Rage against the silence - gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and society

I feel numb and bereft. Just like I have felt many times in the past eight years of Clinton. Maybe that's better than the other feeling--such a violent rage that it leaves me shaking, frustrated, and incoherent. I'm old enough to know I've felt this way before: in 1972 watching Nixon lie; in 1977 watching Anita Bryant lie; in 1980 watching Reagan lie; in 1987 watching Oliver North lie; from 1988 to 1992 watching my friends die while Bush the First did nothing.

Numbness is a good defense for betrayal. And betrayed we are--by the courts, the cheating Republicans, the spineless Democrats, the sycophantic media, and the virtually invisible and absolutely predictable responses by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender activists and journalists to the present situation.

The possibilities for national action to advance GLBT equality--not to mention preserving reproductive freedom, ending AIDS, securing racial justice, expanding the rights of working people, and more--have suddenly changed radically. But you would not know it from the way national organizations are acting.

There has yet been no analysis offered, no proposals for debate about what direction our national, state, and local movements should take. Otherwise-thoughtful colleagues are apparently not focused on or not widely sharing their ideas about what this new national landscape means for our agenda.

Am I missing this key discourse? I think not. Instead of fresh ideas, it's all stale salutes to the same bipartisanship that resulted in nothing getting done in Congress for the past eight years, the nauseating calls to celebrate the end of a Clinton administration that gave us transitory progress while allowing our enemies to gain real power, and equally nauseating calls to celebrate the new administration's inclusiveness.

What should GLBT people do to advance our social justice agenda in this new period? Centrist organizations suggest that we attend fundraisers, wear symbols, thank Hollywood for being so nice.

Are gay Democrats going to channel their fury at the centrist leadership of the national party and the Gore campaign's abandonment of African-Americans in Florida? What do we hear from gay Republicans except a giant sucking sound? How amazing that after eight years of watching how little that access achieves, gay Republicans do just what they criticized gay Democrats for doing: abandon all allegiance to values for that miserable seat at the back of the bus.

And I find myself most deeply disappointed with the progressive wing of the GLBT liberation movement, because it is the one in which I have worked for 20 years. You might think that GLBT progressives would have a lot to say at this moment. Instead all we hear is a soft whirring of fax machines and a tapping of computer keys as press releases go out into the void of cyberspace. Total silence from Ralph "the great progressive hope" Nader, who has apparently been muzzled, maybe by another dirty trick (like the one they pulled on Jesse Jackson to show who is really in charge in the White Master's House). But more likely, Nader's lack of direction or unifying leadership, and that of the Green Party or the Working Families Party or any of the new supposedly Left parties, is attributable to nothing more nefarious then their own limited vision.

How could we respond to the betrayal of democracy and the collapse of dissent? Here are two concrete ideas to consider.

(1) Get serious. We need to revise our work for GLBT liberation as work that is a critical part of a social justice movement and look around our communities to join those who share values of freedom, pluralism, human rights. Why? Because this will enable us to become stronger in localities as a new and unified movement for social, economic, and racial justice.

(2) Throw the bums out. We need to organize strong and coordinated electorates (voter coalitions, voting blocs) at the local and state levels that will get rid of politicians hostile to social justice values. This is urgent in the next two and four years if we are to have any chance to maintain support for choice or other civil rights outcomes.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Liberation Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group