You see something absurd. You hear something absurd. You read something absurd = Yeah,TNTG. Posts tagged gay marriage.
“ In reality, the numbers of same-sex families of color are increasing, especially in traditionally conservative Bible Belt regions in the South. African American strongholds like Atlanta have seen a new black “re-migration” driven by the ripple effect of high unemployment, foreclosures, and gentrification in northern urban black communities. According to Family Equality, LGBT families are “more racially and ethnically diverse than families headed by married heterosexual couples. Of same-sex couples with children, 41% are people of color, compared to 34% of married different-sex couples with children.” Impacted by racism, sexism, heterosexism, and segregation, same-sex families of color are also more likely to be near the poverty line and hence more reliant on public social welfare and health care assistance. Nonetheless, when textbooks, TV shows, and Hollywood films envision culturally “diverse” LGBT families it is through the lens of privileged white middle class folk who have “benevolently” decided to adopt a child of color (ala the white gay couple on the sitcom “Modern Family”) or used expensive reproductive technology to have children. In this context, marriage equality merely secures white wealth and white patriarchy, as white gay families also benefit from segregated neighborhoods, schools, tax credits for middle class homeowners, and higher-paying jobs. Complex families of color that are either headed by single gay or straight parents are marginalized as inherently dysfunctional, welfare-dependent and socially borderline. Loving gay partners of color with children are nonexistent.
— Sikivu Hutchinson, Defense of Marriage: Racism, Family Values and the 99% (via theraceproblem)
CHILLS DOWN MY SPINE.
http://www.qwoc.org/2012/06/queer-rage-from-lgbt-students-of-color-poetry-performance-critiques-marriage-politics-and-is-badass/
ALL THE FUCKING CHILLS
damn, what a beautifully powerful performance.
Fucking beautiful….
“Rainbows are just a trick of the light”
Last night, this message was projected onto the Supreme Court.
via @rachnyctalk
Queer African American Women and the History of Marriage
This photo and headline accompanied an article from the October 15, 1970 issue of Jet magazine. They reveal that long before the recent struggle for marriage equality began, African American women who love women have engaged with the institution of marriage and have fought to make it their own.
Edna Knowles, on the left, and Peaches Stevens were wed in Liz’s Mark III Lounge, a gay bar on the South Side of Chicago, “before a host of friends and well wishers.” The article ended by noting, “although the duo has a type of ‘marriage license’ in their possession, the state’s official marriage license bureau reported it had no record of their license.” This ending serves to remind Jet readers that Knowles and Stevens’ union was not legitimate in the eyes of the state, as does the use of quotes around the word “married” in the headline.
However, decades prior to this bold public display of queer affection, African American female couples in New York strategized alternative ways to obtain marriage licenses in the 1920s and 30s:
“Marriage ceremonies were held with large wedding parties which included several bridesmaids, attendants, and other wedding party members. Actual marriage licenses were obtained by either masculinizing the first name, or having a gay male surrogate obtain the license for the marrying couple. These marriage licenses were placed on file with the New York City Marriage Bureau.” - Luvenia Pinson, “The Black Lesbian: Times Past-Time Present,” Womanews, May 1980 p. 8.
Also during the 1930s, popular performer Gladys Bentley was making a living singing bawdy tunes and playing piano late into the night at various clubs all over New York, including one named after her.
Bentley married her white girlfriend in Atlantic City in a ceremony to which she invited friends in the entertainment industry:
“Columnist Louis Sobol remembered Bentley coming over to his table one night and whispering, ‘I’m getting married tomorrow and you’re invited.’ When Sobol asked who the lucky man was to be, she giggled and replied, ‘Man? Why boy you’re crazy. I’m marryin’ ——’ and she named another woman singer.” - Eric Garber, “Gladys Bentley: The Bulldagger Who Sang the Blues,” Out/Look, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1988, pp. 52-61.
