(First published at mikealvear.com)
I logged onto Facebook today and was bombarded with invitations by friends to hit the streets in protest of California’s not overturning Proposition 8, their law that bans same-sex marriage. Noble protests, in my opinion, but misdirected, considering that neither myself nor anyone inviting me actually lives in California. This sort of logic escapes me, like storming a McDonald’s demanding a refund because Burger King got your order wrong.
I am pro-gay marriage. I don’t think it runs the risk of devaluing marriage in American society. Straight people have devalued it enough (Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, for example). I think gay marriage would be an enormous boost to a struggling economy, extremely benefiting the entertainment, real estate, and legal communities. More importantly, I think gay marriage would dramatically improve the lives of thousands of overlooked children trapped inside the broken foster care system in this country.
That being said, why aren’t gay rights activists focusing more on states where the struggle is far more complicated and unfair than it is in California? In the most populated areas of California, gay people can congregate safely and reap the benefits of basic equality granted by living in a forward-thinking state. The majority of Californians can be out at work without fear of losing their jobs. They can purchase property with no fear of discrimination. They can report hate crimes and harassment to their local police departments with full confidence that the law is on their side.
I live in what is strongly considered to be the gayest neighborhood in America. Per capita, there are supposedly more gay people in my neighborhood than even in any neighborhoods of New York City or San Francisco. We even have our own Wikipedia page outlining just how gay we are here! So every time this California gay marriage ban news hits the airwaves, the protests here in Boystown, Chicago begin. In a neighborhood where a heterosexual couple holding hands in the street catches your eye quicker than an 8 foot tall drag queen in a bedazzled onesie, is a gay rights protest really necessary? My pro-protest friends tell me that it’s merely to give the issue visibility.
There are 29 other states in the Union where gay marriage bans are written into their constitutions. That’s more than half! And the majority of these are states that arguably not even heterosexual African Americans are yet given full equality. I wonder every time I get these protest invitations not only why I’m being asked to protest a law in California when I live in Illinois, but also where the protesters were when the GLBT communities of states like Kentucky, Wisconsin, and Oregon needed them? When a law was passed in Arkansas in 2008 to ban gay adoption, which to me is a far worse crime than banning gay marriage, I didn’t receive a single email asking me for money from the Human Rights Campaign. No one in my neighborhood, for “visibility” purposes, marched from the gay bar past the gay gym, rallying together outside of the gay coffee shop.
During the Civil Rights Movement, it was decided that the fight for equality would begin at ground zero, even though most states still had laws restricting the rights of African Americans (yes, even the northern states!). The south would be where the battle would be more visible and more effective. Why aren’t gay rights activists using that proven method? It turned out to be quite effective, in case you hadn’t heard, because not even fifty years later we have an African American President.
California will come around. Californians are quite progressive. It’s a state that tolerates 60 year old women with pulled back faces and the store-bought boobs of a teenager. The gay community in San Francisco alone has more political pull than John McCain. How long do you think they’ll actually stand for prejudice? Why not focus more on rallying around the gay people of Utah, Oklahoma, or Mississippi, for example? Those are some protests that I’d get up off of the couch for.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Am I an alcoholic or am I just single?
(First published at mikealvear.com)
Gay men by nature are more judgmental than Christian Fundamentalists and the Taliban combined. Having spent over half of my life immersed within the culture, like an abused spouse with no real intentions of walking away, I’ve simply gotten used to it. You quickly adapt to what is acceptable dress and music choices. But the one aspect of gay life that still eludes me, leaving me as mesmerized as Jane Goodall observing a pack of wild monkeys, is the appropriateness of how often one goes to the gay bar.
It would appear that a line has been drawn in the sand. On one side are the gays that would rather vacation in liberal, free-thinking West Virginia before they’d step foot into a gay bar. On the other side are the gays that can tell you the drink specials at any bar on any night and which drag queen is hosting what and where. The two rarely cross paths, obviously, but when they do, who exactly has the upper hand in judging the other?
Recently a friend of mine went out on a date with someone whom he’d met at the gym. Being that he is a friend of mine, he happens to be one of the gays that goes out, like a lot. During the unavoidable round of questions and answers, his date asked him how often he goes to the gay bars. Not knowing what sort of response was in order, he stumbled. He didn’t want to come across as a drunk, but he also didn’t want to withhold critical information that would inevitably resurface if the relationship moved forward.
