This is how change happens: “If most gays and lesbians in rural areas stay silent or bolt for the city, there’s no one and nothing to push back at ingrained prejudices.” In Pennsylvania, GOP state representative Mike Fleck is trying to change that.
And this is how change happens: “In this emotional video, David Stevens, a straight man, discusses what happened after he posted pictures of his gay brother’s wedding on Facebook.”
And this is also how changes happens, because there is a role for judicial action; it’s just far from the only thing that’s needed to achieve cultural change. In this case, the bipartisan legal team of Ted Olson and David Boies is seeking to have Virginia’s state constitutional amendment and related laws struck down as violating the fundamental right to marry and the equal protection of the laws.
Even if an eventual ruling doesn’t find that fundamental right, it would be great to see Justice Kennedy’s Romer decision extended to invalidate anti-gay-marriage amendments on the basis that they create an impermissible barrier to seeking remedies to discrimination through the legislative process. Many feel that this is what Justice Kennedy wanted to achieve in the Supreme Court’s Prop. 8 case, if he had been able to secure a majority.
27 Comments for “How Change Happens”
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Stephen;
Yes, I would generally agree with you — will their be singing and dancing in the streets tonight? 🙂 —
However, I suspect that the real challenges for LGBT people in rural areas is one of (1) safety and (2) security.
Being openly gay — even if you are simply honest and not “flaming” — means having to deal with much more bullying/harassment/discrimination then being in the closet or doing a game of Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell. To be sure, urban centers are not necessarily a utopia, but their is probably an organized gay/straight allied community to offer support/assistence when discrimination or harassment occurs. In many rural areas, I get the sense that such organization do not exist or does not have the resources to offer much in the way of support/assistance. This puts gay people — who consider being out in a rural community — in a situation, which they probably want to avoid, if not fearful of.
Secondly, the issue of security is also (I suspect) very important and largely overlooked. In the rural — often more overtly anti-gay politically — communities the fact is that being openly gay will probably make it harder for you to get/keep a decent job and house/apartment.
Even if their are actual anti-discrimination/anti-harassment laws on the books, being openly gay can cause problems, which may have some legal recourse — if you got the time/money — but if you are working class or lower middle class, you may not find the prospect of a civil rights lawsuit against a major employer or a popular family man/business owner to be especially helpful.
posted by Jorge on
*Sigh.* I have work to do.
Being openly gay — even if you are simply honest and not “flaming” — means having to deal with much more bullying/harassment/discrimination then being in the closet or doing a game of Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.
After all, that Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell game has consequences. Is there any such thing as simply being gay without having to put conscious effort into the exact astrological alignment of the closet? People say bizarre things about you either way.
posted by Jorge on
Maybe that would read better if I wrote “closet door” instead.
posted by Houndentenor on
If only “people saying bizarre things about you” was the worst of the problems facing gay people in rural areas and small towns.
posted by Jorge on
There is such a thing as a power privilege.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Jorge –
The problem is that a person is rarely entirely “in” or “out” of the closet….unless you are a celebrity or a politician.
If you are working class or lower middle class and living in a rural situation where you suspect “bad” things will happen if people find out that you are a gay, then you are probably going to remain in the closet and make sure that any discussion about your ‘personal life’ has the opposite gender pronouns attached to it.
Yes, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” certainly takes its toll, but so does daily anti-gay harassment/bullying or finding yourself without a home or a job or worrying about being gay-bashed.
Anti-gay prejudice certainly exists in urban cities — like where I am living now — but their is probably also an organized support network in place for people that face discrimination/harassment or — if nothing else — some visible gay people or straight allies.
In the rural communities these issues of safety and security will have to be addressed, if more people are coming to actually come out and stay in these communities.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“If most gays and lesbians in rural areas stay silent or bolt for the city, there’s no one and nothing to push back at ingrained prejudices.”
I would be careful not to disparage the role of gays and lesbians in “safe haven” cities, but I agree that gays and lesbians who live in rural areas are playing an important role of changing hearts and minds in rural America, a part of our country where people don’t think much, to be blunt, of cities and the folks who live there.
I live in rural Wisconsin, roughly midway along a straight line drawn between Chicago and the Twin Cities, the kind of area in which school districts have to be “consolidated” across several towns and villages to get a critical mass of kids.
