When the beating of your heart, echoes the beating of the drum...
Tonight I went to my first “political” related gathering. It was a meeting for the GLBT Democrats of Suffolk County. Rose was interested in going because the topic at hand was a proposed Domestic Partnership Registry. So, excitedly, I tagged along. I always have the feeling that I want to be more political minded, that I want to stand up for social change and justice, but when it comes down to it, I lose the thunder. For instance…and I will try to explain this as quickly and painlessly as possible:
In Suffolk someone like Rose can (and has) obtained health insurance for her partner after showing to her workplace and the insurance company a bunch of papers to “prove” that they are in fact, partners. Well if she leaves our place of work she would have to, once again, do the same thing at her next job (if her next job and her next insurance company even offered these rights) to obtain the benefits again. Anyway, what the domestic partnership would do is to allow Rose to show this “proof” to the county clerk, pay 20 bucks and get a card that says, “Rose and ABNS = Domestic Partners.” Yeah, it’s shit on a stick but it eliminates the need to re-prove yourself. Not much - I KNOW. I am not saying this is a great thing.
So what the other nine people in the room were saying, (there were actually 10 other people in the room but this tenth guy couldn’t get over the fact that there might be one straight couple out there to benefit from the domestic partnership enough to participate in the discussion) felt that something needed to be added that said that if you were a card carrying Domestic Partner in Suffolk County you were to receive all the county privileges that are accorded a married couple (from park permits to food stamps to section 8). Now this is a tremendously good idea but here’s where I have some trouble. The way it reads now will most likely pass, and what it offers same sex couples is a crumb on the wooded path to civil rights and the new and exciting label of “Domestic Partners.” Adding the other county benefits means this most likely will not pass. You’d be getting into too much red tape and it’s practically another fight entirely. And I spoke out to say that I think if adding something to the bill means you know it’s not going to pass and you’re not even going to get the crumb, it might not be worth it. Is it me, or do I think you need to take the crumbs as they come - not embracing them and celebrating them like they are the five course meal you’ve been craving, but for what they are, a crumb. And when you have this crumb, and maybe it has benefited one or two people, you say, “Ok thank you but I’m still hungry can I please have another piece of bread?” I was alone in my thinking, and even Rose who spoke next spoke out completely against me, as I knew she would when she prefaced her speaking by saying, “Parker, my dear, dear friend.” All the others in the room were for “ALL or NOTHING.” I think this is noble, and I think they want to fight a good fight but I also think they are jumping too far ahead. I’m sorry, but we are not moments away from marriage equality, we may in fact still be years away, and I think you can’t skip the smaller battles to choose the larger ones. You win the war by taking control of all the forts…small change precipitates larger change…the sandcastle starts with the grain of sand, the snowman starts with one small snow ball (and the snowwoman starts with one small snow vagina..he he he) and all the references to small things making big things. While I think the “all or nothing” approach is the most politically ferocious, socially jarring, and noble thing to do, I think it is also the approach that can most quickly lead to a dead end.
Several times throughout the meeting tonight someone would compare the domestic partnership to marriage equality and the leader would say, “Those are two different fights. This is not about marriage equality this is about a crap offer at a domestic partnership registry.” But then the group, with the agreement and support of the leader, would attempt to make changes to the partnership that make it more like marriage equality. I just felt like people were talking out of both sides of their mouths (and I don’t just mean that bisexual guy sitting next to me who is totally gay but felt the need to point out three times that he might want a domestic partnership with a woman because he’s “not gay!”).
I’m all for marriage equality and I’m all for the fact that anyone, regardless of being heterosexual, homosexual, or hollywoodsexual (because those people truly have their own definition of marriage), should be allowed to have the option to marry the person of their choice. I do not want it to sound like I am against what this group tonight stood for. I just think, and ,maybe it’s the realist or the pessimist in me speaking (those two are really one in the same if you ask me), that you have to take the small steps, even if they might seem like nothing at the time and build them to the bigger. What if the same sex couples of Vermont said they didn’t want to have their civil unions because they weren’t nationally recognized and they would wait until they were - that’s an “all or nothing” attitude is it not? Instead they embraced the civil union, a crumb if you will, and they will continue to ask for another piece and when that time comes they will tuck their napkins into their shirt collars and sit down to the next course.
Well at night’s end, Rose and I agreed to disagree (something Benchly and I have been known to do) and I left thinking maybe this was not for me. But it was nice to see the passion in others. And most of all it was nice to see the passion in Rose, the excitement in her voice as we debated in the parking lot, the growing comfortability with who she is, and the light in her eyes that flickered, “I can be a part of great change.”
