0 For 31-What Now?

The gay community lost another marriage fight in Maine, and in their pissivity over the loss they're once again a la California, letting the negativity flow.

I was wondering who Dan Savage and the gay community were going to blame for this latest loss since African-Americans make up only 1% of Maine's population.

Lo and behold, they found a Black person to blame for their loss anyway.

President Obama.

Keep it up, people. But while you're bitching about what happened in Maine and pointing fingers, take a moment to look in the mirror and point one at yourself as well.

While you're jumping down President Obama's throat for not speaking up and in your words 'being a good ally', y'all see to have forgotten all the times you dismissed coalition building opportunities with other groups by uttering the words 'it's not a gay issue'.

Politicians are also looking at that 0-31 number as well. If you folks thought they and the general public weren't paying attention to that stat plus the four decades of shady behavior directed at the trans community, they were.

The noted the legions of gay and lesbian people actively working to cut trans people out of legislation we desperately needed while uttering the words 'we'll come back for you', 'they need more education on this issue', 'get over it' or 'you're not part of 'our' movement'.

After watching that, I wouldn't doubt politicians have in the back of their minds, 'If this is how they treat their allies, how loyal are they going to be to me?'

The karmic wheel is a rhymes with itch, too.

It's not fun being cut out of legislation is it? It's a pain watching politicians vote to keep you a second class citizen or not speak about you in public.

Not fun to watch the fundies put together a petition drive designed to put your civil rights on the electoral chopping block, and basically violate all of the Ten Commandments while campaigning to do so.

Now you know what it's like to walk in the trans community's shoes.

It's aggravating to have rights that you already possess taken away, as transpeople's marriage rights are thanks to the conservabacklash from your gay marriage push.

I'm also getting sick of seeing the 'homophobic African-American' meme raise its ugly head across the Gayosphere as you peeps work through your righteous anger over the loss.

Um, did you not forget that some GLBT people not only happen to be chocolate flavored, but bust their asses to support this issue? Probably not.

I guess when y'all say to non-gay America that GLBT Americans are 'just like you', it doesn't include us or any POC in the equation, huh?.

Trans community leaders warned in 2003 that it was a tactical mistake to shift the organizing focus of the GLBT movement from passing GLBT rights at local, state and the federal level to pushing marriage equality.

Some gay people have the misguided belief that all civil rights flow from marriage equality. No, they don't.

I'm in favor of marriage equality. But being an ally doesn't mean that I check my brain at the door either, I can't comment in the spirit of Kingian love when y'all screw up or that I'm not supposed to express my constitutional rights to speak my mind just as you insist on doing when you bash the President.

And lets get real, all civil rights do not flow from marriage, nor will everyone in the GLBT community benefit. All you have to do is look north of the border at Canada to see that truism play out.

African-Americans have been able to get legally married since emancipation. It still took us over 100 years, a lot of shed blood, several court decisions, marches, and several federal Civil Rights Acts just to get to first class citizenship status, and we're still fighting tooth and nail just to avoid any slippage.

If you want marriage, not only are you going to have to rethink the strategies for achieving it, you are going to have to come to grips with the fact it may take 25 to 100 years and a federal constitutional amendment to do so.

After 31 straight losses, it's past time to seriously consider deemphasizing marriage as THE organizing push for the GLBT rights movement.

It's time to stop playing in the Religious Right' backyard and push a full equality strategy that puts Constitutional arguments front and center, not the marriage equality ones that specious religious ones and half-truth, lies and falsehoods dominate.

You might recognize the strategy. It's the one my people successfully used.