Our “change agents” are the two young farmers who got together and are now consolidating the family farms, the kid who started the GSA and shepherded it through the school board, the older couple who retired to this area after careers in the military and are active in community affairs, the two young men who own and operate a local restaurant, the man and the woman who are active members of our volunteer fire department, and so on. Others, who are working in professions where “it’s okay as long as you don’t scare the horses”, live more discretely, but, of course, everybody knows, and most seem to be okay with it.
All told, Michael and I know about 50 other gays and lesbians living within 10 miles of our house, and all are making a difference by doing nothing more than living their lives, integrated into the community. I don’t think there is anyone around who doesn’t know several of us personally, and that personal knowledge tempers the hatred and ugly images put out by the anti-gay movement.
In our area, we — not the gays and lesbians living in Chicago or the Twin Cities, much less New York, San Francisco or Washington — are the face of “gay and lesbian”. People can take us or leave us as the spirit moves them. Take us or leave us, though, I think that we make a difference, one neighbor at a time, defusing the fear and loathing.
As Tom Jefferson pointed out, safety and security are an issue in rural areas. I encountered a level of raw hatred when I was going door-to-door in our county every day during the 2006 anti-marriage amendment fight. I can’t count the number of times I was told I was going to hell, and should definitely get the hell out of whatever town I happened to be in that day. Because my name and telephone number were on the handouts for the county (as Wisconsin election law required), I got two or three calls a week that were, in a word, vicious. But it wasn’t common in comparison to the number of conversions I had with people, and I didn’t lose any sleep over it.
I don’t personally worry about safety. Like most rural folks, I keep a shotgun handy in my home, but if I ever have call to use it, chances are it will because meth addicts are busting in, not because some moron is out to get me because I’m a “homosexual activist”. On the rare occasion when I’ve run into trouble, it has always been teenagers or morons, and I know how to intimidate teenagers and defuse morons.
Gay and lesbian politicians make a difference, too, as Stephen pointed out. In the last election cycle, Democrats ran four openly LGBT candidates for the State Assembly (out of 99 seats), three of the four in rural districts. None of the three rural candidates won — all were running against Republican incumbents in “red” districts — but the campaigns, I believe, helped “push back at ingrained prejudices”.
“And this [the Virginia lawsuit] is also how changes happens, because there is a role for judicial action; it’s just far from the only thing that’s needed to achieve cultural change.”
A word about the interplay of cultural change and judicial action. It seems to me that the two work together. Obviously, as Stephen points out, judicial action is not the only thing that’s needed to achieve cultural change, and it is not even the most important thing — person-to-person contacts are the most important thing.
But judicial action does help drive cultural change. Most people don’t pay rapt attention to court cases, as I do, but most people do pay some attention. As court after court after court rules, in a variety of cases and fact situations, that “equal means equal”, it has an effect on peoples’ attitudes. I don’t think that there is any question about it.
posted by Doug on
Interesting how Stephen now finds a role for those pesky ‘judicial activist’ judges for LGBT issues while deriding such judges previously.
posted by Houndentenor on
I’m curious where Stephen lives. Does he live in such a place? Or does he just think others should?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Stephen lives (votes, anyway) in Virginia, and from other things he’s said over the years, I suspect that he lives within commuting distance of Washington.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Anti-gay prejudice certainly exists in urban cities — like where I am living now — but their is probably also an organized support network in place for people that face discrimination/harassment or — if nothing else — some visible gay people or straight allies.
I can’t speak to anywhere outside my area, but we have an unorganized support network in place — friends, family, neighbors and other local people, straight and gay/lesbian alike.
A case in point:
In 2005, a woman who is allied with Peter LaBarbera’s outfit bought a “seasonal residence” on a local lake. She had, from what friends who know her tell me, the naive notion that rural life would be an idyllic refuge from Chicago, a place populated by Andy, Barney and Aunt Bee — and no gays or lesbians.
She discovered me on the internet, right smack dab in the middle of her imagined rural life, and raised unholy hell about it. She tried to get me dumped from local organizations to which I belong. She blogged and blogged and blogged about the homosexual evil right in the middle of her private Mayberry RFD. It went on and on.
I think the reaction she got from local people — including members of her own very conservative and anti-equality Evangelical church up in this area — shocked her. She ran into “Yeah, he’s gay, be he’s ours, and he’s all right …” In a nutshell, local people told her to butt out and take her big city politics with her.
