or Truman Capote, but if we take away Maurice Sendak, illustrator of more than 150 children's books and Where the Wild Things Are -- a book many of us grew up on -- or David Sedaris, or Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, if we take away Hans Christian Andersen; the world looks not only a bit bleaker, it also looks a great deal poorer -- decidedly something to note when faced with a crippled economy.

Of course the business of books will not begin to compare to the proposed loss in TV and film: Drew Barrymore, James Dean, Marlon Brando, Angelina Jolie, Anderson Cooper, Ellen Degeneres, Will & Grace, Rosie O'Donnell... ad -- almost it seems -- infinitum. Or to the almost wholesale loss of the fashion and modeling industries; the extinction of the lucrative Broadway musical.

And although I'm neither a sociologist nor an economist, a simple Google search corroborates my point:

-- The Williams Institute at UCLA estimates that $63.8 million in government tax and fee revenue could be created over three years by legalizing gay marriage in California.
-- The annual value of the gay and lesbian market is $515 billion.
-- There are some 26 million gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in the United States, and these people are among the wealthiest in the country.
-- The median gay income is between $80,000 and 83,000, which is 80 percent higher than the median for the whole nation.

So what alternative does that leave those of disheartened by California's support of Prop 8? As empowering as it may be to imagine we could somehow "secede," we know we're too disparate, too geographically scattered, and, most important, that we love our heterosexual (and near heterosexual) loved ones and allies too much to pack up and see you later.

Consider then an alternative: Familiarize yourself with the countless achievements of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals, as well as their supporters. Once you have done so -- whether you're a queer person or a straight ally -- claim this as your heritage and celebrate it; it's been usurped for far too long. Perhaps once supporters of Prop 8 really get how much they need us, economically, artistically, scientifically, they will finally fathom that granting us or those we love, or both, the right to legitimize love is a mutually, and wonderfully, beneficial bargain.

Comments

[DavePotts]

Jonathan, you forgot to mention disco, house, and techno! We would have absolutely no decent nightlife if it weren't for gay pioneers in dance music.

[rasthedestroyer]

i find it rather disingenuous to suggest that one or two particular ethnic groups brought prop 8... Black and Brown Caliites make up what % of the total population?? the GOP did this, not people of color..

[SaintZak]

I think people are missing a key point in all of this: this has nothing to do with "values", traditional marriage or religious beliefs. If given the chance people in a majority will be vindictive, cruel and oppressive. They say "no you can't" because they can. Gays don't have the numbers and we're not a cohesive group in many ways. We're a weak minority that will be the prey of the majority.

[Johnathan Wilber - Huffpost Blogger]

We are weak if we say we are weak.

[AnotherTry]

Please stop quoting such high salaries for gays as most poor gays are still closeted because their income usually depends on someone who may not accept them. Therefore, this 80,000 dollar figure is so misleading and leads to even more discrimination.

Stop it already.

[KJLSanDiego]

The exact reasons why the LGBT community are so valuable to our country economically:

-- The annual value of the gay and lesbian market is $515 billion.
-- There are some 26 million gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in the United States, and these people are among the wealthiest in the country.
-- The median gay income is between $80,000 and 83,000, which is 80 percent higher than the median for the whole nation.

Are the reason that their unions are not equal to Heterosexuals. Heterosexual marriages, biologically, create children from the sexual union of the couple. Those of you out there with children know how expensive they are. Gays have to "fudge" nature to create other people: surrogate mothers and / or artificial insemination. These procedures, like children, are not cheap.
We are all God's children, thereby making our worth and humanity, of course, equal, of course!
But biology, whether designed that way by a creator, or just through evolution and natural selection, says that two women or two men are not equal to a man and a woman, because one plus one can only equal three or more when hetero's do it!
I've been hearing a lot of "breeder" bashing lately, and it is getting to the point that it's almost as if gays think they just sprouted out of the ground, when everyone knows the elephant in the room is that most of them would not even exist without a man and a woman coming together.

[Dave01]

Therefore, NO sterile couples should be recognized as married by the state. NO newly married elderly men and women should be recognized as married by the state. Neither of these groups can have children and the only way they could is to have a surrogate mother or "fudge" nature to create other people.