I’ve had similar experiences. I’ve met up for drinks with guys I met online, at “this little place I know of,” only to have them recoil in horror when they realize that I’m on a first-name basis with the door guy and that my paycheck is directly deposited there. I’ve chatted up guys in bars who “hate going out, but my friends drug me here,” only to watch their interest vanish when they overhear the bartender invite me to the staff Christmas party.
I think that most of the judgment comes from the assumption that going out equates to sleeping around, which is an extremely weak argument. Stepping foot into a gay bar doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re open and ready for a one-night stand. Some of the most sexually adventurous of my friends never go out. You shouldn’t judge someone as being a slut for going to the gay bar. But if you haven’t logged off of Manhunt since 2006 and get frequent-customer discounts at the local bath house, that’s another story.
Given, I have been known to enjoy a cocktail or ten on occasion, but going out to me is more than getting tanked and getting laid. Not only is it something that my friends and I enjoy doing, but it’s also a very handy avenue for meeting single men. I’m a horrible online dater. I have the attention span of a gnat and photograph worse than Britney Spear’s crotch, so I rarely have success meeting guys through that medium. I participate in very few extra-curricular activities that might expose me to a mate (read: zero), so I don’t have many options for meeting someone. I actually prefer to meet men the old fashioned way: drunk in a bar.
Going out should be looked upon with the same type of respect that we use in judging any behavior that doesn’t mirror our own. It may not be for you, but live and let live.
Let’s drink!
Gay men by nature are more judgmental than Christian Fundamentalists and the Taliban combined. Having spent over half of my life immersed within the culture, like an abused spouse with no real intentions of walking away, I’ve simply gotten used to it. You quickly adapt to what is acceptable dress and music choices. But the one aspect of gay life that still eludes me, leaving me as mesmerized as Jane Goodall observing a pack of wild monkeys, is the appropriateness of how often one goes to the gay bar.
It would appear that a line has been drawn in the sand. On one side are the gays that would rather vacation in liberal, free-thinking West Virginia before they’d step foot into a gay bar. On the other side are the gays that can tell you the drink specials at any bar on any night and which drag queen is hosting what and where. The two rarely cross paths, obviously, but when they do, who exactly has the upper hand in judging the other?
Recently a friend of mine went out on a date with someone whom he’d met at the gym. Being that he is a friend of mine, he happens to be one of the gays that goes out, like a lot. During the unavoidable round of questions and answers, his date asked him how often he goes to the gay bars. Not knowing what sort of response was in order, he stumbled. He didn’t want to come across as a drunk, but he also didn’t want to withhold critical information that would inevitably resurface if the relationship moved forward.
I’ve had similar experiences. I’ve met up for drinks with guys I met online, at “this little place I know of,” only to have them recoil in horror when they realize that I’m on a first-name basis with the door guy and that my paycheck is directly deposited there. I’ve chatted up guys in bars who “hate going out, but my friends drug me here,” only to watch their interest vanish when they overhear the bartender invite me to the staff Christmas party.
I think that most of the judgment comes from the assumption that going out equates to sleeping around, which is an extremely weak argument. Stepping foot into a gay bar doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re open and ready for a one-night stand. Some of the most sexually adventurous of my friends never go out. You shouldn’t judge someone as being a slut for going to the gay bar. But if you haven’t logged off of Manhunt since 2006 and get frequent-customer discounts at the local bath house, that’s another story.
Given, I have been known to enjoy a cocktail or ten on occasion, but going out to me is more than getting tanked and getting laid. Not only is it something that my friends and I enjoy doing, but it’s also a very handy avenue for meeting single men. I’m a horrible online dater. I have the attention span of a gnat and photograph worse than Britney Spear’s crotch, so I rarely have success meeting guys through that medium. I participate in very few extra-curricular activities that might expose me to a mate (read: zero), so I don’t have many options for meeting someone. I actually prefer to meet men the old fashioned way: drunk in a bar.
Going out should be looked upon with the same type of respect that we use in judging any behavior that doesn’t mirror our own. It may not be for you, but live and let live.
Let’s drink!
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