It's not often that I find myself disagreeing with Dan Savage. When it comes to the passing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act I have to say he's wrong that it is a purely symbolic piece of legislation.
During the time I lived in Oklahoma City I was a victim of hate crime two different times. The first time the police didn't find my attackers. The second time they did. If I would've had the ability to try and get the crime into federal jurisdiction instead of the state I would have been more likely to follow through on pressing charges.
When I was attacked the second time, I got lucky and an off duty police officer saw what was going on, called for back-up and then stopped my assailants. He then reported to the officers that arrived on the scene that the attackers had been calling me faggot while beating on me.
One would think with an officer making that kind of statement I would have pressed charges. Well this was in Oklahoma which is one of the most homo-unfriendly states around. The on duty officer that took my statement actually seemed to be encouraging me to not press charged. He said that at most the attackers would spend the night in jail, get out the next morning and only have to pay a fine.
Given what I knew about Oklahoma, I decided not to press charges.
If I would of had the protection of hate crime legislation I would definitely have pursued prosecution. With the off duty officer's statement about the attackers calling me faggot, I can't help but think that would have moved it from the state level to the federal level. The one attackers that hit me in the head with a beer bottle would have been facing a lot more than just a fine.
So Mr. Savage, just because the hate crime bill doesn't directly affect every member of the LGBT community, it's still an important piece of legislation. Honestly I feel it's much more important than trying to get the White House to move on marriage as you seem to want them to do. I personally feel that the repeal of DOMA is the least of our concerns.
If you want to discuss something that will affect more LGBT citizens then let's talk ENDA. It is currently legal in 29 states to fire an employee simply for being gay. Surely that would affect more LGBT citizens than the hate crime bill.
Maybe you want to talk about something that affects every American citizen. If so let's talk about DADT. During a time when we are fighting two wars, both in the Middle East, it is insane that we are discharging service members that can translate Arabic. Lt. Dan Choi is a perfect example of this. An Iraq war veteran, and West Point graduate that studied linguistics, and is fluent in Arabic was discharged for challenging DADT. Is America safe now that we don't have him translating intelligence reports that could indicate another attack here in the US?
Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for marriage equality. That issue, however, is one that I feel needs to be fought on the state level. Once we achieve a victory in more states would it be necessary to pressure DC to repeal DOMA. Sure Obama could come out and say he opposed Proposition 1 in Maine and for the approval Referendum 71 in Washington where you live. I think that would be a wise move for him. After all he did say he was a "fierce advocate" of LGBT rights.
If I was to be 100% honest, when Mr. Savage and other respected LGBT advocates spend so much time in the national press talking about marriage; it makes me feel like a bad queer for not wanting it as bad as they seem to want it.
I will admit that you are probably right that the passing of the hate crime bill affects fewer members of our community. I still feel having been a victim of a hate crime that it is a much needed piece of legislation. I'm glad to see it finally passed, and that we have a President that has stated he will sign it into law.
I feel like your response to Dan's comments is certainly valid, but I also feel like maybe you are responding to an exaggerated interpretation of what he was communicating.
I think that he was spot on when he described the legislation as a mostly symbolic gesture on the part of the president, and he did make sure to stress that the inclusion of hate crime legislation based on sexual orientation was an important achievement and that it is significant as a tool for the queer community. However, I think that the most important thing he was communicating by describing the legislation in this way was a criticism of Obama's lack of initiative for gay rights.
Although he mentioned specifically the struggle for marriage equality, he was utilizing a nationally-recognized key issue in civil rights to describe President Obama's failure to lead the evolution of civil rights for gay citizens of the United States in general.
As far as the execution of marriage equality is concerned, I do completely agree with you that it is not effective to impose Federal responsibility, and there are certainly many other issues more pressing to the queer community than immediately being granted equal marriage rights. I just get the feeling that it's easier - especially on a news network like CNN - to discuss the importance of queer issues in terms (such as marriage equality) that are nationally-recognized and thus more likely to be familiar to the average viewer.
Posted by: jacek | October 23, 2009 at 11:10 PM
You bring up some good points. I think the real problem when it comes to discussing issues is unless it's something that could potentially boos their ratings (ie. Michael Jackson's death) they limit themselves in the amount of time they will cover any issue. So it probably is easier to pick one talking point for the 10 minute segment and stick to that.
When you consider that CNN is a 24 hour news network that's really sad.
Posted by: David | October 24, 2009 at 01:28 AM