Last Thursday we were reminded that every time a step toward social equality is taken, it becomes that much more obvious how far is left to travel until reaching the final destination.
The California Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling that legalizes same-sex marriage has predictably elicited many responses, some of them obvious and others just asinine. Some have debated the legal ramifications of the ruling, because it affects same-sex couples in other states. Others have included whether we will see an initiative in November that will ask California residents to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages and overrule the court’s decision.
Perhaps the most incisive punditry on the legal fallout from the ruling was done by Slate magazine’s Dahlia Lithwick, who rightly pointed out that one cannot call judges “activists” for trying to interpret the law any more than one can refer to the citizenry or the legislature as “activists” for merely trying to create laws.
Putting aside the legal consequences of same-sex marriage, it has become obvious that even in California, which is probably the most socially progressive state in the union, we have a long way to go in the battle for social equality for people of all genders and sexual orientations.
Yet rather than rail against those who don’t yet share our beliefs that conventions of the “proper, loving family” do not exist outside of the universal principles of equality and love, we must face up to the unfortunate reality that we have failed to articulate our message. I write this knowing that the readership of the Daily Bruin is an overwhelmingly socially progressive audience, and that making obnoxious statements about the “stupidity of the masses” would do nothing.
This is the difficult task we are failing to tackle ““ to take ourselves out of the safe bubble of liberal intellectualism and understand why these unnecessary social divisions exist, who is perpetuating the bigoted deceits and actually communicate with the general public. To do that requires us to stop talking about some vast right-wing conspiracy theory and put our faith in the public’s ability to believe that the ideals of a loving and equal household can evolve without destroying the institutions of God, family and country.
For instance, a close friend, whose political conscience I respect and adore, was not completely won over by last week’s ruling. She noted that even if same-sex marriage is legalized in California there are still millions of people who don’t recognize the right of all members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to create their own loving household that doesn’t conform to the notion of “two adults and children” formation. My friend sent me a link to a letter in Monthly Review titled “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships.”
This letter goes on to rightly assert that what is lost in the battle for same-sex marriage rights is the broader notion that we should be promoting loving relationships of many different kinds, because an adult-run loving household that cares for people without homes is far superior to an oppressive formation of laws that leaves millions of children and elderly people alone and without care. However, I also think this letter reveals some of the flaws in our approach to the push for the equality of the LGBT community.
At various points in the letter, the authors refer to the opposition of “the Right” and how to overcome it. For instance, one subsection is titled “”˜Yes!’ to Caring Civil Society and “˜No!’ to the Right’s Push for Privatization.”
However, such a simplistic portrayal of millions of Americans as cogs in the Right’s machine of religious fundamentalism and privatization only serves to reinforce the self-involved liberal notion that anyone who votes Republican is intrinsically unsophisticated and unwilling to change.
Rather, what is needed is to do away with classifications of “the Right” and to see Republican voters as they truly exist ““ as people of many different backgrounds and ideologies, who are no more predisposed to hating LGBT individuals than Democratic voters. The social equality movement requires us to clearly articulate the progressive values we hold dear.
The best example has been set forth by Al Gore, who has permanently made a paradigmatic shift in how people in this country view global warming by making it, as he says, a moral issue and not a political issue.
That is how we must push for the social equality of the LGBT community; perpetuating the perceived divisions of the Right and the Left will not work.
E-mail de Jong at adejong@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.