Opinions

[BullDog]

The more I think of same sex marriage supposedly being a class issue the less it makes sense to me. This isn't just in response to things aishah has said because I have heard it outside of BFP too.

Let's say you have a wealthy gay male couple and a poor lesbian couple. Who do you think needs legal protection for their relationship more?

The wealthy couple can hire attorneys, tax accountants, financial planners, estate planners etc etc. What sort of access does the poor couple have?

[Cin]

Originally Posted by BullDog

The more I think of same sex marriage supposedly being a class issue the less it makes sense to me. This isn't just in response to things aishah has said because I have heard it outside of BFP too.

Let's say you have a wealthy gay male couple and a poor lesbian couple. Who do you think needs legal protection for their relationship more?

The wealthy couple can hire attorneys, tax accountants, financial planners, estate planners etc etc. What sort of access does the poor couple have?

You know that's exactly what I was thinking but I feel like I must be missing something. And as a poor, definitively marginalized, quite the opposite of mainstream, butch woman who has never been confused with a middle/upper class white queer, I keep trying to understand what I am missing. Growing up how I did and being poor all my life I usually grasp stuff like this but I'm not seeing how marriage equality whether or not it is an over emphasized and over valued issue can be anything but a good thing for me. Plus it opens up coming back to the US as an option.

[BullDog]

I certainly get that white and middle class issues often dominate and others have to continue to fight to be heard and have their issues part of the movement as well. We only have to look to feminism to clearly see that.

However the way same sex marriage is described as a white, middle class issue truly makes no sense to me. As Cheryl said, what about low income people who lose their partner and then don't have access to social security benefits that a heterosexual would have?

[Cin]

And for same sex marriage to have any benefit for me personally it has to be federal. Yet I see each victory in each state as a stepping stone.

Maybe it is to some degree an age thing. I've seen so much change that I never even imagined I would that I probably don't have the same kinds of expectations as someone from a generation that grew up hearing queer and rights in the same sentence. I think the shape of the hate and prejudice you experience twists your expectations. When I was a teenager I thought it was a great weekend if I escaped getting the shit kicked out of me at some bar by some fun loving dudes who thought it was a big joke to call me little man and play hacky sack with my head. Not that stuff like that still doesn't happen it's just a bit of a different climate today. I never imagined I would get to marry the woman I loved. I want my basic human and civil rights too, but I'm prepared for it not to be an express ride.

[aishah]

i don't expect it to be an express ride, either - i don't know any younger (or for that matter older - 40-50+) activists (at least in the communities i am part of) who do. most of us have experienced hate and prejudice (not to mention loss of jobs, loss of loved ones, violence against loved ones, violence against us, etc.). i respect that it was much harder decades ago. but most of us know this shit is still hard.

i don't believe marriage itself is solely a white, middle-class issue. i do believe white, middle-class folks dominate the conversation (at least in the u.s.) and that that is part of why marriage is the single issue. and part of the media piece is projecting an assimilationist/mainstreamed idea of what queer is (usually white, middle-class, and monogamous), and i think that does some harm to the rest of us in terms of marginalizing us further (regardless of whether we have legal protection for our marriages).

[Cin]

Originally Posted by aishah

i do believe white, middle-class folks dominate the conversation (at least in the u.s.) and that that is part of why marriage is the single issue. and part of the media piece is projecting an assimilationist/mainstreamed idea of what queer is (usually white, middle-class, and monogamous), and i think that does some harm to the rest of us in terms of marginalizing us further (regardless of whether we have legal protection for our marriages).

Yes I do imagine it might marginalize us further when we don't meet the expectation of what queer has been projected as being. What a disappointment I will be for sure.

As a very masculine looking person who insists on being seen as a woman I never expect assimilation. The idea of being seen as even less mainstream because of some image the media has projected about queers and marriage has never entered my mind. But I suppose anything is possible. i just haven't thought about this possibility much. I just don't expect middle North America to ever look at me with anything less than disdain. And personally I'll take disdain over some of the other looks I get. At least it's fairly benign. I suppose that could change if queers are supposed to look a certain way and I don't meet the expectation. I would hate to find myself in a world of shit because of false advertising from mainstream queers for marriage.