Meanwhile, local people who were aware of the situation, both those who are pro-equality and anti-equality, stopped me in the local stores, in the streets and here and there, telling me that she was out of line.
It was a pain in the ass to have her vamping around on her broomstick up here, but it blew over. She removed all the crap from her blog about three years after she wrote it, and I haven’t heard a peep out of her in several years.
Would I have encountered the same level of support if I were a newcomer to the area, rather than fifth generation? Probably not. But most of us who live in rural areas have roots in the area, or work our way into the communities in which we live, and “local” counts.
posted by Jorge on
I think the reaction she got from local people — including members of her own very conservative and anti-equality Evangelical church up in this area — shocked her. She ran into “Yeah, he’s gay, be he’s ours, and he’s all right …”
…
But most of us who live in rural areas have roots in the area, or work our way into the communities in which we live, and “local” counts.
I’m sure it does.
And I’m sure small town life isn’t for everyone. I wish you luck.
posted by Houndentenor on
I am from a small town in East Texas. There’s no way I would live there again, out or not. There’s nothing there for me to do in my career and worst it would be horrible to live in such a repressive (not just anti-gay but hypocritically socially conservative) place. People who choose to live in such places have my full respect and support. It’s why it’s so important to work for gay rights nationwide and not just in the Democratic strongholds. But live there again? Wasn’t 18 years enough?
posted by ShadowChaser on
My parents grew up not far from State Rep. Fleck’s legislative district Yes, it is a rural area, but many of his constituents commute to State College/University Park (home of Penn State) or to Altoona. Even Huntingdon, the county seat where Fleck lives, is home to Juniata College, which is crunchy-granola in outlook.
Living in a small town is fine, if you can find a well-paying job. Many of my cousins’ classmates set out for Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, Washington, etc. once they graduated high school or college.
Living in a small town ain’t all that it is cracked up to be. From where one of my cousin lives, he is 22 miles to the nearest Redbox vending machine and 15 miles from the nearest Chinese restaurant. A small library opened in a nearby town, but people depend on the bookmobile.
A lot of people love living in small town America, but it isn’t for everyone
posted by Don on
Most rural parts of the country have a code that doesn’t fit nicely in our system of laws. It goes to the basic understanding of religious codes: they should be strong and unrelenting; but we’re going to ignore the inconvenient parts or justify their use when it suits our needs. Although this is anathema in populated parts of the country, this is truly how rural America lives. Blew 2 times the legal limit on a DUI? Well, state law says you’re going to jail. Except the judge is your neighbor. Heck, in most small towns, everyone is your neighbor. including the judge. I couldn’t put you in jail for a year for one little mistake, Joe. You’ve got kids to feed. Could you cut back a bit and don’t show your face in my courtroom again, okay?
This is how they live. Same with abortion. Same with gay rights. Well, we can’t give you no marriage rights. That would be against God. But we all know Lisa and Sharon are living together. They just don’t say what that means out loud so we don’t have to call her out publicly. Besides, she’s the church organist.
And so it goes. No abortion exceptions for rape and incest. But of course we should make an exception for Debbie and John. They were using condoms and it musta broke! They didn’t plan to have no kids. They’re just kids themselves! And on and on.
City people can’t live that way. We do, to a point, but its mostly financially and politically connected people who get away with this behind closed doors. But if no DUIs were punished, we’d have serious problems on our roads. So we pass laws that rurals agree with in theory but refuse to enforce in practice.
This drives city people nuts. Why are you passing all these crazy laws? Well, Bible says we’re supposed to! And we’re going to do with it what we do with the bacon ban. Ignore it and know that none of us are going to go to hell, even if the Bible says we’re supposed to.
I could never fit in the small town I North Florida where I grew up. It drove me insane as a teen to say and do completely hypocritical things. My father, the town judge, always used to say “it’s not their fault. but this is what happens when you have a brain drain”
Not that they’re all “stupid,” but most of the smarter ones left. That’s just a fact. Opportunities are much better in larger areas. And so they have populations that cannot grasp abstractions and hold inconsistent beliefs because they’re people who go with their gut, even if their gut tells them to do the opposite of what it told them to do last week. And they almost never question their contradictory beliefs. This is precisely how you get “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” Because “other” people they don’t know are cheating the government and taking their tax dollars.
