Atlantis Alumni

Friday, December 5, 2008

New York: Gays Get Screwed Yet Again

We saw the film "Milk" last night, and I was going to write a blog entry about it this morning until I read the New York Times story on how the Democrats in the New York State Senate cut a deal with three "dissident" conservative Democrats for their support. The bottom line is the gay marriage will be blocked by these three in return for their support of the party leadership:

Mr. Díaz is now confident that there will be no vote in the Senate next year on legislation to legalize gay marriage, something which most Senate Democrats support but which Mr. Diaz strongly opposes.

Religious bigots like Diaz continue to be able to subvert the rights of the gay community in this country. It's an outrage. The gay community seems powerless to fight back, whether it's against the Mormons in California, or their ilk in New York State.

What would Harvey Milk do in this case? He'd be out there yelling at the top of his lungs for every complacent, closeted, comfortable gay and lesbian to come out, and if they are out to then get involved in the fight. But we have no Harvey Milk today, we have only the Human Rights Campaign, which takes the approach that it's best to raise money and funnel it to politicians who are all to eager to abandon us for political expediency. When you see the film "Milk" you are impressed with the leadership of Harvey Milk as so beautifully portrayed by Sean Penn. Thirty years ago he helped defeat an anti-gay proposition in California. This year we lost Prop 8 in California. And we lost it for the very reasons Milk rejected the strategy of conservative gay activists in 1978: we can't win if we have no pride in ourselves, if we hide who we are.

As Larry Kramer wonders: "Where is the outrage?" How long will gays and lesbians continue to accept second class status or worse? Forever? I also read a headline that states: "Prop 8 Sundance protest fizzles." Really? Another blow. We gays must enjoy being beaten up, that's all I can figure. We take it and take it, and then come back for more. When will we say enough is enough?

Jim

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