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| Activists on both sides of the gay marriage debate clashed in Massachusetts in 2003, after the state’s highest court legalized same-sex unions. The move forced the hot-button issue into the mainstream and now some gay rights activists are questioning whether marriage ought to be a top priority for the movement. (Photo by Lisa Poole/AP) |
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: ELIZABETH A. PERRY COMMENTS
 
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for gay marriage rights. Hollibaugh did not respond to Blade inquiries seeking comment.
Other notable signatories include feminist Gloria Steinem, singer Holly Near, author Susie Bright, gay writers Terrence McNally (“Love! Valour! Compassion!”) and Armistead Maupin (“Tales of the City”), and Betsy Reed, executive editor of The Nation magazine.
Look at ‘totality’ of lives
Black gay activist Kenyon Farrow, co-editor of “Letters from Young Activists: Today’s Rebels Speak Out,” said a number of the authors and signers of the “Beyond Same-Sex Marriage” statement are both academics and activists. Farrow’s work has focused on police brutality and prisons, as well as homophobic violence in New York City.
He said focusing on a single issue, such as gay marriage, is not a panacea for all societal ills.
“People of color, women and trans people don’t have the luxury of just being gay,” he said. “We have to look at the totality of our lives and make decisions about the total impact of our lives. Marriage will not be the thing that saves our lives. We need to work for full, universal access to health care, fighting for legal recognition for a wide range of family and kinship structures and full separation of church and state in all matters in life.”
Jay Smith Brown, communications strategies director for the Human Rights Campaign, said his organization is supportive of domestic partnership benefits in the workplace for all types of families, but that HRC is focusing its resources on gay marriage.
“We are looking for equality in the legal system for same-sex couples,” he said. “And right now that is marriage.”
The “Beyond Marriage” statement comes in stark contrast to the announcement last week that three large gay rights groups have launched a new ad campaign touting the need for same-sex marriage rights.
The campaign, titled “Marriage Matters,” is appearing in 50 newspapers around the country and is sponsored by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and Freedom to Marry. The three groups are contributing $250,000 to fund the ad campaign.
Last month, courts in Georgia and Nebraska reinstated state constitutional amendments banning gay couples from marrying. The highest court in New York also upheld that state’s gay marriage ban last month. And just last week, the Washington State Supreme Court upheld a ban on same-sex unions.
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