Against Gay Marriage

Against Gay Marriage
Queers should be offended every time Gavin Newsom is praised for marrying the gays. Hardly the selfless act of “civil disobedience” it is portrayed to be, this risk-free political stunt was merely a step towards building Newsom’s political empire in San Francisco and paying back the conservative gay politicians and voters who were so essential to his election into the mayor’s office. Newsom carefully calculated his move to jump in at the climax of the process, thereby avoiding taking part in any of the work involved.
One must remember how little concern Newsom has demonstrated towards queers. On February 6, 2003, he threw a lavish fundraiser at the LGBT Center, charging $125 a head, in order to court the powerful gay vote. Peaceful Gay Shame protesters were brutally bashed by the SFPD just after police escorted Newsom through the doors. The police riot, which left one person missing a tooth and with blood streaming down her face, was merely a spectacle for Gavin Newsom and his band of ruling class socialites to watch as they sat safely inside The Center. Neither Newsom nor any of his supporters made an attempt to stop the violence. Since Newsom has refused to make any statement condemning these acts of the SFPD, we can only assume his complicity in the violence.
So why are gays so set on honoring and flattering this straight, white, privileged man for patronizingly granting them the “right” to marry? Surely some of the same people who raced to City Hall to tie the knot this February are those same queers who only ten years ago would have proclaimed that marriage is violent, racist, and homophobic—serving as one of the central institutions necessary for organizing a misogynist, sexist, and oppression-ridden world—a world that has no intention of building anything resembling supportive communities.
Throughout history, queers have made some of the most important challenges to the institution of marriage. Marriage is not a civil right. It is an oppressive institution that is forced upon people's lives. Marriage is an establishment created by religious men to sustain their domination over the entire world. Obtaining the “right” to marry is not going to give gays equality, decrease homophobia, or challenge any structure of power, as marriage activists would like for us believe. Rather than liberating us, it will be one step more towards absorbing us into the violently heteronormative culture that wants us either assimilated or dead.
The rhetoric behind the gay marriage movement reveals its true intents. Gay marriage proponents have explicitly defined their agenda as a way to transform gay identity into something more palatable to the heterosexual world, and to gain access to the privileges that come along with that approval. It is a desperate attempt to obtain validation from a violent, abusive culture with the sole aim of reaping the benefits from the very abuse and violence that oppresses queers in the first place. In doing so, the gay marriage movement is participating in the erasure of the radical queer struggle that has been the real force towards queer empowerment and a politics that challenges mainstream culture’s hegemonic ideas of normalcy.
Clearly, the institution of marriage does not represent ideas of human relationships that queers need. Surely queers can find more genuine, meaningful, and safe ways to express our feelings to one another. Whatever happened to the time when being queer was a challenge to misogyny, gender hegemony, and the imperialist, bloodthirsty status quo?
The benefits promised by marriage rights belong to everyone, not just those people who conform to a specific form of state-sanctioned coupling. Every slut, whore, single person, polyamorist, and pervert deserves the rights that are reserved for married couples, as does every marginalized person in the world, not just those who have submitted to the tyranny of the mainstream.
It’s disappointing and frightening that gay marriage has taken attention away from so many more pressing issues like war, education, and homelessness, just to name a few. It’s sad that all of the time, money, and resources spent on gay marriage couldn’t have been put to use providing support for those queers marginalized from the gay “community”. The gay marriage media circus successfully enabled most people to forget that Newsom’s agenda centers around consolidating power and control in the hands of a ruling class elite and punishing San Francisco’s homeless for allegedly interfering with tourist dollars. While gays were getting married, the department of Alcoholic Beverage Control shut down a renowned gay cruise bar for allowing sex to take place on the premises. Newsom allied himself with monster-landlord Angelo Sangiacomo to evict nearly 400 people from Trinity Plaza, one of San Francisco’s largest affordable housing units. A state budget passed that will decimate welfare, education, healthcare, and other social services. The U.S. government engineered a military coup to overthrow the only democratically elected government in the history of Haiti.
Queers should realize the inherent contradiction in supporting Gavin Newsom's elitist political agenda by fighting for such a meaningless symbol of normalcy. It only leaves all other marginalized folks in the dust while the real issues are being silenced and ignored.

-Gay Shame
415.820.3200 ext. 150
http://www.gayshamesf.org
Gay Shame has weekly meetings at Modern Times Bookstore on Valencia at 20th St. every Saturday at 5:30 PM.