Oh What a Night: Healing, Faith, and Love

My Mama used to say to me, on days when I was especially high energy and bouncy, "Who put a quarter in you?"

Friday, if you'd walked into my office, you'd have thought that someone took an entire roll of quarters and had started plugging any staff they could find until their pupils came up dollar signs. The energy in our office was out of control.

At one point, during staff meeting, my colleague JT and I were being sassy with each other (ahhhhh sweet repository of intense tension), when Doyin and Reina push back from the table where Doyin starts to rock and Reina starts summoning up a safe zone to envelope him. We all fall out laughing, and in unison, Doyin and Reina spin around in their wheely chairs and pull back up to the table. They are basically those two crotchety old Muppets that are always talking smack during the Muppet Show.

Things calmed down a bit while we all shoved Cuban food into our faces like a bunch of wild hogs at a slop trough.

And then more volunteers descended on the space, including the indomitable Yejin Lee from the Anti-Violence Project, to begin prepping meals for QEJ's vigil in honor of our member, Yvonne McNeil, who was murdered by the police in early October. All that manic energy translated into packing sixty lunches in a time that would have made the winner of the NY City Marathon blush and clap. It was organized chaos with a PB&J heart.

With the office mostly empty, JT, Amber, and I were sitting waiting to catch any last minute folks that straggled in before leaving for the site of the vigil. At one point, we were all sitting near each other, and we had a Lefty Confessional and Rite of Absolution with Amber, and then we all headed across the island to a small park near New Providence Shelter.

The vigil was powerful. It was silent, and it was comprised largely of folks that work in the queer community and around issues of violence. At the last minute, residents of five different shelters decided not to attend the vigil. It was not unexpected. It's one thing to want to honor one of your own that has fallen to violence from the system, and it is another to face the reality of that violence and understand that it could have been anyone, including yourself. Therefore but by the Grace of God go all of us.

So, those of us that have the privilege to live outside of the shelter system, along with a few residents of New Providence, showed up to honor the memory of Yvonne McNeil. As Amber Hollibaugh, my colleague and friend, said, "Not a single one of us, including our homeless, will go unremembered." There are times when we show up because others simply can't. That's revolutionary and love.

The Audre Lorde Project showed up in force to act as our allies and our security for the vigil as did folks from the Sylvia River Law Project. And it was lovely to have lawyerly support from Streetwise and Safe! I can't say enough how much it meant to me and the rest of us at QEJ to see how our people show up for each other in a time of need. That, too, is revolutionary.

That night, I hung out with JT and his sister, and it was wonderful to sort of let some of the sadness go and enjoy time out and about in the world celebrating life in the face of violence. In fact, I think when we celebrate the ways in which we continue to grow despite the reality of living in a police state, we are doing the work of defiance and healing. And we can't heal alone...no matter what the wound. In fact, the systems that be would have us believe that isolation is the way to heal are in fact trying to keep us hurting...isolation is simply another way to keep us wounded and bleeding...slowly. I will gather my loves around me. That's good medicine.

This weekend has been about celebration, healing, getting back to self, cooking, reading, playing, loving, and being brave in the face of hurt and hope. Actually, I believe being brave in the face of hope is infinitely harder than just about any other act of courage....to believe that your hurt can be less than your healing and that the love that is offered and present is greater than your loss, is terrifying. But leaps of faith have always been the greatest and most frightening acts we have undertaken. And the greatest human achievements have always come from those that have opened their eyes wide and jumped. I believe I will be caught...I have been every time I have ever had the courage to leap.

Same Gender Marriage: My Analysis

Yesterday I posted my first guest blog at My Feet Only Walk Forward, and I am mightily glad that I did. Some of you loved it, some of you hated it, some of you agreed with it but didn't like the style in which it was presented. I will make this comment that the person who wrote it is brilliant and has a right to their rage, anger, and disappointment with the topic of marriage. That person also has a right to use profanity, and I believe did so in a hilarious way. But the reality remains that so many of those with money or those that make decisions about the priorities of the movement for LGBTTSGNCSGL/Queer justice have pushed, cajoled or plainly forced those of us with a broader and more substantial agenda for change into their cubbyholes. It is not cool at all and displays the underlying power, privilege and oppression present within the queer community.

Today, an article appeared on the Huffington Post stating that Obama has had a reconciliation with the "gay" movement largely because of the myriad of ways he really has been an ally to queer folks and has used both legislative and executive avenues to push forward various issues important to various segments of the queer and trans community. The article would have been fantastic if had stated that and stopped there. But oh NO...the first couple of paragraphs were right on and then the rest of the damn article was about marriage. And that right there is the problem. Let me restate.

THE REST OF THE ARTICLE WAS ABOUT MARRIAGE.

