Aug 27, 2004  |  By: Eric Rofes  | COMMENTS     

OUR WORK TO eliminate discrimination against same-sex couples in the institution of marriage will take years, perhaps decades.

With this in mind, a group of activists in the Bay Area have worked to create a Web site intended to support direct action and non-violent civil disobedience related to marriage equality and to serve as a focal point for thoughtful, critical analysis.

On this site, we hope to post reflections, analyses, activist reports, tips, and personal critiques of the strategies and rhetoric. Please visit www.perfectunion.net and join in the dialogue.

I’ve developed three specific concerns that I hope organizers will consider as they go forward in their work:

Concern No. 1: The strategic focus on love and romance in our campaigns must be balanced with a focus on liberty and full and equal participation in the institutions of democracy.

It is essential that we reach regular people and speak to them using issues and symbols with which they can relate. The repeated focus on love, romance, family and children goes a long way toward allowing the broader populace to relate to the issue of same-sex marriage.

At the same time, this issue involves the right of all people to participate in the institutions of a democracy, as well as equal protection, civil rights and basic concepts of liberty.

At all rallies and events related to marriage equality, we should rotate speakers focused on love and romance with speakers who emphasize democracy and civil rights.

We must be aware that our focus on love, romance and “coupledom” may alienate some potential supporters — queer and non-queer — who are single and find the rhetoric and symbolism to be smarmy, uncritical and offensive.

Concern No. 2: Racial diversity in the fight to democratize marriage must be addressed seriously and immediately.

With the possibility of voter initiatives throughout the country (including Massachusetts), the face of the marriage movement must be not be solely a white face. Media and activist campaigns must self-consciously avoid a narrow focus on white voters.

Marriage equality rallies must feature prominently speakers who are visibly identifiable as people of color.

The elected officials, community leaders and married same-sex couples who crowd the stage — and appear on television news programs and in newspaper photos — should be racially diverse.

Resources must be directed immediately to the creation of specific organizing efforts among African Americans, Latinos, Asian-Pacific Americans, and Native Americans.

We may need one mainstream campaign that is visibly multiracial, but we need additional targeted campaigns that are specifically organized by and for communities of color.

Concern No. 3: The repeated refrain of “We all deserve the freedom to marry” is problematic politically and philosophically and should be reconsidered.

One lesbian couple was featured on a news program saying, “We’ve been together 15 years. I’m a doctor, and my partner is a school teacher. If this hasn’t earned us the right to be married, what else could we do?”

Promoting the idea that civil rights and participation in the institutions of democracy should be granted to “deserving” or “meritorious” people plays into the conservative strategy of shifting civil rights from universal entitlements linked to citizenship or residency to rewards that are delivered to only the “deserving.”

They’ve deployed this strategy against people of color on affirmative action, bilingual education and voting rights, and queer activists should refuse to replicate this profound reframing of civil rights.