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MARCH 21, 1997 GAY PEOPle's ChronICLE
9
SPEAK OUT
Two effective ways to cope with anti-gay victories
by Hastings Wyman, Jr. When Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice (R) recently said that someone had “defiled timehonored customs," I thought he was apologizing to the public for taking up with his high school sweetheart in Memphis several years ago, leaving his embarrassed wife back home at the governor's mansion in Jackson. (He since returned to his senses and the mansion.)
But no, this Christian fundamentalistbacked politician was not referring to his own much-publicized flouting of millennia-old marital vows. Rather, the governor was talking about gay people "cultural subversives,” he called us-whose advocacy of same-sex marriage required the Magnolia State to legislate its ban.
But let us not pick on Mississippi—it has a lot of company. As of this writing, Congress and some 20 state legislatures have passed legislation against same-gender marriages. And no state has sanctioned gay marriages. Even in Hawaii, the state whose supreme court put the issue in motion, the legislature may well pass a measure calling for a sure-to-pass referendum on amending the state's constitution to ban same-gender marriages (“Honolulu, not Homolulu," said the demonstrators' signs at the state capitol.)
Moreover, public opinion polls confirm that the legislators are carrying out the will of the people. Statewide polls-taken in February by the Media Research Company for the Washington Blade and other news mediafound that 70% of Hawaiians and 69% of lowans are opposed to same-sex marriage. Similarly, a poll the firm took in January in Arkansas found 79% opposed.
So for now the cause of gay liberation is being dealt a strong setback. Moreover, this defeat follows by four years another significant loss-congressional legislation, with White House acquiescence, that made more
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permanent, rather than lifted, the military's ban on gay and lesbian service members.
In sum, the nation's political climate is currently hostile to gays and lesbians-and that's depressing. But there are two therapies one outward, one inward-that will work as well as Prozac to lift that depression and help bring about the ultimate success of gay liberation.
The outward-looking prescription is to keep on keeping on. First, do politics. You know the drill: Vote, join, run, campaign, send money, lick stamps and knock on doors for candidates and causes that will help bring gay people into full participation in American life. In addition, sue the bastards, or at least support the organizations that litigate on behalf of lesbian and gay rights. And perhaps most important, come out to friends, family, and co-workers—judiciously if need be, but as often as you can.
The inward cure is to enjoy the rich and varied life that the gay community offers to those of us fortunate to be a part of it. Especially if you live in a city, you don't have to put up with a bunch of hypocritical homophobes. Today, there are enough movies, plays, books, magazines and concerts that tell gay and lesbian stories that you don't have to sit there translating straight art and entertainment into something recognizable, unless you so choose. Ditto for churches, restaurants, bars and athletic events. Not to mention groups of gardeners, bridge-players, journalists, motorcyclists, witches, et al.
Last month the New Yorker published an article on Zora Neale Hurston, the Harlem Renaissance writer of the 1920s and '30s. Hurston's approach to the racial oppression of her time-an oppression far worse than that experienced today by either African-Americans or gay people was to focus on the personal lives of her fictional characters. Born and raised in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, Hurston had a ready role model for a
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world without whites. So in her novels (Their Eyes Were Watching God, etc.) and plays (e.g. Spunk, based on her short stories and performed at Washington's Studio Theatre in 1993), she focused on love, desire, death-all described in black dialect.
Hurston's critics, who included much of the black literary establishment of the day, correctly noted that she failed to attack the institutionalized racism that so hampered American blacks. Similarly, the bombing of the lesbian bar in the gay section of Atlanta underscores that gay people cannot retreat safely into a queer ghetto.
Nevertheless, for all her political naivete, Hurston saw a profound cultural truth—most
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human beings of any race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation spend far more of their time in the everyday-ness of life than in voting, licking stamps or knocking on doors. If the politics part of the gay revolution is going poorly, none of us have to despair. We still have these vibrant communities, created mostly during the past quarter of a century, that offer gay people the makings of a wonderful life.
Moreover, being part of the gay community will keep us healthy enough to continue the politicking, confound our enemies, and make our good times even better.
Hastings Wyman Jr., of Washington, D.C., has published the nonpartisan Southern Political Report since 1978.
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