Pride & Opinions

In the past few years, as the debate about GLBT politics has shifted from ideological questions about whether GLBT people really are different to more practical concerns like marriage equality and tax burdens, a question has risen from formerly more radical folks: is assimiliation really the right path, or does it mean giving up on the right to be different and free that was the fight in the first place?

Clarence Patterson, the acting executive director of the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, in an article called “The Endless Game Between Homophobes and Assimilationist Gays” on Alternet, says yes. I thought his opinion was particularly well stated, so here’s the bulk of it:

With respect to the marginalization of lesbians and gay men, when the layers of rhetoric around the oppression are peeled back, they reveal a similar strain of guilt/confusion/envy/repulsion among homophobes and heterosexists. At its root, anti-Queer sentiment is based in a visceral sense that what we do is wrong and distasteful. Our staunchest opponents do not care about nor are they compelled by how much we love each other, how successfully we raise our children, or how dutifully we pay our taxes, or how we serve the public good in numerous other ways. In the final analysis, they just think we’re nasty.

Anti-Queer arguments based in religion, culture and the creation of children are all smoke screens to cover up something that’s really very base: disgust. Trying to rationalize and cover up disgust with other excuses merely serves to justify the perpetuation of political, social and physical violence against Queer communities. But if we pay attention to the messages from the LGBTQQI movement — particularly the messages we send ourselves — it would appear that we have forgotten that our marginalization is based in others’ discomfort around our sexuality, and we’ve responded by not talking about our sexuality and instead talking about love.

Love isn’t the answer when Queers are being accused of recruiting, contaminating, enticing and luring more and more people into the mysteries and ecstasies of our sexual depravity. Love isn’t the answer when the media and public respond with hysteria that there are “men on the down-low” as though it’s a new, dangerous dynamic peculiar to only African-American men as opposed to all of the closeted masses. Love isn’t the answer when we’re accused of threatening the “institution” of marriage — an enterprise with a 50 percent success rate — or held partially responsible for bringing about terrorist attacks …

The answer is sexual freedom, in which self-expression and fluidity in sexuality is seen as enriching and valuable, not nasty.

This idea that professing love isn’t the right answer seems especially fitting given that it’s Valentine’s Day and everyone is focused on how just to profess their love the best. But Patterson goes on to argue that “We must not lose sight of the fact that the Queer struggle is rooted in exploding the strictures on sexual freedom in America. The fear of us is the fear of an America in which every adult is free to find sexual satisfaction with the consenting adult of their choice in whatever manner they choose. We would do well to remain clear about the motivations of our enemies when we go up against them — and respond by denying our nastiness, not just proclaiming our love. They certainly have not forgotten.”

What do you think? Is assimilation selling out? Is focusing on love instead of sex the wrong way to achieve acceptance?

GLBT, Homophobia, Assimilation

GLBT, Homophobia, Assimilation