"Don't Call it a Culture War"

I'm doing the bad blogger again and posting someone else's writing. However, this is an excellent article from The American Prospect by Anne Friedman about LGBT rights. I think it's spot on, and I'm glad that I'm hearing this rhetoric other places than just within my circle of friends. It seems like a lot of the rhetoric being thrown around, especially after Prop 8, focuses on the idea that the country will "come around" and adjust. Friedman brilliantly points out that calling LGBT issues part of a "culture war" implies that there is no absolute right or wrong.

As Friedman says, "Civil-rights era activists knew history was on their side. But their goal was not to make every white American comfortable with the idea of sharing public spaces and power with people of color. It was to guarantee people of color those rights, regardless of where the culture stood. That's the thing about rights. You have to claim them."

Check it out!

Google opposes CA Proposition 8

I don't think I have any readers in the great state of California. Even so, this entry on the official Google blog caught my eye.

As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay -- we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.

However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

While I do have problems with the institution of marriage, which I won't get into right now, I wholeheartedly agree that all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity should be allowed to access the privileges of of civil marriage. Not to mention these sorts of propositions failing is an indication that variance in sexual orientation and (hopefully) gender identity is becoming more broadly accepted in society. So hurray for google I suppose.

Recent Reading

I love google reader. One of my favorites on my google reader that I think should be on yours is the website Feministing.com. Today this lovely story about rethinking marriage popped up and I thought I'd share.

Here's a little quote, then the link to the rest of the article is at the bottom. Happy Monday!

I've spent more time than I'd like to remember in the past three or four years explaining to family, friends, and perfect strangers why I'm not dying to walk down the aisle (note: he has spent at least half as much time doing so, an incredibly irritating discrepancy). Usually my answer goes something like this: 1) I don't want to participate in an institution that's been historically sexist and currently discriminates against my gay friends, especially considering that my partner and I couldn't have been married in some states just 40 years ago (we're miscegenators), and 2) I'm uncomfortable with the "till death do us part" rhetoric that seems to suggest that two people parting ways is an inherent failure, rather than, as is so often the case, a necessary moment of growth and change.

For the latter explanation, I usually get a pitying look and an onslaught of romantic counter-argument, as if I am a princess in a fairy tale who has suddenly lost faith in the glass slipper. (Never mind the cold, hard fact that over half of marriages end in divorce.) For the former, I get little more than skeptical silence; people always suspect that the political argument is just a big cover up for my boyfriend's frozen feet.

Public reaction aside, I'm starting to doubt my own justifications. What am I to make of my commitment to not participate in a sexist, historically racist institution when my own gay friends are flocking to the coasts so they can join in the gift registry and the white-dress hoopla? Of course they deserve all the legal protections and economic benefits of a legalized marriage; according to the Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, there are over 1,400 state and federal rights guaranteed by marriage, while there are only 300 state benefits and no federal protection for civil unions. But do these rights really trump the woman-as-property history and discriminatory present (on a state by state basis, of course)? Why do so many of my gay friends have such faith that they can transform the institution when I'm still so unsure?

Click here to read the whole article