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On Nov. 3, three important votes took place across the country regarding the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. In Kalamazoo, Mich., and Washington State, the LGBT community won important victories as voters there approved an anti-discrimination ordinance and an expansion of domestic partnership benefits, respectively. But in Maine, the LGBT community saw another defeat at the ballot box as the state became the 31st in the nation to ban same-sex marriage by a popular vote.
For those interested in the struggle for LBGT liberation, these losses and victories pose several questions. But the real message of these votes should be that putting the rights of oppressed people up to a vote by the majority is a dangerous and losing strategy.
In Kalamazoo, the vote extended important safeguards for the LGBT community against discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations. The extension of domestic partnership benefits in Washington also provides significant gains for LGBT people there. Both of these victories are important reforms that provide real improvements in the lives of LGBT workers under capitalism.
There is no doubt that these votes were a result of a broad shift in public opinion in favor of equality for LGBT people that came about as a product of the long and fierce struggle of LGBT people in the streets since the modern LGBT liberation movement sprang into action in the late 1960s.
The fact that the movement has to a large degree succeeded in reversing decades of backward and bigoted views should rightfully be seen as a victory for the LGBT community. That the vote in Maine was so close is also significant in this respect. But the defeat for same-sex marriage in Maine, as well as the passage of Prop 8 a year ago in California, highlights a weakness in the strategy of the leadership of the LGBT movement of the last decade or more and demands a radical shift in strategy for the movement.
Victory followed by setback
In May 2008, as a product of militant struggle on the part of the LGBT community, the California Supreme Court ruled that denying LGBT people the right to marry was a violation of their civil rights. In a tremendous victory, LGBT people in the most populous state in the nation were able to get married. In the following months, tens of thousands of LGBT couples filled long lines at marriage offices and exercised their right to equal marriage. The elation and joy of the community was palpable. Many were convinced of the success of the LGBT leadership’s strategy of state-by-state, incremental progress.
But one year ago, on Nov. 4, 2008, the LGBT community and its allies were shocked and dismayed when voters in California, long known as one of the most progressive and LGBT-friendly states in the nation, stripped LGBT people of their right to marry with the narrow passage of the much hated and infamous Prop. 8.
Despite the ruling by the California Supreme Court, as well as the generally progressive views of people in that state, LGBT people lost a basic civil right by a popular vote. In a sick twist of logic, bigoted right-wing forces were able to use the false notion of democracy under capitalism to deny an oppressed minority their civil rights.
On Nov. 3, 2009, many LGBT people and their supporters described a sense of being in a time warp. Once again, the LGBT community had won an important victory for marriage equality, and once again, it was stolen out of their hands by a well-financed, reactionary campaign of lies, all in the name of popular democracy.
The idea that the majority can decide whether or not to grant equal rights to an oppressed minority is a notion that is so counter to good sense that it could only pass as legitimate in a country whose “democracy” is little more than a sham.
In a truly democratic country, the rights of historically oppressed people would be safeguarded from these types of machinations and maneuverings. In a socialist society with a revolutionary workers’ government in power, the rights of LGBT people, and other oppressed people, could be written into law overnight. All reactionary legislation could be overturned and real reforms passed immediately.
But under capitalism, the rights of workers and oppressed people are always up for grabs in a game that pits workers against each other. Even with the so-called “fierce advocate” for the LGBT community, Barack Obama, and his party in charge of all branches of the government, no serious steps have been taken to eliminate LGBT oppression. In fact, the opposite has happened. The Democrats have at best stayed silent and at worst actively fought against LGBT rights.
For the last decade or more, the strategy pushed by the leadership of the LGBT movement has been to tow the kite of the Democrats and wait for the politicians to grant the LGBT community equality in some near but unspecified future. At every turn, this leadership has attempted, and in large part succeeded, in countering the formation of an independent, mass civil rights movement that can challenge both ruling parties and win full equality.
These same individuals and organizations, as well as many well-meaning LGBT activists, have vowed to stay the course, citing the victories in Kalamazoo and Washington State as evidence of the effectiveness of fighting for piecemeal equality and relying on the Democrats.
But this strategy has been put to the test in California and Maine, and the result has been clear for anyone willing to see. Already bigoted forces have begun to place a measure on the ballot in New Hampshire to reverse that state’s same-sex marriage rights. This systematic stripping away of our rights, piece by piece, will continue unless a drastic change happens.
New strategy and leadership emerging
As long as the LGBT community fights its battle for liberation and equality on a state-by-state, issue-by-issue basis, every gain we win will be subject to the whim of the forces of reaction, which have every means at their disposal to push back against progress. As long as the LGBT community relies on a Democratic Party that accepts our support and backing while offering nothing of substance in return, we will be stalled in our fight for justice.
So if the incremental state-by-state strategy has proven ineffective, and the Democratic Party politicians have refused to move in any significant way to grant LGBT people equality, the question of what is to be done remains.
Some may wring their hands in contemplation and paralysis, but for those of us in the independent LGBT liberation movement, the grassroots movement that has re-emerged in the streets in the past year after the passage of Prop. 8, the answer is clear and unambiguous. What is needed now is a militant mass movement in the streets that has as its main objective the full liberation of the LGBT community, with the immediate and uncompromising demand of “Full Federal Equality Now”—a movement that divorces itself from the twin parties of war, poverty, racism and bigotry.
That movement has begun to take shape. Less than a month ago, on October 11, members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation joined 250,000 people marching in the streets of Washington, D.C., under this very banner and with the spirit of a fighting movement. The day after the votes in Kalamazoo, Washington, and Maine, thousands took action throughout the country.
No civil rights struggle in this country has ever been won without the intervention of a mass movement. The cause of LGBT equality will be no different. The task of the independent layers of the movement must be to produce a new strategy and advance a new leadership from the ground up that takes immediate steps to advance this sort of movement. It is a task that is momentous and daunting, but it is the only way that LGBT people will win their freedom.
Harvey Milk is often quoted as saying “These aren’t issues, they’re our lives.” We now say, “We don’t want crumbs, we want the whole thing.”
