Andrew Sullivan: “No On 8: Worse Than We Thought”

Sullivan points out an interview with Latrice Johnson of the group United Lesbians of African Heritage. She is an African-American gay rights activist who approached the No on 8 Campaign to help to sway African-American votes. She reports that she was roundly dismissed:

Did anyone come and say, “Hey, we need to do outreach in the African-American community together?”

Absolutely not, in fact the message I got from a key person in the No on 8 campaign was that the black vote was really going to be insignificant. It’s not enough, that it wasn’t going to be an issue because we are not a majority of the vote, even though they knew that a large number was going to come out to vote for Obama. It wasn’t a fear because they didn’t feel like the numbers were going to affect (Prop 8 ) either way.

Read the full interview at Two Down, 48 to Go.

Same-Sex Marriage and Gay Marriage: A Bad Phraseology

Leading LGBT-rights groups keep referring to this issue as “same-sex marriage,” again playing the game in terms of the opposition. Both same-sex and gay marriage add unnecessary qualifiers to the word ‘marriage.’ Slightly reminiscent of colored bathrooms and white-only counters, no?

Opponents of marriage equality most often use the term same-sex marriage. It conjures up thoughts of homosexual bedroom antics. This is the way homosexuals have been defined for decades, and some would continue to have us be defined as such. So we have to phrase our battle in terms of our ownership of the struggle, and not let the opposition write any more rules.

One of Human Rights Campaign’s Facebook causes is called Legalize Same-Sex Marriage. This phrasing asks that they, whoever they are, legalize something for us, as the other. One better name would be “Enforce Marriage Equality,” i.e. our rights are protected by s/he above (the government), and they have no say in it.

This struggle has gone on for far too long in the wrong direction with the same people running it, and the onus is on us to re-define the rules and plays of the game…if we are to succeed.