I'm wondering what E.J. Graff's POV is on civil unions, and what TPMC's position is for that matter.

I support gay marriage (or homosexual marriage or any term we can agree on) as a long term goal. I've been a lifelong advocate of gay rights and grew up in the Castro district in SF. I have always had important gay role models in my life. Growing up places like the women's center and other liberal civil rights houses were our church. I started going to pride and Halloween when it was a small one blocker.

But frankly, I find a lot of "johnny come lately" gay activists and the old timers who pander to them to be a real disaster for gay rights and national politics generally. Unfortunatly the loudest activists seem mostly to pander to a small but vigerous crowd in places like the Castro in SF. Unfortunatly that doens;t work very well becasue such places are largely isolated from the consequences of thier actions, and even have an attitude of hostility towards the outside world. Such a lack of real world feedback combined with resentment doesn't create a viable activist movement, it creates an identity politic protest for protests sake.

Hardline activists from places like the Castro are more concerned with identity politics and symbolic gestures (for which they personally pay no price) than with actually advancing the issues. Their day to day success is not measured in actual accomplishment, but in pats on the back from a small community that will praise them simply for being loud.

That seems incredibly selfish, and the wrong way to go about courting national support for gay issues or making progress towards greater equality. As such, while I support the long term goals, I can not support an organization that has a poor and even counter productive strategy, no matter how noble the stated goals may be. I do support gay activists that are taking a more sensible approach, and are willing to make incremental gains rather than just play identity politics.

There is a community within the gay community who would be perfectly happy to have civil unions now and gay marriage later, and pursue other goals more  important to the nation as a whole, and who recognize the cultural blowback gay marriage has at this time. Unfortunatly, such pragmatism doesn't seem popular.

The results so far? A lot of anti-gay marriage legislation being passed. Civil unions also would have raised issue awareness, but that could have had the additional benefit of actually helping gays, and not alienating a large bloc of moderate voters.  Poll after poll of public opinion shows that nationally issues like gay marriage drive moderates into the arms of the GOP, which gets hardliners elected, which results in many bad polices that hurt everyone, including gays, more than civil unions would.

Gay marriage activism, as opposed to civil union activism, is selfish, and causing more harm than good. It just doesn;t make any sense at this time. Civil unions are the way to go.

It's not "single issue" voting, it's a culture/identity politic thing. Gay marriage ties into the whole traditional speak of the GOP, and people aren't now, nor have they ever been completly rational when it comes to politics. Pont being, yes there is a definite, predictable, and avoidable blowback from gay marriage (as opposed to civil unions) which hurts Democrats and progressive politics on a wide range of issues, from Iraq to healthcare to SS.

Since much of the gay community is actually rather economically and otherwise conservative, especially in wealthy places like the castro where much of the support comes from, I don't see why the gay community should come to the progressive community generally for support on this single issue zealousness, especially when they're going about it in the worst possible way.

But in the end, it doesn't really matter if it's true or not.  

Healthcare and the GOP hyper consevative agenda being enabled by blowback from gay marriage doesn't matter?

I think you just made my point about an isolated community of one issue voters haveing a negatve impact on the nation overall, with this crusade for gay marriage as oppoosed to civil unions. 

Finger in the wind positioning or moral leadership?

I guess the founders should have taken a stance on gay rights then too huh? Nevermind that we wouldn't even have a country now were that the case.

I don't suppose you've ever considered you may have prejudices you're not even aware of today. Maybe future societies will find our society terribly exploitive in ways we can't even imagine. A future people might look back on your opinions as terrible, and consider them only an incremental step above complete savagery.

In Oregon there is a movement to establish fusion voting and theWorking Families Party. The WFP would be a party of progressive economic populism only. No cultural issues- abortion- gay rights- school vouchers. Probably no environmental-preservation issues. Not sure if they will even get into issues of Iraq war.

All these issues have become identity badges of progressivism. I'm wondering how successful they will be in divorcing from the culture war and wooing disaffected "Reagan" Democrat types.

And I wonder about the morality of leaving these other issues for others to fight. But it is an interesting strategy.

I've got an article coming out in the Prospect about the marriage debates and the Dems, and will post a link when it appears.

Looking forward to this... 

female couples marry (or get "civilly unionized," or the equivalent) at twice the rate of male couples. Nature, nurture, culture? The fact that female couples are more likely to be raising children? Hard to say.

Hmmm....are you suggesting that woman become more "the face of gay marriage"? That's an interesting approach, if that's what's being suggested

Dissent Protects Democracy

Hmmm....are you suggesting that woman become more "the face of gay marriage"? That's an interesting approach, if that's what's being suggested - cscs

Interesting? Where have you been? Kind of old news. It's long been the policy of sympathetic organizations to put women as the face of gay marriage, pretty much from day one. For example newspapers much prefer to put two women kissing on the front page than two men. And to be blunt, that's because it draws marginally less hate mail. Of course opposition groups will always use two men, with similarly predictable outcomes. 

It's also part of the myth of the "silver bullet" type solutions that activist communities tend to invent when the raw poll data is so abysmal. Grasping at straws.

