Trickle Down Theories of Civil Rights

Courtesy www.slapupsidethehead.com

    Safe in Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle or San Diego, one could easily forget the plight of our gay brothers and sisters who do not live in historic, safe, urban gayborhoods.  While we focus on same-sex marriage rights and piercing the pink corporate ceiling, too many of our gay brothers and sisters still struggle for basic civil rights, social recognition and the ability to live and work in peace, without humiliation or discrimination.

    As the nation’s urban gay-centers gain more rights and protections, gays elsewhere are often being increasingly isolated and attacked, possibly in quiet retaliation by those who feel threatened by recognition of these civil rights, or perhaps fear change in general.

    In 29 states, a gay person still loses many or most of his or her native civil rights as soon he or she “comes out of the closet,” only to find themselves potentially evicted from their apartments, kicked out their homes, losing their jobs, denied business services and loans and even verbally and physically assaulted with impunity by others.  (How often are urban gays told by cops that being victimized “sounds like a personal matter”?)  25 states still ban same-sex marriage. 24 states still lack basic protection for the LGBTQ workers in the private sector. 20 states still lack basic anti-hate crimes protection.  And it is still legal to discriminate in housing in 29 states.

    Urban gays often seem blinded to the plight of their brothers and sisters.  HRC (Human Rights Campaign) understandably fundraises also in rural and conservative areas while focusing spending and attention almost exclusively on expanding rights where campaigns are most likely to succeed.  But, this often feels like a theory of trickle-down civil liberties – as ineffective as Reagan’s infamous trickle-down economics.

Romance, Sports and Valentine's Day

A.      Random Sex v Romantic Sex – which is better?

    Admittedly, I cannot adequately represent this debate.  Like everyone, I have a deep appreciation for random sex – especially and disturbingly on Thursdays (a night on which I have learned to stay in, safe, warm, and single – and away from Lil’ Jims (deadly on a random night) and Jackhammar (only slightly less so)).  But is random what I truly want? 

    Perhaps it is time I finally come out – I am a romantic.  I have always been a romantic.  Even when I dated straight girls, they loved me because I am a romantic.  Random v. Romantic – I have to choose romance.  It is just the way that I am.  I was born this way.  I know all the words to The Sound of Music (always have) and can quote from all of Streisand’s romantic films.  My earliest TV memory is staying up all night to watch Britain’s prince marry the new princess.  I LOVE romance.

    Even when cruising random sex, I still tend towards the romantic – a small kindness, a shared taste in favorite shots, woolen tweeds, a love of books, seminary gossip, the mature heady smell of fresh roses, the less mature, still heady smell of cheap college-aged colognes… I am a romantic.  The boy might be random, but something, somewhere has triggered a memory of romance and nostalgia.

    Chicago remains a city of romantics – relationships, even hook-ups, are still face-to-face and negotiated in person.  People hang together and there is a comfort in the on-going sense of community which extends even to long-time visitors from the Twin Cities, Grand Rapids and that grey area west of the Red Line.

    Learning to again navigate the gay scene in the Twin Cities has been disappointing though.  Only Chicago can match Twin Cities’ classic bars such as the Saloon, the Eagle-Bolt, the Town House or Camp.  But the Twin Cities, America’s highest per capita gay community, has in my absence, gone digital, which is great for randomness but not so hot for romance.

    Hooking up on-line is so one-dimensional.  It can be done, but what can one really say – “I like the shape of your neck where you cut it off to avoid a headshot,”  “er nice bulge,” or “the way that you spell versatile really turns me on?”

    One just cannot aspire to any depth or discover a sense of romance from a photo and 280 characters or less.

    Of course, random is great for marrieds, the closeted and suburban gays, but as for me… I’d rather date someone I know and might actually see again, if only for the romance.  I’ll stick to the bars, turn off the phone and wait for my prince, “Did you say Jaeger?  Sambuca?  Jameson?  Is that Stetson?  Eternity? Aqua Gio?  Harris Tweed?”

B.               Frank Deford’s morning sports commentary on public radio (WBEZ, KNOW) focused for Valentine’s Day on the romance of pro- on pro- relationships in sports.  Deford deftly defended Brent Musberger’s recently gauche commentary on the beauty of Miss Alabama during his coverage of the BSC Championship Game, noting the romantic tradition of Miss Alabamans dating the hot athlete (disclosure:  though many would call my own athleticism into question, I did date a Miss Georgia Peach for an entire weekend). 

    Having family established in the South, I, unlike many Midwesterners, understand that being Miss Alabama (or Miss Georgia, or Miss Mississip) is a true athletic calling (as is cheerleading in a Texas-sort-of-way), but my interest in Deford’s defense of Musberger quietly turned from gay indignation to gay despair.  You see, of all the professional athletic hook-ups mentioned by Deford as romantic Valentine’s Day sports role models, none of them were gay.  What about Sheryl Swoops?  Matthew Mitcham?  Martina Navratilova?  Wade Davis?  Gay!  Gay!  Gay!  Wait.  Wait.  Wait.

My 3/5’s of a Marriage

“The plaintiffs in Brown asserted that this system of racial separation, while masquerading as providing separate but equal treatment of both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans.”  Wikipedia, “Brown v Topeka Board of Education

Courtesy Wikipedia:  Street Kids confront police at Stonewall.

My ³/₅’s of a Marriage

    The trend to see civil rights, or even basic definitions of humanity, let alone citizenship, as negotiated settlements within our Constitution has impacted communities far beyond the African-American experience. 

 While the African-American community has by far born the greater share of the burden of such hypocrisy and exploitation, the victims of such attitudes have also included women, Asian-Americans and immigrants, and less formally but just as seriously, Native Americans, Latin Americans, informal enemy combatants, and the LGBTQ community.

    Misperceptions that the basic civil right of marriage equality can be a negotiated right or that an entire population group should be satisfied with something that looks like equality but really is not in fact equal, but a negotiated settlement, are only the latest manifestations of the 3/5’s rule.

    America – “land of the free?”  Not always.  Champions of equality?  Often depends on whom.

    Regrettably, throughout our history, our rhetoric has shamefully failed to live up to our reality – and that this inequality is purposeful and a choice should just piss people off! 

    Too many have bought into the system and drank the Kool-Aid™ of negotiated civil liberties.  This is a dangerous ideal and while it might be American, it is not worthy of Universalist perceptions of liberty.

    We are not alone.  Liberal Britain has recently experienced painful debates over civil rights and gay marriage.  Even France, who if anyone, has surpassed the United States in both the rhetoric and commitment to liberty, equality and the commonweal, has faced political division over the recognition of the equality of rights for the LGBTQ community.  What’s going on?

    Failing to recognize inequality is one thing – failure to act once that inequality has been identified and named is hypocrisy.