I’ve taught gay and lesbian American history at Pasadena City College since 2001. When I started offering the course, the big issue on campus was winning domestic partnership benefits for faculty and staff; marriage equality was seen as something decades off. By 2005, California had awarded those benefits to all public employees, and what we had seen as our most vital local struggle had been won.
I mention this because it’s so important, in the aftermath of the Great Disappointment of Maine’s vote to repeal a same-sex marriage law this past Tuesday, to reflect on how far we have come. Barely ten years ago, the Maine legislature passed an anti-discrimination ordinance protecting gays and lesbians. In November 2000, the Christian right in Maine successfully led a “people’s veto” drive to repeal those protections. This November, just nine years on, the Christian conservatives who won the fight to keep a limited vision of marriage emphasized that they weren’t opposed to civil unions or to anti-discrimination ordinances. If you look at the campaign literature this fall of the anti-equality folks in Maine, you see that they’ve completely reversed themselves in less than a decade. Indeed, they now recognize that support for civil unions was critical to winning the fight to keep marriage itself exclusively heterosexual.
That means, obviously, that we in the movement for justice have “moved the ball” well down the field. Those who want a discriminatory marriage franchise are struggling to win a small majority of voters; measures like those in Maine or California’s Prop 8 are being decided by five or six percentage points, not more. And in order to get those slim majorities, the religious right have been forced to take the tactical position of support for every right short of marriage itself. Those who want gays and lesbians to have no rights at all have gone from a clear majority a decade ago to a (thankfully) dwindling minority in most states. The victory Tuesday for Referendum 71, a Washington state initiative that granted gay and lesbian citizens every right save the label “marriage” itself, drives home the point that only one thing is holding back progress for queer folks in this country: a sentimental attachment on the part of a narrow majority of Americans to the heterosexual marriage idea. Exit polls show that those most attached to that traditional ideal are, not surpisingly, the oldest of voters — while those most interested in expanding the franchise are the youngest. Even if we were to sit on our hands (which we won’t), the Grim Reaper will win the fight for us within a decade; to paraphrase Dan Savage, we’ll outlast, outlove, and outlive those who want stand in the way.
This is cold comfort for those who want and deserve equality now. Justice delayed is, as everyone knows, justice denied. But at times like these, it is the job of the progressive historian to temper the lamentations at a temporary setback by pointing to the progress made. We ain’t in the Promised Land, but the view from the mountaintop is getting clearer, the fog is lifting, and despite their bravado, our enemies are in retreat. We’ll be crossing that final river soon.
From your lips to God’s ears, Hugo.
Rache, you’re the rabbi, my dear; don’t you have a slightly more direct line? ;-)
Some of the ageist comments made by several left-leaning commenters on blogs have been just stunning. It’s as though certain individuals who support gay marriage are celebrating the impending death of an entire generation of people instead of sincerely trying to convince those voters.
I also keep reading about the religious right and how they tilted things in Maine. I can hardly believe that when the reality is that Maine is among the top five most secular states in the union. Maine is NOT in the bible belt; the marijuana proposal won big. Was the religious right pushing for state funded dispensaries? :)
The religious right are the footsoldiers of the traditional marriage movement, and they play on anxieties about children and on sentimental attachments to the notion of marriage as a vehicle for reproductivity. It’s not that the voters are all religious — but the funding sources almost invariably are.
Dave, it’s not ageism to note that older folks have tended to be more socially conservative than their children. Death is part of the life cycle — and while I do not wish an untimely death upon anyone, I won’t avoid pointing out the obvious either.
It’s as though certain individuals who support gay marriage are celebrating the impending death of an entire generation of people instead of sincerely trying to convince those voters.
Most of these voters can’t be convinced of anything. It’s no coincidence that the most obstinate opposition to gay rights (and biology, and astronomy, and…) comes from religious communities; when you’re taught from day one to uncritically accept whatever the guy behind the pulpit tells you to believe and that all the people outside your little church bubble are reprobate heathens out to corrupt you and everything good in the world, you become quite skilled at ignoring facts and logic that disagree with your preconceptions. There’s no way to change that externally, the person has to be willing to think outside the box on their own.
Hugo- I don’t think that YOU are ageist, but some of the comments on other left leaning blogs have been over the top. A comment such as “I can’t wait for these f*cking geezers to die off” is ageist anyway you slice it or dice it.
I also think that change is far from a foregone conclusion. You have to factor in immigration and the values that those people bring to the table. Several countries in Europe will be majority muslim in less than 40 years unless there is a stunning turnaround in demographic trends. What will the status of gay rights be in Sweden or the Netherlands circa 2050? What values are immigrants to America bringing?
schism- If most of the voters CAN’T be convinced of anything then why are the “traditional marriage” folks spending so much money? . . . even if it was half the amount of money that the pro gay marriage side spent in Maine. (Personally, I wish the traditional marriage people would put that money to use helping the poor.)
schism- If most of the voters CAN’T be convinced of anything then why are the “traditional marriage” folks spending so much money?
Fearmongering draws a crowd, basically. It doesn’t change anyone’s mind, but it does impel people already inclined to believe that gays are converting children (or whatever) to strike back, as it were.