Friday February 10, 2006 SGN.org |
 |
Volume 34 Issue 06 |
 |
|
Saturday, Nov 07, 2009
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
Not Thinking Straight by Madelyn Arnold |
||
 |
||
| Gays are media straights | ||
| Gays are straight in the media, but is this true in the rest of society - that portion of society that commands laws be enacted and enforced?
SUPREMES STILL A HIT IN THE BAR Surprise -! Washington state is in the process of making "Bestiality" a felony. It could be that previous crimes against animals and/or violence against males were prosecuted simply as Violence, after Sodomy was decriminalized. Over a dozen states still have sodomy laws; most of them apply to both straights and Gays, but are rarely used. Sodomy laws are sometimes used to cover bestiality. That is, to cover sex between humans and animals - protecting, you understand, the rights of ferrets as well as ponies... It wasn't but a very short time ago that the Supreme Court voted us out of that famous Texas felony. Narrowly voted us out. Perhaps you remember the case: in 1998, John Lawrence and Tyrone Garner, a mixed-race couple, were found in bed together by a handful of Houston police, when a neighbor had asked to investigate a "disturbance next-door". Which was so much hoo-haw. He had a grudge against them. The court ruled 6 to 3 in favor of Lawrence and Garner, upsetting its own precedent (Georgia's sodomy law had earlier been upheld by the court). When I came out sodomy could mean damn near anything. Sure, it could (and did) mean fuck-up-the-ass, but many laws failed to distinguish between consensual sex and a prison broom handle. Oral sex and exotic positions qualified. I'm surprised it took the court so long: surely the laws were unconstitutionally vague. BACKWARD, OH BACKWARD... I came out around 1965. And The Life was not without a certain Gay romance. Most Byronic. We flitted around like bats, after dark, the epitome of hoo-ha lust just by driving out to our [often mafia] bars. Same-sex acts were illegal. Some states proscribed being homosexual. Most enjoined that [those in Gay bars] wear at least 3 items attributable to their gender. Gay men were often sent to jail and/or prison; many Gay women went to jail and/or the booby hatch; I was picked up in a raid and sent away. The admitting psychiatrist laced his fingers and told me straight: "we are not here to adjust society to the individual, we are here to adjust the individual to society." Therefore, Gay males had the advantage of knowing the length of their sentences; Gay women did not. When I grasped what was going to happen to me, mine was the quickest queer conversion in history. The hair on the back of my head stood up. I believed him. A HAPPY YOUTH Our own bars and clubs usually contained pretty much everybody of "alternate" sexuality: Transgender and transsexual folk, Gays, Lesbians, and sometimes, to our confusion, straight Transvestites. One good thing came of oppression: bars often were racially integrated far in advance of the rest of society, and in all but the largest cities, men and women tended to associate, to mix in the same bars. Fine friendships often developed. I miss that. REVIEWING STONEWALL During the wee hours of June 28, 1969, police from the Public Morals Section of the New York City Police Department raided The Stonewall Inn, on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, on the pretext that alcohol was being sold without a licence. There must have been something in the air, for, instead of the patrons and staff meekly submitting, they began to fight back. Thus began the Gay Liberation movement, as distinguished from groups such as the Mattachine Society. That hot night passersby stopped to watch what shortly became serious beatings - nothing unusual in that - and began to heckle and shout at police as it became clear that those being dragged into wagons were going to be indicted. Suddenly, as a woman in male drag began to struggle, all passivity left the onlookers; they began to throw bottles and rocks at the astounded police, who either hid in the bar or turned firehoses on the crowd. After all, everyone knew that queers had no guts and would defend neither themselves nor each other. WHERE WE ARE NOW Do I think we should be proud of all we did? Not all. Those of us in GLF by and large went to college campuses, where, if we were knocked off our pulpits - if we were preaching to the choir - we didn't have as far to fall as our contemporaries. We did haunt Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, etc. classes and caucuses and conventions (like the 1972 Psychiatric convention, which resulted in homosexuality being struck from the list of mental diseases). We were genuinely a pain in the ass, thank God. We were neither the first to fight our oppression nor were we as effective as we thought. But taking an umbrella law all the way to the Supreme Court has been the work of quiet, devoted, hard-working people. Many of them never joined a "Gay Liberation"; there was nothing flash in the pan about them. We are still at the beginning of a victory, having won a few battles, not the war. There are all those ugly little state laws and their power to destroy lives, depending on whim. It won't be surprising to find that each one has to be fought individually. If that sounds easy, recall that if the states so rule, laws could be passed against homosexual acts or persons. After all, the law says we can't smoke dope, shoot up, kill ourselves, drink in the privacy of our cars, or (for males) fail to register with the Post Office . Guess what that's for. The law tells us what we can do with our bodies, even though it be in private. If public opinion blows against us, a very precise definition of felonious "sodomy" could be written that would hold up in court. The decision was about what we do (only) in the privacy of our homes. Tea rooms are just as illegal as they've ever been. There are a few privileges we don't know if we want... marriage, survivorship, divorces(?). Each item requires endless legal work. Thank Hera so many of us are lawyers... It's less common now to hear about adults forced into straight behavior, whether by far-out cults or mental hospitals. Kids are not so fortunate. And I hate to admit that very few of us out here over 18 dare to help them. My first lover nearly went to prison because I was under age and she was 21, a situation that has a threat not improved... actually, it's worse with all this palaver about unduly influenced youth - Internet access and HIV hasn't ever gone away. Pornography, etc. Ah, what's the youth. It's time for the second phase of our liberation. |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
International Readers |
  It's new!A blog created by the SGN staff so you can be heard |
|
 |
DigitalTeamWorks presents  websites for Artists looking for a great email us for more information
|
 |
Get Your Tickets |
 |
 |
copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2006