Washington DC: Putting the Cart Before the Horse?
I did little more than skim over an article in the Blade last week with a big picture of Donna Brazile and a headline reading, “Black activists urge caution on DC marriage bill.” Brazile’s point was that the District should worry about getting representation in Congress and “legislative autonomy” before same-sex marriage, as important as that might be. At the time it seemed like another way of saying, rights for gay people are okay, but they’re just not a priority; I wasn’t interested in hearing more.
Then Ben sent me a story about all of the challenges a marriage bill could face. After passage by the council, it would have to be approved by the U.S. Congress, during which time – generally a 30 to 75 day review period – civil rights opponents would have to get 21,000 petition signatures to hold a marriage ban referendum. If they got the signatures, Congress would postpone its review until after a vote was held.
In other words, in addition to facing the possibility of a preemptive marriage ban referendum, as well as a potential repeal after passage, we also have to deal with the bloody Congress. They might approve the measure; they might stop it; or, while I am no expert on this, I’m guessing that a group of conservative members could at least hold off approval long enough to assist marriage opponents in getting those signatures.
It seems absurd that old windbags from podunk towns thousands of miles away will get a say in whether local laws here will pass. So on the one hand, what Brazile and others said makes sense. Secure greater autonomy and rights for the District first, benefits that will help all residents and at least give residents a say in their federal government, and then worry about more specific injustices.
On the other hand, I don’t see why we can’t do both at the same time. Are DC legislators, activists, and residents so bad at getting shit done that there can’t be a movement for marriage equality and a movement for DC rights going on concurrently? I’m not one to give odds, but it seems like even with the challenges marriage rights face, at least that’s not a battle that has already been lost a billion times over the past several decades. It might not seem like a big priority for some DC residents, but for others it would be a huge accomplishment.
And why can’t the two reinforce each other? Surely if a marriage equality bill makes it through the council and we then get fucked over in the Congress, there will be a newly invigorated energy in DC’s progressive and gay populations to work towards DC autonomy. And if DC statehood and rights activists really care about civil liberties and equality, shouldn’t a battle for exactly those same things by marriage rights activists just give them even more reason to work?
The problem is that people don’t like to complicate things. Activists with different agendas often don’t get along or want to work together, for they always fear getting their hands tied to another cause that could go up in smoke. This often proved true in, say, fights for women’s rights versus African American rights in the 20th century. Similarly, the Obama team didn’t do jack shit to help defeat Prop 8 because they didn’t want to hurt themselves politically, and – as Ben pointed out yesterday – the No on 8 people didn’t do a very good job at reaching out and extending their base, which would have been hard but potentially fruitful work.
It takes broad coalitions to really make progress. I don’t think working towards marriage equality in DC should have to come after the fight for DC rights. And I think that both are likely to fail if those trying to get them done aren’t willing to build their support and see both battles as part of the same war – one for civil rights, democracy, and justice.
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I couldn’t agree with you more. As much as I love and admire Donna Brazile, I wonder how she would feel if say she were trying to marry a white man in pre-Loving Virginia and we were waiting to de-segregate the schools before “allowing” her to marry. I encourage everyone to join the discussion at HRC tonight (Information about this is to the right of this article.)
It’s one thing for the conservatives to put us on the back of the bus… quite another for the supposed progressives!
Let’s make it clear to everyone that we can’t accept anything less than full equality.
I cannot believe that anyone would be so consumed by identity politics that they would ignore the larger implications of VOTING RIGHTS FOR DC!!! Gay marriage is a footnote to Voting Rights for DC residents.
WE DO NOT HAVE VOTING REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS!!! Your neighbors in your “gayborhoods” don’t have it either. Is this really where people want to draw a line in the sand? Do LGBT people in DC want to make it an either or proposition? Gay Marriage versus Voting rights and legislative autonomy.
If so, then you will have the answer to questions about why the LGBT community can never seem to get anything done.
If we have voting rights and legislative autonomy, then we will get gay marriage. Our City Council supports it. Our “Delegate” supports it, but without legislative autonomy, we leave ourselves open to getting the right and having it stripped away from us. But they won’t need a referendum. They can do it with the stroke of a pen in some smoky backroom.
In addition to the potential road blocks Corey so aptly pointed out, did anyone think of this? Let’s say one of the right-wingers in the Congressional minority wants to win points back home. They can hold gay marriage hostage until our supporters cave on something else. Maybe that something will be the needle exchange program or another program to help fight the spread of HIV, again, something that benefits the City of DC and not just it’s gay residents. Maybe they will pit school vouchers against gay marriage. Who knows.
Here’s another one. What if gay marriage gets through the committee, but Dems use funding for gay marriage to buy a few Republican votes on something else. So, we get gay marriage, but because Congress controls virtually every dime that comes to the City, they could zero out funding for it. We’ll have gay marriage on paper, but no money with which the City can document them.
Ever heard of Appropriations Bills? Or the Omnibus Appropriations Bill? There are 13 of the first and the 2nd is hundreds of pages long. It would be so easy for members of the conference committees to get rid of gay marriage during the reconciliation of the House and Senate versions of the legislation.