PS - I do not pretend to be an expert on the fight for civil rights or anything political for that matter. This is written purely based on my thoughts an opinions with no facts to back it up (though I'm almost positive that guy was completely gay and was saying bisexual because he doesn't want to admit to his mother that he prefers sex with men, but I digress). So please, comment, challenge, disagree - just don't be disrespectful or condescending.
In Suffolk someone like Rose can (and has) obtained health insurance for her partner after showing to her workplace and the insurance company a bunch of papers to “prove” that they are in fact, partners. Well if she leaves our place of work she would have to, once again, do the same thing at her next job (if her next job and her next insurance company even offered these rights) to obtain the benefits again. Anyway, what the domestic partnership would do is to allow Rose to show this “proof” to the county clerk, pay 20 bucks and get a card that says, “Rose and ABNS = Domestic Partners.” Yeah, it’s shit on a stick but it eliminates the need to re-prove yourself. Not much - I KNOW. I am not saying this is a great thing.
So what the other nine people in the room were saying, (there were actually 10 other people in the room but this tenth guy couldn’t get over the fact that there might be one straight couple out there to benefit from the domestic partnership enough to participate in the discussion) felt that something needed to be added that said that if you were a card carrying Domestic Partner in Suffolk County you were to receive all the county privileges that are accorded a married couple (from park permits to food stamps to section 8). Now this is a tremendously good idea but here’s where I have some trouble. The way it reads now will most likely pass, and what it offers same sex couples is a crumb on the wooded path to civil rights and the new and exciting label of “Domestic Partners.” Adding the other county benefits means this most likely will not pass. You’d be getting into too much red tape and it’s practically another fight entirely. And I spoke out to say that I think if adding something to the bill means you know it’s not going to pass and you’re not even going to get the crumb, it might not be worth it. Is it me, or do I think you need to take the crumbs as they come - not embracing them and celebrating them like they are the five course meal you’ve been craving, but for what they are, a crumb. And when you have this crumb, and maybe it has benefited one or two people, you say, “Ok thank you but I’m still hungry can I please have another piece of bread?” I was alone in my thinking, and even Rose who spoke next spoke out completely against me, as I knew she would when she prefaced her speaking by saying, “Parker, my dear, dear friend.” All the others in the room were for “ALL or NOTHING.” I think this is noble, and I think they want to fight a good fight but I also think they are jumping too far ahead. I’m sorry, but we are not moments away from marriage equality, we may in fact still be years away, and I think you can’t skip the smaller battles to choose the larger ones. You win the war by taking control of all the forts…small change precipitates larger change…the sandcastle starts with the grain of sand, the snowman starts with one small snow ball (and the snowwoman starts with one small snow vagina..he he he) and all the references to small things making big things. While I think the “all or nothing” approach is the most politically ferocious, socially jarring, and noble thing to do, I think it is also the approach that can most quickly lead to a dead end.
Several times throughout the meeting tonight someone would compare the domestic partnership to marriage equality and the leader would say, “Those are two different fights. This is not about marriage equality this is about a crap offer at a domestic partnership registry.” But then the group, with the agreement and support of the leader, would attempt to make changes to the partnership that make it more like marriage equality. I just felt like people were talking out of both sides of their mouths (and I don’t just mean that bisexual guy sitting next to me who is totally gay but felt the need to point out three times that he might want a domestic partnership with a woman because he’s “not gay!”).
I’m all for marriage equality and I’m all for the fact that anyone, regardless of being heterosexual, homosexual, or hollywoodsexual (because those people truly have their own definition of marriage), should be allowed to have the option to marry the person of their choice. I do not want it to sound like I am against what this group tonight stood for. I just think, and ,maybe it’s the realist or the pessimist in me speaking (those two are really one in the same if you ask me), that you have to take the small steps, even if they might seem like nothing at the time and build them to the bigger. What if the same sex couples of Vermont said they didn’t want to have their civil unions because they weren’t nationally recognized and they would wait until they were - that’s an “all or nothing” attitude is it not? Instead they embraced the civil union, a crumb if you will, and they will continue to ask for another piece and when that time comes they will tuck their napkins into their shirt collars and sit down to the next course.
Well at night’s end, Rose and I agreed to disagree (something Benchly and I have been known to do) and I left thinking maybe this was not for me. But it was nice to see the passion in others. And most of all it was nice to see the passion in Rose, the excitement in her voice as we debated in the parking lot, the growing comfortability with who she is, and the light in her eyes that flickered, “I can be a part of great change.”
PS - I do not pretend to be an expert on the fight for civil rights or anything political for that matter. This is written purely based on my thoughts an opinions with no facts to back it up (though I'm almost positive that guy was completely gay and was saying bisexual because he doesn't want to admit to his mother that he prefers sex with men, but I digress). So please, comment, challenge, disagree - just don't be disrespectful or condescending.