In honor of my brother, David, who is fighting cancer, an my mother, Anne who passed away from cancer nearly ten years ago, I am joining the social media campaign to fight cancer today. For every blog post, Facebook update, and Twitter post with the hashtag #beatcancer, $.01 is donated to cancer charities. I’m helping to raise funds to #beatcancer, by blogging, tweeting and posting Facebook status updates. Click here to join me!
Since the Presidential debates of 2008, I have been a believer in the potential of the Internet and social networking tools to be productive tools of public discourse. It was so exciting to come home from work every day and watch the news or the debates and connect online with people all over the country about issues.
I am decidedly left of center politically, a proud liberal dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, and I am guilty of conversing with others who more often than not share my convictions. It is not that I don’t want to debate the issues, with people on the right, but I will admit that I don’t relish the conflict.
I would be interested in civil public discourse, but I have to say that the extreme views of the Tea Party led by Rush Limbaugh and the Fox Network are not conducive to such constructive discourse. And now it seems that some social networkers on the right are interested in public discourse, but only anonymously and only to be personally insulting and abusive to individuals who oppose them. At least that has been my experience.
It is natural for debate about important issues to make people angry, but if we can’t commit to treat each other with respect, and only resort to trying to intimidate each other by yelling down people with insults at town halls or tweeting cruel insults anonymously at people we disagree with, we’re never going to be able to find sustainable solutions to major problems.
I have invited conservatives to productive and respectful dialog here before, and I am doing it again. I continue to believe that finding common ground is possible, but this is a two way street, and people on both sides have to be willing to meet in the middle. Clinging to opposite extremes is only going to keep us stuck where are instead of moving productively forward.
Posted in Community, Opinion, Politics, Twitter | 2 Comments »
I’ve been seeing a lot of headlines in the press, mainstream and LGBT, about marriage equality framed in the term “gay marriage.” Here is an example from a tweet from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
I it unfortunate that “gay marriage” is the term that has stuck in the popular vernacular. My wife and I were on the front lines in the beginning of this civil rights movement when it began in 2004. At that time, we were coached by the leading activists of the movement, including many folks from NCLR, not to talk about “gay marriage,” but rather same-sex marriage or marriage equality. There are many good reasons not to use the term “gay marriage.
On of the reasons I am opposed to the “gay marriage” frame is that many lesbians, myself included, don’t identify as “gay.” “Gay” is by and large a term used to describe homosexual men, and as a woman, I simply don’t identify. Gay is gender specific and exclusive of women.
Perhaps more importantly, the term “gay marriage” frames the civil rights issue as if the institution of marriage would be different for same-sex couples. Someone once said to me “we don’t want a disco version of marriage! We want equal marriage rights!”
I also understand the fact that “gay marriage” is the dominant paradigm, and that when people do a news search about it they are not going to search for marriage equality. Bloggers, journalists, and activists want their web pages to appear in the search, so they have to use the terms, too. I know, also, that “gay” is three letters and will take up far less real estate in a headline or a 140-character tweet.
However, is is too much to ask the queer press to at least make an effort to frame the national conversation differently? The example of the tweet that I cited before from NCLR didn’t take up nearly Twitter’s 140-character limit.
I understand the reasons why so many in the queer press write and talk about same-sex marriage using the frame of “gay marriage,” but I see plenty of opportunities where people can be mindful and talk about marriage equality instead. I fear that “gay marriage” has become so pervasive that we in the marriage equality movement have fully adopted it, too.
I sincerely hope that people will be more mindful and change the frame of the conversation whenever the opportunity arises.
Posted in Opinion, Politics, Twitter | Leave a Comment »
As representatives of the fourth leg of democracy, I wish that reporters had framed differently the coverage of President Obama’s meeting with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley. Framing the meeting as a “beer summit” is immediately dismissive of what could be an important turning point in the public discourse on race. The intention of this meeting wasn’t to solve the problem of racism in this country, as some of the questions from the press may have suggested.
I think that President Obama is smart enough to understand that one meeting over a beer isn’t going to provide the necessary platform to heal the nation of it’s wounds about the legacy of slavery. However, I think that an informal meeting over a beer can diffuse a painful situation on a topic that many Americans have been quick to respond to and have many difficult conversations about.
No one is perfect in this conversation; I have no problem believing that Gates lost his cool when it probably wasn’t appropriate; I don’t think that Obama chose his words well when he said that the Cambridge police acted stupidly; I have no doubt that Sgt. Crowley would never have arrested Dr. Gates had he been a white man. These are all actions that are going to provoke justifiable anger.
The ugliness of racism is a reality that we all live with. White people can’t know what it’s like to experience racism, and people of all colors are burdened with the guilt of racism, try as we might to resist it within ourselves. We may not be racists, but we sometimes act in racist ways, most times with the opposite intentions.
We have to come together in honesty, empathy, and forgiveness for ourselves and each other. Whether it’s over a beer, a cup of coffee, or over Facebook, I think we need to risk saying stupid things, be ready to apologize, and be ready to forgive. This is the only way we’re going to be able to foster real healing on the issue of racism.
Posted in Opinion | Leave a Comment »
I was discouraged a few weeks ago after the California Supreme Court hearing on Proposition 8. While it looks likely that the court will not rule in favor of civil rights for the LGBT community, things are looking up in other parts of the world for marriage equality. The Iowa Supreme Court unanimously ruled that marriage is a civil right for same sex couples. The Vermont Legislature overrode Governor Douglas’s veto of the marriage equality bill in that state. Same sex marriage was legalized in Sweden.
Friends and acquaintances have suggested to me that perhaps we should be fighting for civil unions for all couples, ending state-sanctioned marriage altogether. It’s a nice idea, and it supports the separation of church and state, if you subscribe to the idea that the word “marriage” means a holy union sanctioned by God. However, this seems like an even bigger undertaking to me than simply fighting for marriage equality for all couples. Trying to enforce a paradigm of civil unions, no matter what the gender of the couples involved, would work in the US about as well as converting us all to using the metric system did back in the 1970s.
We can debate the merits and drawbacks of what we’re going to call our committed, consensual, adult, two-person family units and whether the state should recognize us as married couples or civilly unionized couples. Cultures and languages evolve naturally, and like it or not, marriage is the dominant paradigm. Additionally, the anti-gay activists will oppose any protections for same sex couples whether they’re called civil unions or marriages, so the struggle remains the same.
It is how people live and speak about their day-to-day lives that ultimately gives shape to our identities and our family units. Same sex couples live in the world as opposite sex couples. We have careers and families, and we are productive members of our communities. Our parents, friends, siblings, and neighbors respect us and count on us. Some of us are vulnerable and need protections of the state like any other citizens. The people of the United States believe in fairness and equality. In the fight for marriage equality we are on the right side of history, and we will one day win our civil rights and be able to legally marry.
Posted in Friends & Family, Opinion, Politics | Leave a Comment »
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