Again, I WANT TO MARRY MY PARTNER!!!
But more than that, I want to live in a city that is not subject to the whims of either the Congressional majority (because it will change one day) or the deal making of people who do not live in our City. Until we get that, we leave ourselves wide open and allow members of Congress to play fast and loose with our rights.
We need to take the long view on this. Let’s get voting rights first, and then work on marriage. I’m all for marriage, but if we push for it now, we won’t get it, and we may set back the voting rights movement. Voting rights will help every resident in the District. And once we show them we can play ball, the residents of the District will be more amenable to securing us our rights.
i am in agreement with ed and landortrolls. voting rights for DC and full legislative and budget autonomy for the district are much, much more important, in my view, then my being able to become part of a failed institution RIGHT NOW. i think we need to take a deep breath on this marriage thing in the district and focus on something that we can actually get done and that will help us get marriage (if we really want it) later on. think of how constructive it could be to work together with the african-american community on voting rights and autonomy.
Sorry, on another note, I am so tired of people incorrectly using references to the civil rights movement to make points about issues in the LGBT community.
No one is making people sit at the back of the bus because we are homosexuals, and the anti-miscegenation laws are not parallel. Blocking the rights of LGBT people to marry is strictly political. Not allowing white indentured servants (aka white slaves) to marry African slaves was a way for wealthy land owners to create discord among the two groups. Landowners were greatly outnumbered, and if the two got together, they would be screwed.
Did you know that, back then, the punishment for an interracial marriage could be the white person is beaten with a whip and the black person was drawn & quartered? Then his or her body parts were hung in some central part of town for all to see. There was a disparity in the treatments because the land owners wanted poor whites to start identifying with them instead of black slaves.Now compare that to my partner and I not being able to get married.
People throw these things around like they are something cool they read in a history book, but guess what? My Grandparents paid poll taxes. My Grandmother's grandfather was born into slavery. She tells me stories about him. Some of our families lived through America's apartheid. Some didn't.
Being gay is tough–no doubt about it. But making comparisons to the things being faced by LGBT people (I might say that transgendered people could accurately make them) in 2008 is not even close to what people in my family and the families of other racial and ethnic minorities had to endure. And before folks get all hot and bothered, I did say Ethnic minorities. That includes Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish (in the non-religious context), etc.
If you are going to invoke instances of oppression from the past, please get them right. Otherwise it is insulting to the group to which you are trying to align yourself, and does a disservice to the LGBT community by allowing our opposition to dismiss us as being over dramatic.
Donna Brazile is correct, and as always an astute observer; she also played the “I’ll tell YOU I’m gay, but not the public” card for so long that I have a hard time respecting her. Since 1992 when the Clintons first arrived, we haven’t gotten any closer to voting rights or gay marriage. Even the compromise that Rep Davis and Eleanor Holmes Norton crafted couldn’t pass Congress, and that bill is anathema to a lot of people who do support voting rights for the District. At the time it was said that it was the best we could do, but I think we’re aiming too low now.
Congress did prevent DC from spending any of its own money to support the domestic partnership registry, and was successful in holding the city hostage.
It is also true that DC has gotten around that for some programs such as needle-exchange, by some relatively smart maneuvering.
The voting rights cause is very important, but it also requires a change in the Constitution, which tends to be a very slow process that not even the current state of affairs can effect in no time at all. The Constitution has placed the federal government in charge of the District and has created no clear method of how to equalize DC’s status, without it becoming a state. How do you propose to do that? The DC voting rights organizations are very much split on the topic and there’s a bit of an internecine war between our delegate and some of the groups.
Do we have to play the “your oppression doesn’t rate” game every time? Ugh. In truth gay rights and womens’ movements rights have far more in common, since both have been oppressed since time immemorial, have been burned at the stake for their “aberration” against the straight male “norm”, and generally have found no nation where they form an equal until modern times.
copp3rred
I am having trouble following your post.
1. Donna Brazile is "correct" and an "astute observer," but you "have a hard time respecting her?" Huh?
2. Norton and Davis crafted a compromise that "couldn't pass" … a Republican controlled Congress or get signed into law by a Republican President. The bill is a good bill, and it's prospects of passing in the next Congress are pretty good.
3. To what group of people is the bill "anathema"?
4. Congress did deny funding for the DCDP law–for two years under Clinton and a Democratic Congress and for 8 years under Clinton & Bush and Republicans in Congress. So, is that an argument in favor of home rule? or just a point you're making?
5. I don't know about "smart maneuvering." I know the ban was lifted.
6. Voting rights are "very important," but you list every reason in the world why it doesn't stand a chance. Or am I reading that wrong. Let's take a page from the Republican playbook and get it passed and signed into law.
7. You express disdain for the "your oppression doesn't rate" game, whatever that is, and then you turn around and talk about how bad women and gays have it. Is that playing the game? I'm not sure.
8. If your last paragraph is a reference to my post, I would encourage you to read it again. It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with "oppression" and everything to do with historical accuracy. Take another look.
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