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.

    While urban gays don tuxes and tiaras, organize campaigns and fundraising events, rural, Southern and Western gays often congregate in isolated bars or private homes and support some of the nation’s highest rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, physical abuse, depression and suicide.  We are a LGBTQ community divided by access to political support and civil rights.

    A native Montanan, I am constantly discouraged by the large sums of money spent by LGBTQ tourists in resort towns such as Bozeman, Big Sky, Missoula and Kalispell.  Bozeman and Kalispell are notorious strongholds of the state Tea Party Movement – all that pretty pink money gets easily recycled into anti-gay, anti-Democratic Tea Party fundraising dollars as developers turn to politics.  When challenged, the naïve gay tourists often claim (feign?) ignorance.  It’s like being on a cruise – as long as you stay on the Party Deck, you don’t have to face the reality of the crews’ quarters.  Not exactly gay friendly, Montana shamelessly promotes its guppy-style tourism to Chicago’s Boystown and Minneapolis’ Uptown neighborhoods.  It’s fine to visit, but try obtaining a mortgage, a job or a marriage license – ain’t gonna happen.  

    Even in Europe, we see a vast divergence of treatment and acceptance towards the out gay community.  Courts in England recently ruled against bed-and-breakfast owners who refused to accommodate gay couples, the EU Court of Human Rights had to intervene to protect queer access to public services, including the obtaining of marriage counseling and registration.  

    But when Paul Maden and James Findley recently complained of discrimination and harassment in the small Scottish town in which they do business, many urban gays rolled their eyes, demonstrating just how deep the experiential divide has become in our community.

    In two short weeks, Jadin Bell committed suicide in response to anti-gay bullying.  Jesse Jeffers' Florida home was vandalized.  Adam Lee Johnson was attacked and hospitalized for being gay and singing karaoke in a rural Michigan bar.  Aaron Klein of Oregon refused to sell a cake to a lesbian couple.  The world – OUR world, is still too often a very unpleasant and even dangerous place for gay men and women to live.

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    As we reach for the goal of legally recognized same-sex marriages and being able to be out on the job, we still need to strive for the right to be openly out in the classroom, on the sporting field, before the hiring committee and in dealing with the landlords, mortgage committees and business development directors, elsewhere.  We have a long, long ways to go.

    Problematically, groups such as HRC seem quite comfortable in their new headquarters in DC.  We need to remind them that sometimes one has to get the Hugo Boss, Armani, and even the Prada, a bit dirty and reach back to our roots.

    We still have a lot of brothers and sisters to pull up into civil society.  We still have too many lives to save from suicide and substance abuse.  And we still too many rural, non-ghetto gays and lesbians who have supported our fight for marriage equality but often seem to be in danger of being overlooked themselves.

    Yay for marriage for the few, but let us not forget basic civil rights for the many.

   

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