The vast majority of Americans oppose gay marraige, man>man or woman>woman. Whatever face is put on it, it's still an unattainable goal and a liability to coalitions which in turn hurts other progressive issues that greatly outweigh gay marriage.

chuckie,

Fusion voting need not be a division of the anti-radical right vote. Fusion voting allows the same candidate to appear on different party's ballots. So a Working Famlies Party could nominate the same candidate as the Dems (for example). And there would be a clear record of how many voters they brought to the joint candidate. I'm told New York state has this.

The political strategy behind the Oregon effort is not to divide the progressive vote but to provide a vehicle for disaffected Reagan Democrats to get unstuck from the culture war issues and come home to economic populism- self interest.

I have  mixed feelings- for example- about abandoning the struggle for social recognition that has been a part of the Democatic Party's committment to gender, civil liberties, gay rights, etc. But if the Dems can play that role perhaps there is room for a coalition partner that plays a more focused economic role.

That's not realistic. The reality is that a lot of America is against gay marriage. You and I may feel it's the right thing to do, but they don't, and they're in a rather large majority.  Jim Crow  ended because the vast majority of Americans were against it.

Gay marriage isn't even close to being there yet. 

It's really that simple. So we can chose to bash our heads against the wall, and alienate the middle on a wide range of issues, or we can make progress on the issues we can. But make no mistake about it, gay marriage isn't happening one way or the other for a long time. If the issue was pushed hard enough the GOP could pull off a constitutional amendment, as many states already have.

All this false hope is really sad, and the issue is a lode stone around Democrats necks. The only way for Democrats to get out from under that is to start running anti-gay marriage candidates so they can get elected and push other popular issues. That’s what all this stupid activism has produced: kicking the beehive and forcing allies into untenable positions.

We talk about the F-ups failure to predict the insurgency in Iraq, but how about our own ideologues and the shit-storm they’ve kicked up on culture issues? Same blinkered, zealous, lack of foresight imo.

"Gay marriage" suggests that gay people are asking for something different than the marriages their neighbors have. It is the language of those who would exclude gay people from the same rights and responsibilities as are available to all other Americans. It obscures what is happening--a denial of equal rights-- and therefore makes it easier to maintain that inequality. "Equal Marriage" or "Marriage Equality" is both more accurate and a necessary corrective.

Some posters have called the right to marry as "way less important" than suffrage. I always ask, "what would your rather give up, your vote or the right to legally protect your relationship with your spouse?" As I post frequently on a number of web-sites, as a matter of law, their "less important" argument is wrong. The right to marry has been recognized by the U.S Supreme Court as a basic right, just like the right to vote. It is a civil right so important it cannot be denied to convicted felons. Yet it is denied to all gay people. Even gays who may marry in Massachusetts receive none of the vital federal protections for their family such as family medical leave, social security survivor benefits or COBRA, just to name three.

Some posters also minimized comparison with the Jim Crow laws. But there is an inherent similarity. Those who deny gay people the right to marry cherish that right for themselves. Key to the whole anti-marriage movement is that gay relationships have less worth.

Marriage equality isn't why the Democrats are losing. But the Democrats' approach to the issue shows why they do. They have no ability to articulate what is just, fair and true. They certainly have lost any ability to enlighten and lead those who see differently. Instead, they are reactive and poll-driven. Remember, there has yet to be a single prominent national Democrat to announce support for marriage equality. Republicans are lauded for the "courage of their convictions" when they take positions that are outside the political mainstream-- such as being against reproductive rights. The Democrats never learn from this the value of proudly articulating issues from the left of center. Instead, they play Republican-lite and lose.

Those who tell their fellow citizens to shut up and accept inequality are part of the problem. That today's Democrats spend so much time listening to such people is the remainder of the problem

That's completely predictable. People have long warned the gay/lesbian community that would happen, that if they became an unreasonable liability to other equally and even more important issues, they would be excluding themselves from workable coalitions. Of course people want to rally the biggest and most powerful coalition they can, but any group which proves itself a wilful liability to the whole and the greater good will naturally exclude itself. Call it Nader syndrome.

Here's what will happen:

1) the gay activist community will stay the current course becasue it's powerbase lays mostly in affluent and relativly empowered gays and lesbians, who can afford a losing symbolic battle, at least in the short term, before the blowback becomes pervasive and moderate allies start fleeing them.

2) Ever increasingly the past allies of the gay community (Democrats and liberals)  will be unable to afford supporting gay marriage, as it's wedge value impedes other progressive goals. For example, if gay marriage causes a loss of moderate votes for Democratic candidates and by consequence hurts democratic issues like economic justice, or environmental protections, then Democratic candidates will be forced by voters to make a "lesser of evils" choice, and gay marriage will lose.

