 From Obama to Proposition 8, Antoun Issa analyses one tumultuous week for the US gay rights movement.
America’s gay rights movement has gone through a roller coaster journey in the past week, manoeuvring through a series of highs and lows that are set to define its future.
It all kicked off on Tuesday, November 5, with a celebratory party for Barack Obama’s presidential victory. Only to be soured shortly after by surprising news that gay marriage had been knocked by Californians in the now infamous Proposition 8 vote.
The joyous mood for Obama’s victory quickly turned into anger. Gay activists around the country, and indeed the world, have been looking for an answer to the question that so many of us have repeatedly asked ourselves. How can a liberal, progressive, gay-friendly state such as California reject gay marriage?
Many gay rights supporters quickly shifted the blame onto conservative churches like the Mormons. Angry gay rights protests flared up in front of Mormon churches across the US, demonising the church for its active participation in the denial of rights for homosexuals.
Others, such as Steven Jones of the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, have pointed the finger at one major recurring obstacle to the full attainment of gay rights: apathy in the gay community.
“One of the complexities with the US is that voting is optional, there may have been a lack of support or even apathy on behalf of the gay and lesbian community,” Jones told MCV. He believes the loss of Proposition 8 should be a wake up call to homosexuals, both here and in the US, to shed its complacent attitude and become active in the pursuit of their rights.
“The message is that if we don’t stand up for our rights and actually become active about it, they’ll be taken away. California’s a perfect example where rights were granted to the gay and lesbian community, however apathy or other issues effectively removed it.
“Community work has always been a small handful of people doing a lot of the work, and assuming others will do it. Proposition 8 is a perfect example where community apathy has really discredited the gay community,” Jones says.
Amidst the anger and disappointment felt by gay Californians, there was some hope with the ascension to power of liberal and gay rights supporter, Barack Obama. Obama’s victory has effectively ended eight years of conservative rule and the massive campaign by the Bush administration to stamp out gay marriage forever in American society.
The VGLRL is one organisation that shares the relief in seeing Obama’s move to the White House, and points to Obama’s previous record on gay rights as a Senator.
“Barack Obama has been very supportive of the gay and lesbian community. He voted in the American Senate against amendments to the Marriage Act,” Jones says. “It’s good to have someone in the White House who’s actually supportive of the gay and lesbian community and will seek to implement social change in that area.”
Social change is going to be the long-term task gay rights movements now have to tackle, in order to unwind eight years of Bush policies that have pushed the negativity of gay marriage to the forefront.
For many, it started on election night with Obama’s win. Dr Kirsten Mclean, Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, has referred to Obama’s election victory speech as a sign that change is about to come.
“I think it’s telling that Obama’s victory speech mentioned gay and straight,” McLean says. “The fact that he even mentioned it was significant. I think what we might see is a presidency that is more open to looking at diversity and being accepting of people who want to get married that aren’t straight.”
But change for the gay community, according to Mclean, is going to take some time, even under Obama: “Bush has created a particular conservatism about this issue, and it’s going to take a while to undo.”
Removing the strains of neo-conservative rule and its effect on public opinion about gay rights needs to be delicate. There is a danger that pushing the gay rights agenda too quickly and forcefully on the American public under Obama might create a backlash against liberal attitudes.
“We will see a flavour change with Obama in the next couple of years, but a radical change from the hugely neo-conservative views of Bush, in the opposite direction, will probably just alienate Obama, so he’ll have to go gently,” Mclean warns.
Whether Obama’s victory will provide the necessary boost to America’s gay rights movement remains unforeseen. Obama will still have to work the fragile balance between liberal and conservative America, despite the whopping win that has given Democrats sweeping control of Congress and the White House.
There is an expectation that the liberal wave, and the wide rejection of Bush/Cheney’s neo-conservatism, will ultimately, even at snail pace, change America’s perception of gay rights.
Despite the bright signs from America, there is little confidence that a social change in the US attitude towards gay rights will be felt in Australia.
Stephen Jones believes that, despite Obama, civil unions and gay marriage are unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future.
Mclean appears more hopeful on the prospects of civil unions in Australia, but agrees that we still lag far behind the US and other OECD countries in society’s attitude towards gay rights.
“We may see civil unions eventually, but I think Australia still has a little way to go before we’re fully accepting of gay marriage,” she says.
It is difficult to find the answer to Australia’s slow progress on gay rights when stacked up against fellow industrialised nations. Jones indicates that, like the US, neo-conservative rule under Howard had a significant impact on social perceptions on gay rights.
“After four terms of John Howard, we regressed on the social justice front,” he says.
Mclean also sees Australian attitudes towards homosexuality and marriage as a factor, but wonders whether it’s our “laid back” and “apathetic” way of life that has stifled progress.
“In Melbourne, we’re tolerant and open-minded about things. We don’t care much if people are gay, but there’s still that conservatism around giving that right to marry. There’s something about marriage that’s holding fast in this country.”
The victory of Obama and Rudd in just over a year could signal a turning point for gay rights movements in their battle to root out the public’s negative perceptions of gay marriage that have been stoked by Howard, Bush and their Christian-right supporters in the past decade.
The loss of Proposition 8 might have been the necessary bang to push the wheels of social change into motion. Mclean is confident such change will come, but with time.
“It takes baby steps, but eventually you get there.”
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A change is gonna come
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