Sorry, just using YOUR fallacious "logic." Anything you say can and will be thrown back at you, using YOUR lack of logical argument.

[jacqmac]

I know VERY WELL where I came from thank you very much! THAT is NOT the issue here. The issue IS over 1, 120 rights and privileges that a straight couple, like MY PARENTS, has the INSTANT that marriage licenses is signed. And, by the way, how MANY straight couples have to 'fudge Nature' in order to have children? Artificial Insemination? Check. In vitro fertiization? Check! Fertility drugs? Check! Surrogate mothers? Check! Sperm donors? Check! And--what IF a straight couple CHOOSES NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN? Maybe THEY should be given a time limit-and if they don't or can't conceive--POOF!--the rights and privileges of MARRIAGE DISAPPEAR!!

Fact is: We are no longer a society that DEPENDS on having large families because EVERY LIVING HUMAN BEING IS NECESSARY to till the soil and bring in the harvest. Child labor was outlawed in the EARLY 20th Century--so our factories and mines no longer NEED them (if they ever did) either. Therefore, people who see some benefit in creating a lifetime union--with or without CHILDREN as the focal point of that union-SHOULD be given the chance to do so--without stigmatizing them or otherwise making them 'lesser' human beings.

[Johnathan Wilber - Huffpost Blogger]

Exactly ,,, and let's not forget we live in a world faced with extreme overpopulation.

[DrDichotomy]

This idea that "fudgin'" babies threatens the status of heterosexuality should be disregarded. Love should not be seen as a competition with the title of marriage, a prize. That instance that creates life is a hallowed thing. The same way it is a hallowed thing to commit, and build your life journey with someone. Gays need to be integrated. Most importantly to be treated with the same respect, and dignity in common language.

[janeinmia]

If marriage is only valid due to the fertility of a female/male couple, what about those of us who are past menopause? Those who have had fertility-robbing cancer? Those who were married hoping for children but then found themselves to have fertility problems?

In all likelihood, the majority of men and women over 18 do not fall into the category of the easily fertile. Will your high and mighty standards allow any of us to be married?

[TrialDate]

I think that people need to stop passing JUDGEMENT upon one another. There's only one that sit in that seat and it's GOD. "Let he who is without SIN, be the first to cast the stone". It's biblicial I can only hope that people truly follow what the word say. "First take the plank out of your own eye, before you take the plank out of your brother's eye". C'mon people, live and let live. Peace, joy and love and the greatest of these is "LOVE". Prop 8 will be over-turned.

[raygenera]

just because someone voted NOT to change the definition of marriage does'nt make them a bigot

[DMcMillan]

big‹…ot -noun

a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.
n. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

...2. A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.

[wkt20]

brilliant!

[Dave01]

When do we get to vote on THEIR marriage?

[wdw102]

try it.......can you say backlash

[RobHughey]

Gay people were already getting married in CA. Therefore: the "definition" as you call it was already defined to include same-sex marriages.

So you did vote to change the definition. You voted to rip away rights that citizens were already enjoying. You voted to make sure that thousands of people went to bed beside their spouses but woke up single, sleeping beside their single lover.

[mspink]

If it walks like a duck quacks like a duck and looks like a duck . . .

[dm10003]

judging by the several instances of freaking out just now, this is lettting off steam, the way small scale violence exploded at the stonewall. that will motivate, irritate, scare, and offend critics. what propenents and opponents are waiting next for is the subsance behind the gestures. substance will take form -- or forms -- soon.

[BenCaxton]

Oh, bollocks !

That's just so pre-Stonewall I could SPIT!!!

And it's not as if Gays have NOT been touting positive role modes for the past 40 years or so ... or that in their time Blacks and Jews tried to prove their collective worth to society by pointing out how valuable certain outstanding individuals were. The fact is, the Klan and the Nazis didn't much care about Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Disraeli -- and the homophobes are not impressed by J. Edgar Hoover or Leonardo DaVinci -- much less Barney Frank.