These examples show some of the various ways queer African American women have created public rituals to express their relationships and have therefore insisted on their rights to full citizenship, many decades prior to the current struggle for marriage equality.- Cookie
We were discussing gay marriage in class and some girl was like ‘God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’ and another girl was like ‘God ain’t create that cheap-ass lace front on your head either. That shit is Lucifer-made.’
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Let’s remember the politics of marriage itself. The simplistic formula that claims “you’re either pro-marriage or against equality” makes us forget that all forms of marriage perpetuate gender, racial and economic inequality. It mistakenly assumes that support for marriage is the only good measure of support for LGBT communities. This political moment calls for anti-homophobic politics that centralize anti-racism and anti-poverty. Marriage is a coercive state structure that perpetuates racism and sexism through forced gender and family norms. Right wing pro-marriage rhetoric has targeted families of color and poor families, supported a violent welfare and child protection system, vilified single parents and women, and marginalized queer families of all kinds. Expanding marriage to include a narrow band of same-sex couples only strengthens that system of marginalization and supports the idea that the state should pick which types of families to reward and recognize and which to punish and endanger.
We still demand a queer political agenda that centralizes the experiences of prisoners, poor people, immigrants, trans people, and people with disabilities. We reject a gay agenda that pours millions of dollars into campaigns for access to oppressive institutions for a few that stand to benefit.
We are being told marriage is the way to solve gay people’s problems with health care access, immigration, child custody, and symbolic equality. It does not solve these problems, and there are real campaigns and struggles that would and could approach these problems for everyone, not just for a privileged few. Let’s take the energy and money being put into gay marriage and put it toward real change: opposing the War on Terror and all forms of endless war; supporting queer prisoners and building a movement to end imprisonment; organizing against police profiling and brutality in our communities; fighting attacks on welfare, public housing and Medicaid; fighting for universal health care that is trans and reproductive healthcare inclusive; fighting to tax wealth not workers; fighting for a world in which no one is illegal.
— Dean Spade and Crag Willse in I Still Think Marriage is the Wrong Goal (via spittingonhegel)
Anyone who has played pick-up basketball has encountered the bratty, non-balling dude who will leave the court and take his ball with him if things aren’t going his way. I suggest that LGBT advocates take a lesson from that guy, and adopt a new campaign slogan: If we can’t get married, nobody can. That’s right. Instead of working to be included in the marriage ritual, make real, non-assimilative gestures. Channel that energy for same-sex marriage towards abolishing the institution–for everyone. Marriage rights for absolutely nobody. No more getting them to like us. No more forwarding a heteronormative and respectable notion of same-sex encounters in an effort to get them to see that we’re not all that different. That didn’t work for black people. No more with this love talk. Although that may have seemingly worked for interracial couples, those who pay close attention know that such language cannot completely undo hundreds of years of socialized, race-based fetishism. No more discussions of Ellen and her wife or thinking of convincing Time-Warner to remove Bravo from Tobacco Road cable packages. Tokenism does nothing but justify the rule. Just say nothing, leave the court, and take your ball with you.
“ The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words. Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as property and children as trophies of sexual prowess. Marriage is under attack by low wages, high incarceration, unfair tax policy, unemployment, and lack of education. Marriage is under attack by clergy who proclaim monogamy yet think nothing of stepping outside the bonds of marriage to have multiple affairs with “preaching groupies.
“ Marriage is a prime example of a straight institution fraught with role playing. Traditional marriage is a rotten, oppressive institution. Those of us who have been in heterosexual marriages too often have blamed our gayness on the breakup on the marriage. NO. They broke up because marriage is a contract which smothers both people, denies needs, and places impossible demands on both people. And we had the strength, again, to refuse to capitulate to the roles which were demanded of us. Gay people must stop gauging their self respect by how well they mimic straight marriages. Gay marriages will have the same problems as straight ones except in burlesque.
— Carl Wittman, “A Gay Manifesto” (1970)
