Caveat: this blog is seriously high on my crone/curmudgeon scale of crankiness.
I have problems with these Prop 8 protests. If you don’t already know about the Proposition 8 mess going on in California and nation-wide, here’s a wiki-summary. Yeah, if I’m not working, I plan to join the protest. But no, I won’t be protesting a ban on marriage equality. I’ll be protesting because I care about the legal ramifications and precedents set with passing Prop 8.
The brouhaha concerning marriage equality is generated by people who say they’re speaking for all LGBTQ people everywhere in this country. Omigod, yes there are TONS of supporters of marriage equality within the LGBTQ world. But not all of us agree with you. Some of us think we should abolish marriage altogether. I’m speaking as part of that minority. We’re mostly radical queers, dyed-in-the-wool feminists, old lefties, socialists and other bogey people whose only desire is purported to be tearing down both church and state, and making everyone’s life a living hell. Some of us think that triage-wise, marriage falls pretty far down the list of priorities of political focus for the LGBTQ world.
I don’t care about a ban on marriage equality. Fuck it. What I care about is the violence done to queer kids. I care about LGBTQ and any freaky kids who get thrown out of their homes for following their heart’s harmless desires. Prioritizing marriage equality is dangerous to the health of those kids. So I ask myself: what’s so important about marriage to the vocal and visible (and probably even majority) of LGBTQ people?