[Johnathan Wilber - Huffpost Blogger]

My intention in writing the article was not to exculpate bigots. Instead, I hoped to encourage supporters of gay marriage to start rethinking how we talk about ourselves. Bigots will be bigots, but more important than that is: who are we going to be in the face of bigotry? If supporters of Prop 8 really understood what queer people have done, and continue to do, for them, I doubt it would have passed.

I don't intend to put out just a who's who of the queer world. I do think it's important for queer people and allies to know their heritage and how much power they have. What would our country look like if all queer people got how much they matter? That is a powerful and empowering question.

[psca1040]

If you mean gay people need to continue to come out, I agree. But it sounds like you're arguing that we need to prove our worth as citizens. Historically, it doesn't work. This is something Martin Luther King concluded. It led him to break with the civil rights movement and oppose the Vietnam War. He saw that black Americans had fought in virtually every war for this country, helping to secure rights for whites her or citizens in other nations that were not accorded to them at home. Even dying for their country couldn't prove civic worth. (Our experience in the military has been no more successful.)

Civil rights victories are achieved when the majority could no longer reconcile its prejudices with constitutional principles it purported to cherish. In other words, the minority has to shame the majority into changing. We can't escape the mountain that we have yet to climb -- convincing the majority of Americans that the morality of justice and equality in our society trumps a religious tradition.

[RobHughey]

I for one have started referring the the LGBT community as "My People."

Does that count? :)

[jacqmac]

This is a rather good article actually. Ask a gay or lesbian person under the age of FORTY what Stonewall WAS. Ask a gay or lesbian person under the age of FORTY who Elaine Noble was/is. Ask a gay or lesbian person under the age of FORTY who Harvey Milk was. Ask a gay or lesbian person under the age of FORTY who Del Martin was. Ask a gay or lesbian person under the age of FORTY who Phyllis Lyon is. Ask a gay or lesbian person under the age of FORTY who Florence Kennedy was.
I would be VERY surprised if they could give you all these answers. Part of the 'new gay' is that a LOT of the 'old gay' got thrown out with the bathwater and led to a rather passive response to Proposition 8 in the first place. Lots of people said 'Oh-that will never pass. Being gay is okay and well, they CAN get married now.' Add to that the utter disorganization of the "No on 8" movement and well---here we are--back to the old Gay Liberation days. Looks like a LOT more than a few Democrats have been asleep for eight years or longer..... Gay history is a PART of AMERICAN HISTORY. Gay culture IS a PART of AMERICAN CULTURE and we need to point that out---LOUDLY!!

[HillbillyBob]

I am 46 and my partner is 52, most of our contemporaries are gone from HIV. I have been poz for 25 years, I would not still be here if I did not stand up for my self.
Also had to deal with harassment, being fired because of my so called choice. I would not choose to be an outcast, but I will not bow down to bullies. I have on occasion had to defend myself physically from so called Christians. Which is not to say that I don't realize there is a difference between the two kinds.
Kreestians who used the Bible to beat others into submission or abject fear with, and Christians who try to live like Christ. I try to do unto others as I would have done unto me, until they prove other wise.
We have been together for years, why is it that when I am sick in hospital i my partner has trouble getting into see me?
He knows a good deal about my health and what meds i take..

[VKCarmichael]

From the title I thought this article would be more substantive. The LGBTQ community needs to ask itself what are we fighting for? Because it's becoming clearer to me at each rally that the gay community is fighting for acceptance and not equal rights. Why are we fighting for the word marriage. As an institution it hasn't been so great. Why not break with the term and create something new with the same rights that gay and straight people alike can use? Why can't we let the religious have their marriage? Hey, if Jerry Falwell was forced on the gay community as the grand wizard of the gay pride parade, he might not live through the Castro. We have seperate worlds, but we're moving closer. Let's not deny gay couples rights and polarize the country for a word. FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS, NOT THE WORD!!

[Johnathan Wilber - Huffpost Blogger]

While I wholeheartedly understand your sentiment, I think the "word" is as much a part of the right as the right itself. Consider, for instance, if the United States had granted black people the right to vote but insisted on calling it "choosing," or some other word. There is a huge amount of power invested in the words we use. So although I agree that there are plenty of bad marriages out there, "marriage" as a word, and as an institution, has precedent and history, is revered. I'm fighting as much for the language of marriage as I am the rights of marriage; indeed, for me, they are indivisible.

