| Thursday, August 23, 2007 |
| more gay politics |
So, people--gay people, mostly--keep talking about Bill Richardson's gaffe at the logo/HRC gay debate. Whether or not he was confused by the question, I don't know. He does have a point when he asks people to look instead at his record of legislation and hiring as governor. But here's what he should have said:
"I don't know."
Because no one does know. And that's not even the question. That question--"choice or biology"--is horribly slanted. There are really two questions: choice or innate, and biology or development. The answer to the first is easy for most people. You don't choose who turns your head as you walk down the street, and you don't choose whom you fall in love with. As for biology, we really don't know. More gay men then straight have a counterclockwise whorl. About 60% of gay men have a specific marker on a specific chromosome (Xq28). Neither of those things are conclusive. We don't know whether there is a genetic switch that turns on the gay, and the prospect is scary anyway. Would parents--well-meaning or otherwise--hope for a form of gene therapy to turn the switch off? Or is it developmental, it is something that is affected by environment and circumstance, and therefore possibly fluid? Does that mean we should try to change; is one sexuality better than the other?
So Bill Richardson should have said "I don't know", and then he should have said exactly what he did. That it doesn't matter. Whether sexuality is genetic or environmental has no bearing on a person's capacity for love or goodness, and should have no bearing on how we as a society treat them.
And for the love of god, someone stop all the major candidates from talking about civil unions as though they are completely equal to marriage. Even if they contain all the same legal rights, we as a nation know from experience that separate-but-equal isn't, which makes it particularly disappointing to hear a black presidential candidate equate them. This is another point where Richardson is right. Civil Unions are achievable, they are a step in the right direction. But stop talking about them as if they are equal. |
posted by La Malinche @ 1:31 PM   |
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| 1 Comments: |
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With civil unions versus marriage, there's a huge problem which was probably there with "separate but equal" in the past. People still think there's a general problem with being gay. They think by "giving" gays civil unions they are doing all they can or need to do.
When I have this discussion, I always hear "they can have their civil union, just don't call it marriage." Why not? I've never understood and I think that's one of those issues where you will never ever convince someone to cross that line. You'll just have to convince the next generation.
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With civil unions versus marriage, there's a huge problem which was probably there with "separate but equal" in the past. People still think there's a general problem with being gay. They think by "giving" gays civil unions they are doing all they can or need to do.
When I have this discussion, I always hear "they can have their civil union, just don't call it marriage." Why not? I've never understood and I think that's one of those issues where you will never ever convince someone to cross that line. You'll just have to convince the next generation.