change.gov

I hear you, and I'm a bit confused about "Sportsmen" being listed as an "Additional Issue". For real? At least make it gender-neutral!

Also, what exactly is meant by "Family". Does that include non-married partners? Queer couples who adopt?

Yeah ... it has been fascinating to watch my go-go-gobama friends realize, ever so very slowly, that for all the hype he's still a moderate Democrat and not actually a radical. Or even all that progressive.

But ... if you read the "family" section, they doesn't ever define "family" beyond the very general notion of adults raising children and trying to keep it all together. The O/B family agenda is about afterschool care and family medical leave.

The explicit queer agenda that might address things like gay partners who aren't eligible for benefits as spouses is most definitely MIA, but perhaps that is what http://change.gov/page/s/ofthepeople is for?

I'm a homogayqueer and want to pipe up (in?) with a couple of points. First, the right to marry isn't every LGBTQQ person's fight. In fact, lots of us see assimilation into the mainstream via an institution like marriage to be in opposition to our politics. I'd say this is especially true in communities that self-describe as queer, a word that often gestures toward a more radical, less-assimilationist, politicised identity. Second, I think the focus on marriage rather narrowly describes the range of issues that affect the lives of LGBTQQ people. For a lot of us, the right to marry and accrue the benefits that come with that status (including the not-insignificant benefit of seeing yourself recognized by the state) isn't at the top of the priority list. Like anybody else, issues related to poverty, racism, the environment, the economy, immigration, etc. might all trump marriage for large swaths of the gay community.

Prop 8 is horrible. It may be nominally about preventing gay marriage, but really it's an expression of the ugliest kind of hate. But it isn't the only issue that affects LGBTQQ people, and I just wanted to put that out there--the response to prop 8 has been so (understandably) deafening that I've been feeling a little out of place in my own resistance to making marriage the center of gay politics, so wanted to say a little something about that here.

I was amazed that Obama said the word gay in his speech the other night!

a few points b4 the monster insists i do something else (in my arms hence shorthand & typos)

1 - obama has said DOMA shd be overturned ...i imagine the federal piece would be easier to do, and would directly benefit several people i know who could have health insurance for their partners ....

2 - i think there's a lot to be happy about regarding this election without getting too crazy or blind or unrealistic about what is, after all, a center-right political party, heavily invested in corporate capitalism, committed to many and various social controls, and besotted by a variety of mythologies only slightly less dangerous than the Christian nationalists' ... i am personally enjoying, in approximate order,
- (1) the repudiation of the republicans with all their theocratic imperialistic crap,
- (2) the historical and symbolic significance of obama's election, and the real joy his election has brought to millions of people who care about antiracism or at least civil rights, and the sense of community & togetherness that many people have experienced from it ...
- (3) the not-too-unreasonable hope that Democratic Party policies will be less bellicose and warmongering and hate-filled than the previous administrations, and that the current fashion in populist economic rhetoric might redistribute a little bit of the wealth and create a bit more social justice and alleviate the pains of our miserable healthcare system and -- *please* -- save this world for our children ....

3 - my 2c: the marriage issue is very much like the military issue -- lots of social, economic, legal benefits to access to both institutions, yet both are institutions historically and arguably inherently are anti-liberty -- for those within & without.

But, because access to the institutions controls privileges (and is identified as a privilege, itself), State discrimination against classes of people in controlling access to those institutions is odious. And should be struggled against, IMO, as much as any other class-based discrimination in conferring benefits OR detriments. Really, these are two sides of the same coin anyway -- whenever there is a privileged class, there is a de-privileged, discriminated-against class.

So the discrimination should be fought, but fighting D in these historical institutions has the added benefit of undermining those institutions as social controls ... So, in my view, every "reform" along the lines of eliminating discrimination & undermining social / State controls is a blow for the Revolution. With all appropriate ironic air quotes around "reform" and "Revolution". (monster is now asleep stuffed full of milk) So open up marriage to poly, create civil unions & domestic partnerships to make marriage less "special" and "unique", encourage the de-linking of privileges from marriage (and the military), and live however you need / feel appropriate to live for yourself ...

.... wow, one can get so much writing done when one's infant is asleep.

hugs to J who is not one of my few heterosexual friends but one of my favorites nonetheless ...