I also find problematic, that the "religious" should have their marriage. This presupposes that gay people are not religious. I'm certainly not a member of Falwell's church, but my mother is a Presbyterian minister. Where does that leave me? It forces me to choose between my sexuality and my religion. And while some Christians do believe homosexuality is a sin, many, many Christians do not. And many Jews. And many people of many other faiths.

[midknightryder13]

There is another reason -- and it goes back to the "separate is not equal" argument. And you have only to go as far as what happened in NJ for the proof. Because "marriage" is a LEGAL TERM anything else will always have the potential of this. Laws can be (and ARE) passed that apply to just "married couples".

[BertrandRussell]

Methinks this is going down the wrong tract and cannot produce much beyond a nod of value toward yet another sub-group of Americans.

The best and most fruitful way to achieve justice is to confront head-on the source of the injustice. As discomforting as it may be for some, the problem lies with Christianity and its believer's Biblical certitude. The condemnation is right there in the Bible and it is because of that condemnation that believers will never, and can never, accept tolerance of sexual orientation.

Secularize the world and free humanity from the chains of superstition.

[luvobama]

Excellent post and fantastic idea. How'd you get so smart? :)

[bygollymissmolly]

I am hoping that the Obama administration directs the IRS to revoke the Mormon Church's tax exempt status after what they did here. I also hope he goes after the churches that are preaching from the pulpit. It's getting way too blatant.

[DeniseD]

I think the Catholic church should also have its tax exempt status revoked. Can you imagine all the revenue that would create? Then, maybe, other preachers would be less likely to talk about politicis form the pulpit too. I am all for separation of church and state, and I am Christian.

[leftypower]

I'd really like him to force the IRS to accept my tax return with my partner's as legal couple, filing jointly.

[hypnotoad72]

And being bi means I get the worst of both worlds by default. I'm a closet gay, I'm sleazy, incapable of monogamy, you name it. And I'm tired of it.

And if I were to make a conscious choice, I'd be a hetero -- because, from experience and observation, the bulk of gay men prefer "Wham bam thank you mister, didn't that feel good, and remember to get tested every 3 months and I didn't give it to you even if I did." Never mind the game players, and they disgust me the most.

Unlike many bi or otherwise characters in the media, who personify sleaze and as such help to perpetuate the stereotypes. I'd love to cite an example but I'd be going too much into a tangential topic.

[hypnotoad72]

lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals, as well as their supporters

LGBTQS, surely?

And "associates" and "affiliates" so it's LGBTQSAA.

It is getting a tad ridiculous, isn't it?

I know my heritage, and those who get on with their lives than to make their orientation the only thing in life is why I'd put Charles Nelson_Reilly, Paul Lynde, Liberace, et al, above Wanda scat-comedy Sykes, Ricky Martin, and others, who I'd rather not see in the same boat as the rest of us as they drag us all down.

I am a Bisexual.

I don't sleep with everyone I meet, never mind I don't make a pass at everybody I meet. Doesn't mean I don't have "those feelings", but that's not the point.

I respect others' relationships; I do not interfere.

I am capable of practicing a lifelong, monogamous relationship. Unlike most in our so-called "community".

I am not repressing anything, contrary to what some would believe because I don't drop trou every time some stranger of either gender asks.

I keep my personal life to myself, in public, and am mentioning it here only because people would otherwise assume I am a heterosexual - and any heterosexual saying the same things would be preemptively called an anti-gay bigot. Of my entire response, I hope this is the one message that comes through clear.

I do not and will not conform to any stereotype.

[franklin opt]

Good post, Jonathan.

What if they had taken away J. Edgar Hoover? Republicans who are old enough to appreciate the Nixon administration would have lost one of their heroes.

I won't go on about John Wayne, Goerge Gershwin, Samuel Barber...

[wdw102]

"I won't go on about John Wayne, Goerge Gershwin, Samuel Barber..." it must be a gay thing or the time line.......because John Wayne is the only one that i know the name......yes, i know i have googled them and they were two old dead guys, so........I am 44, they were way before my time...........