Detours

As a pacifist and gay man, I find the focus of today's GLBT political community and the press on Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell (DADT) less than inspiring. While I understand the political importance of the issue to some, I dispute its merit as a major focus of the GLBT movement. The premise appears to be that being a soldier somehow makes a person, despite his/her sexual orientation, a more qualified or more respectable citizen. This is an unconstitutional premise in America.

As a political movement, we rejected that premise resoundingly during the Gay Liberation Movement which existed quite healthily before being decimated by HIV. While many in the community of the late 1970s and early 1980s supported the personal struggle of Leonard Matlovich and others who were mistreated by the military, it was not a major focus of the movement. The main focus of the movement was to achieve direct and unqualified acceptance of all people under the law as equal in all rights of citizenship. Period.

DADT follows gay marriage as a wedge issue in Washington and in the media. The current GLBT leadership, Neo-Liberal at its best and Log Cabin at its worst, wants to make GLBT people 'just like straight people' under the law. This furthers the dichotomy of gay-vs-straight. It does not cut through the dichotomy to the core issue, universal human rights under the law. And, one of those universal human rights is the right to not be forced to kill or aid in the killing of another human being. As long as armies exist, so will conscription in one form or another.

The foundation of the modern GLBT movement rested on the peace movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Previous gay rights' organizations did not reach all classes and all segments of American society. They were primarily middle-to-upper-middle-class, intellectual organizations. The Stonewall Riot changed that, thanks to the courageous drag queens and working-class gay men who finally stood up to corrupt police oppression. Demonstration for equal human rights got the GLBT movement where it is today. Not back door legislation and political bargaining.

While I praise and support the GLBT people who strive for their rights in any way, I do not necessarily approve of their techniques. I would not approve of aggressive violence, for example. I do not approve of lobbying our way to freedom in a way that makes us look manipulative and aligned with everything that is wrong with government in the U.S., as it now operates.

I am also quite disgusted by the media's coverage of both the gay marriage and DADT issues. For example, today on NPR, I was presented with a back-and-forth discussion of the DADT issue by military-affiliated personnel, who freely spoke of GLBT people as though they were a different, non-human species. If the word "Jew" or "Black" or "Woman" were substituted in any of the statements made, there would have been enraged howls from all corners. Yet, the interviewers and presenters carried on with an air of everyday indifference.

DADT will not achieve universal human rights. Gay marriage will not achieve universal human rights. These battles, if won, will simply lessen the potency of the gay-straight dichotomy. And, in my opinion as a gay man and humanist, that simply isn't enough.