3) Eventually the gay/lesbian community will become isolated causign regrets and fracturing in the gay activist community. Unfortunatly there may even be an uptick anti-gay sentiments nationwide leading to more day-to-day prejudice. For example, even in San Francisco there is already a rising anti-Castro sentiment becasue it's seen as an overly self interested community. Tom Ammiano was not elected mainly for that reason. Newsom pandered to the Castro (after taking office) to win it's affluent support, but that in turn casued him to be isolated from the state and national Democratic coalition. Basically, any way you cut it, supporting gay marriage now (as opposed to civil unions) leads to isolation, which has long term negative effects for the supportive community. This is very sad to see develop, but wholly predictable.  

4) From the ashes of a failed activist community will emerge a new more pragmatic community, embracing civil unions and incremental improvements, and they’ll start gaining allies again.

5)  As national demographics change, and as civil unions become more prevalent and accepted, national culture will change to be less fearful, and eventually gay marriage will become a reality. Then there will probably be some hold-outs and bigoted communities, just as there were Jim Crow communities, and similarly the nation as a whole will respond appropriately and in accordance with the (future) national popular sentiment of liberalization on gay issues.

But that's all in the future. We probably won't get past the damage phase and on to the improvement phase for years, maybe more than a decade. So things will unfortunately get worse before they get better, even though that's completely preventable if people acted rationally. People won't though.

This is completely predictable. It's essentially the same course as many other nations have and are following, and is always the way in which society liberalizes. 

Well, I hope you're right, but unfortunately I'm certain you're not. What's going to happen is a real massacre for the gay community, and it's already begun with all the anti-gay legislation being passed.  The only good I see coming out of this recklessness is perhaps a reevaluation of pragmatism on the left in the long term, a notion which has almost become a pejorative on the left.

And yes, it will be much worse than it was before, probably going back to about the 1950's in some ways. It'll harden anti-gay sentiment, which makes it even more difficult to change people's mindset, and which makes them more aggressively homophobic. Then we'll start seeing gay TV shows shut down, lowering the glass ceilings in the workplace, hate crime rise, a loss of moderate allies, reduced community support in liberal towns, gay communities unable to elect politicians to effect local government, and other institutionalized prejudice become more prevalent.

In the 70's when gay pride in places like the Castro began thier upswing, correspondingly conservatism was at it's lowest point, mostly due to the over zealousness shown through Nixon, Vietnam, and the oppressive conservatism of the 40's + 50's when conservaism was it's it's zenith. In the 70's at thier lowset point American conservaitves decided on a long term, pragmatic, incremental plan to retake America. And they succeeded exactly becasue they went about it so cautiously and smartly, preferring the gradual shift to the frontal attack.

Right now some gay communities are at the zenith of power in local government, and it’s encouraged a hubris and emotionalism. But it’s also very precarious. Already we see the blowback from moderates, both left and right, due to gay marriage, and make no mistake about it, without moderate support the Far Right will pull the rug out from under the gay communities in America. Slogans and moral outrage won’t change that.

The way things are going, it's like watching gay leaders give impassioned speeches before a big battle, in which they cite every noble principle there is, and basically promise they have honor, justice, etc on their side so they can’t lose. And you look at them and see how happy hearing all this makes them, and you can't help but be sympathetic.

But then you look over the hill and see the opposition outnumbers them so completely, and realize that sleeping giant is going to massacre them. So you try and say, "hey I'm all for winning the war, but maybe we're not picking the smartest battle with this frontal attack, maybe this isn't the smartest way to go about it" for which people will say “be quiet, you're interrupting the noble tone of the speeches, and we're really enjoying them.”

Well... good luck.

snip, posted in wrong place.

Oh right, Democrats just need to make some good speechs on gay marriage, and suddenly the large majority against gay marriage would just change thier minds. Suuuure!

I'm sure it wouldn't hurt thier campaigns or other issues at all. I'm sure the GOP wouldn't be thrilled to see Democrats commit politcal suicide, so they could ram through SS privitization, environmental deregulation, and every other regressive policy taking us back to pre-FDR era. Not to mention what they'd do to gays! Includung censorship and reducing laws against prejudice and hate crime. How about evangelicals running the FCC and some new "decency" standards for broadcasts, including cable.

Nevermind that polls still show the majority of Americans would even support a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Yea, Democrats are splineless becasue they actually want to represent a majority coalition so they can pass some legislation. How anti-democratic. Riiiight.

I don't know what planet you're from, but on earth your notions are absurd in the extreme.

Your reply to the constructive (and legally accurate) comments by the prior poster is snide and cowardly.  Tell me, what rights do gay Americans enjoy in this sixth year of a Bush 43 presidency that they would otherwise lack by asserting their rights to equal treatment under law?  The answer is none.  Regardless of party affiliation, gays cannot expect others to treat them equally unless they first demand it.  Your cowardly arguments reveal all too starkly the difference between merely being gay, and being a sissy.  Rest easy though, we who demand--and will eventually win--our equality will gladly carry you on our shoulders.

I respectfully suggest you find and read the Letter Directed to Martin Luther King by Eight Alabama Clergymen, and then consult Dr. King's eloquent response, which came to be known as "The Letter from the Birmingham Jail". 

Meekness and timidity in the proper assertion of rights is never appropriate.  Those who wish to sit back and let others do the "heavy lifting" may do so.  And things will get worse before they get better, but get better they will.