The article clearly reflected its sources. Ask most folks at the HRC, The Task Force, Freedom to Marry, and Equality Matters and you would end up with a priority list with marriage at or near the top. Ask the Stonewall Democrats and the Log Cabin Republicans, and you'd probably get the same thing.

Now trot your ass down to 24th and 7th and ask FIERCE (Queer youth of color organization), Audre Lorde Project(LGBTSTGNC people of color organization), Sylvia River Law Project (trans criminal justice organization), or Queers for Economic Justice, and marriage won't even hit the top ten. Ask Unid@s and it might be in the top five but it won't be number one.

Let's examine why....it's pretty simple. The first batch of organizations largely represent middle or upple middle class white heternormative individuals with tons of privilege and a narrow view of what a "gay" issue is.

The second batch of organizations works with working class, poor, vulernable and homeless populations that are largely people of color and include a huge number of immigrants.

So the math is pretty simple, those with the most need and are facing the most urgent issues that relate to life and death, food, clothing and shelter are those with the least means to force recognition of that need onto the national stage. Those privileged individuals that fund the national organizations have the means and do prioritize their narrow desire and do so without regard and often times concern other than a general recognition of queer and trans folks of color and working class queer and trans folks.

Thus marriage assumes a level of focus and importance way beyond its actual potential impact and ability to change lives broadly.

And I get even more angry because it forces an internal division between my politics and the impact on my friends. My politics are clear: marriage is not a priority nor should it receive the resources it receives. My reality is clear: many of my friends are in loving committed monogamous relationships, many with children, and would benefit from the economic and immigration rights that come with marriage. My friends Susan and Rocki would never have had the stress of worrying about Rocki's green card. My friend Karly and her partner Laura are currently living in England, where Laura holds citizenship, because Laura's visa expired and though they are married she can not petition for citizenship as a straight couple would be able to do. For them, marriage would be life changing...life changing but not life saving. Though it sucks beyond suckage, and I want them to be here in the United States, neither of them worry about food, clothing, shelter, access to HIV and other medications, addiction treatment, or any of the other broader and more impactful issues within the queer and trans community that can and often do mean life or death.

That's what we are talking about here people: quality of life versus life or death. I want all of my friends that wish to celebrate their love for one another and have it recognized by the state to have that right without reservation. I also live with HIV and I want a cure. I want their to not be a waiting list for ADAP insurance for positive individuals. I want their to be housing for people living with AIDS and hospice care for those for whom the medications no longer work and they are transitioning out of this life. I want any young person that runs away or is kicked out of their home because of being queer or trans to know, with certainity, that they can walk down the street to the nearest youth service organization and there will be supportive housing available to them free of charge. I want any addict anywhere (and at least 25% of queer folks suffer from some form of addiction) to have instant access to rehabilitation services in a queer affirmative environment by simply asking for it.

Since 1996, somewhere around $1 billion has been spent on the marriage fight. $1 billion dollars could have made any one of those other issues right up in that last paragraph a reality or have gotten us so much closer to making them realities.

Next month I will be in Los Angeles at the wedding of a dear friend of mine who is marrying a beautiful man. I will be there with joy for them, but I won't lie, there will be some part of me that is bitter that they can get married wherever they want in the world and have it recognized by the world. I don't have that right. But, I am personally willing to sacrifice that right for now, for myself, in order to heal much deeper and broader and life threatening wounds in our community.

And there is also a part of me that wants to end marriage for everyone entirely. I currently have a partner and am seeing another wonderful man. Even with a win for marriage, my relationship structure choice will not be validated nor will folks that are single be included in the awarding of the economic privileges that go along with heterosexual style marriage.

I am not in opposition to marriage and I understand why many find it to be so important, it is the place it holds and the resources it has appropriated in this fight that make me so very upset. But I am also a realist when I have to be. We are winning this marriage fight despite the laws on the books federally and in so many states. The courts are siding with queer folks. Popular opinion has swung in favor of allowing same gender marriage.

I will continue to critique marriage loudly and openly. I will continue to support fights AGAINST amendments like the proposed constitutional amendment in Minnesota limiting marriage to one man and one woman---those are direct attacks on us and should be resisted rigorously---I wrote the largest single charitable contribution check that I have ever written to a single organization last year...the organization was formed specifically to unseat Senators in New York that voted down a marriage law last year...and I believe that politicians with fucked up positions should pay for their votes with their seats. But I won't be writing a check to any organization that has as part of its agenda active advocacy and organizing FOR marriage in the absence of a attack on marriage rights. Let the courts keep the legislatures in check...that's why we have a system of checks and balances.

But, also, I am so tired of the fight in general, and I know, eventually, that we are going to win, so I would like us to get to victory...like right now...so we can move on to the issues and concerns that are truly going to radically change the lives of millions of queer folks in this country. I too am Beyond Marriage.