Bridging differences across political differences
Having an overarching Gay community politics across political divisions.
A CRITICAL PROBLEM
A critical problem of the Gay community is that we are fractured into Gay leftists, Gay conservatives, Gay Democrats, Gay Republicans and other factions all having agenda for their respective political movements. They exist as appendages of their political movements and often are very concerned that as Gays they aren’t worthy members of that movement.
These Gays tend to see their movement as the true path forward for Gays, often ignoring the various failings of their movements and often in denial about anti-Gay elements in that movement. They are extremely able to see the failings of the other movements when there is a possibility to recruit Gays for their movement, but ignore the homophobia in their movement.
Gay Democrats are quick to point out anti-Gay elements in the Republican Party, but they were rather silent on liberal Gay baiting about Trump and Putin.
Assimilationism denies that there is much of a Gay agenda if at all, outside of blocking discrimination. Assimilation is the atomization of Gays and prevents a Gay direction and cohesion.
Gays don’t give up their right to freely think about political issues because they are Gay, they don’t owe any one political faction their political allegiance.
Gays who are active in various political movements and factions would likely be pushed to make greater demands on their movements, if there was an independent Gay movement critiquing them, and these movements of which Gays are members would likely realize they need to do more.
Given that Gays are about 3% of the population, we can ill afford to not have some over arching politics as Gays pulling us together.
When the “cis” Gays are splintered and fighting with each other we shouldn’t be surprised that the TQ+ feels we are easy targets for vilification and can be made subservient to their agenda.
WHAT WE NEED
We need leftist Gays, rather than Gay leftists. We need conservative Gays rather than Gay conservatives. We need Democratic Gays rather than Gay Democrats, and so on. This is not a simple matter of going up to people and say, “Are you Gay first, or Republican first?” That is intimidation and emotional extortion. What we need to expect is that the Gay person sometimes has to be engage in difficult decisions and navigating issues and being concerned about Gays and giving Gay concerns serious weight, and not some token weight. Being Gay may not always be first on our agenda, but it shouldn’t be last either, and should generally be close to being a leading issue. There needs to be an ongoing engaged process, and the realization that sometimes you don’t vote for your political faction because their actions or attitudes towards Gays is simply unacceptable.
With some Gay centric thinking we can create a Gay center of thinking and politics to bind the community together and have a greater strength. If there is not Gay centric thinking defining who we are, what we need to do, what is the community’s direction should be, then someone else will define these things for us. They will redefine homosexual as homogender. They will decide what is good and bad in our community. They will pull us into the LGBTQXYZ and parasitize and appropriate our communities.
Having Gay centric thinking isn’t just about avoiding bad things, it is also realizing what we need as Gays and mobilizing to get what we need. We don’t even realize what we need and fail even imagine some goals, because we are engaged in various political movements which only have Gays as a sub-department in their thinking with at best the idea that the lack of discrimination is the beginning and end of our politics.
We are likely missing serious opportunities and advancements because we don’t think about what our agenda might be.
A Gay centric politics would also get more involvement of the Gay community since we would be involved in activities that are a real benefit to Gays and are of their immediate interest, rather than pushing some candidate for election.
IDENTIFYING GAY ISSUES.
What are the Gay issues? Protections against discrimination and violence is sort of obvious. However, if Gay issues are limited to that, as discrimination decreases, we will have a disintegrating Gay politics.
The absence of bad things is good, but it is a limited goal. We need to look at those issues which have a material community benefit. A determined research program to get vaccines for STDs would be good.
Sometimes something is proposed to be a Gay issue, but it can be questioned whether it is. If it is insisted that it is a Gay issue, and it isn’t, we needlessly push out Gays who disagree on this issue.
We need to avoid having something be a Gay issue on some differential basis. For example, urban pollution does affect health. Given Gays are concentrated in the cities, likely percentage wise the impact on Gays is likely higher, then for the national population, but most of the population is now urbanized so the increase percentage is more incremental. Urban pollution is bad, but it impacts most everyone in the city and efforts against pollution will draw from the entire city and Gays can as individuals be active against it, but it isn’t that much of a Gay issue. This doesn’t mean that urban pollution can’t be a minority issue. Industrial waste and pollution as opposed to automobile exhaust does impact very specifically minority communities and is very much tied to racism. If a homophobic city administration suddenly opened up a dump or poorly design toxic incinerator in a Gayborhood, it would be a Gay issue, but if the city wasn’t homophobic, but generally bad on pollution, then it would not be so much a Gay issue, but a neighborhood issue.
We will find that the dividing line between what is a Gay issue and what is not, isn’t always so clear.
Perhaps a test of whether the issue draws interest from Gay individuals across the political spectrum will be one indication of whether it is a Gay issue. However, if a set of issues are defined as Gay issues also are the program of a specific political party, some consideration needs to be made if these are Gay issues, but it isn’t impossible.
However, Gays would do well not to be believe that their political movement is the one true path for the Gay community and realize that Gay issues have complexities.
SCREENING OUT
There are of course some elements of which we are not tolerable in the Gay community. We should be very careful and cautious in setting those limits. Exclusion should be strictly based on Gay interests.
Recently there have been efforts to exclude police form Pride events because some LGBTQXYZ want to be radicals, regardless of its negative impact to the physical security of Gays. These are LGBTQXYZ who want to impress radical straight people. It doesn’t occur to them that one exclusion would follow another. We have debates about Leather people being at the parade, or drag queens. Some people don’t like guys with their shirts off on the night club floats, others are against corporations having floats.
Usually, these people who want to ban someone or some group from the Pride community are hoping to impress the movement of which they are a part of their actions and alignment with the political faction’s goals. Sometimes it is because there is prejudice in this political movement that Gays aren’t serious, or inherently not likely to be valued members of the movement.
Also, the arguments are somewhat selective. Radicals argue the police shouldn’t participate, but a Gay religious group is not even questioned, even though the church they hope to be accepted into is actively campaigning against Gays.
The reason to exclude a group should be based on clear compelling arguments regarding direct impacts. For example, a movement which has as its explicit goal to harm Gays and the Gay community would be an unacceptable movement.
Movements which would fracture a community have to be excluded. For example, clearly racist groups’ agenda would fracture the Gay community. We are a multiracial community. Usually, racist groups are also anti-Gay so we don’t have to even think about the issue, but that may not always be the case.
What to be avoided is some lengthy chain of reasoning which is believed in only within a particular ideology or movement which is supposed to be requiring that the Gay community exclude a political movement while signing up for theirs.
I think it is a sort of vanity to imagine that you are omniscient about humanity and the future. Gays shouldn’t have all their options to be just one narrow range.
IMBALANCE OF HOMOPHOBIA
It is unfortunate that we do have an imbalance of of hostility towards bases tending to reside on one side rather than the other of the political spectrums.
That has allowed a free ride to the Democrats in harvesting Gay votes without giving Gays much in return. They merely have to point to the Republicans and raise alarms. Given the behavior of some Republicans it isn’t surprising that some Gays think the Democrats are the Gay movement.
We shouldn’t be distracted from the failures of the Democrats in regards to the interest of Gays just because another political party is at the moment a hazard to Gays. We shouldn’t let this prevent us from developing a movement that bridges as widely as possible the differences in the Gay community.
FORMING A NEW GAY MOVEMENT
There needs to be Gays getting together and discussing the forming of a Gay centric movement, why one is needed and how to do it. This essay is some of the author’s ideas, but it is going to take a lot of people thinking to forge a new Gay movement and start thinking about the issues which will bind us together across political, cultural, racial, and religious divisions.
If we don’t define what the Gay agenda, the LGBTQXYZ will do it for us.
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