“oh sure, republicans are stupid” is the obvious attack. no, they’re not. but a large part of the base thinks emotionally, not rationally. And until recently they only got to vote. now some of them have been elected to congress.
posted by Doug on
Amen, brother. . . Amen.
posted by Houndentenor on
To be fair, most of us are far more emotional than rational. the better educated we are, the better we are at convincing ourselves that our emotional decisions are based in reason. This is the core of advertising and marketing. Get an emotional response from people and then show them some facts and figures so they can convince themselves that what they are doing is logical. It’s true across the board. Smarter or more educated people (not always the same thing as we all know) are just better at it than those who are less educated or less intelligent.
The problem is that this goes on. It goes on all the time. The problem is when people manipulate people into doing things that are harmful to themselves or to others. It’s one thing to prey on people’s fears so they will buy a more expensive child car seat that isn’t really better to any measurable degree. It’s quite another to stir up fear to get people to oppress minorities or restrict the rights of others.
posted by Jorge on
Blew 2 times the legal limit on a DUI? Well, state law says you’re going to jail. Except the judge is your neighbor. Heck, in most small towns, everyone is your neighbor. including the judge. I couldn’t put you in jail for a year for one little mistake, Joe. You’ve got kids to feed. Could you cut back a bit and don’t show your face in my courtroom again, okay?
Uhhh, wha? That happens in big cities, too, and for the opposite reason. It’s called plea bargaining and liberal social science. Also no-snitch codes and police officers who don’t file criminal complaints because they don’t want to do overtime for whiny dead-end trash. It happens because you’re just a number in the system.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think you are describing conservative Christians, perhaps, or maybe Southern rural whites, but you are not accurately describing rural people in general.
I got my hair cut this afternoon, and while waiting, five or six of us took part in a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the Affordable Care Act, how it is likely to affect local businesses and local people, and whether we’d be better off if the President had just pushed for single payer. The level of intelligence in the discussion was tenfold anything I’ve heard from Congress or most of the chattering class during the last few weeks. Actually, given the level of discourse we’ve heard from Congress in the last few weeks, it was probably a hundredfold in their case, not tenfold.
A lot of the brightest kids out-migrate from rural areas. The brightest kids migrate out of suburbs and urban neighborhoods, too. I out-migrated from the area where I now live, and for good reason. I couldn’t have practiced law at the level I did unless I was in a national law firm, and that meant Chicago and a huge law firm. Several of my high school friends also out-migrated, and did well for themselves. But plenty of bright ones stayed, too. Other friends stayed and owned businesses or farmed, or became small town lawyers or doctors, doing well themselves. One option isn’t necessarily better than the other. What counts is what we choose.
I’ve lived in both rural and urban areas (28 years in rural Wisconsin, 32 years in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, with 6 years in the military as a sidestep). I don’t push rural over urban, or urban over rural. (I do encourage everyone to avoid wasteland suburbia like typhoid, but that’s another discussion.) I note that rural and urban are different. Both urban and rural offer rewards and challenges, both have strengths and weaknesses, and both are satisfying to those who fit them. I’m glad I had the opportunity to live in both.
I read your comment, filled with more emotion than fact, and I wonder what your views would be if you put away the boyhood hurts and spent some time in rural areas as an adult, perhaps out of the Florida panhandle, which is infamous for its backwardsness. I think you’d be surprised at what you’d find, Don.
posted by Don on
That was surprisingly presumptuous to think that I’ve never spent any time in rural areas as an adult. And none outside north Florida. Actually, I found my 2 years in rural, upstate NY much more racist than the South. That genuinely surprised me. And the slurs went to places the south doesn’t go: nationality, religion. In the South I grew up in, Jews were considered white, and part of that community. There was no differentiation between Germans or Italians. Although there is much less now than there was in my grandfather’s day up north, they still cling to some distrust of people whose ancestry is from differing European nations and generalize/stigmatize in ways that would be unthinkable in the South.
I’ve also lived in rural Vermont, New Hampshire, and California as an adult. Those people would not fit much of the depiction I gave. Except maybe New Hampshire. They have a fierce belief in libertarian politics. They frequently get to the same answers as Alabama (where I have spent quite a bit of time) but for entirely different reasons.
My commentary was on only one aspect of rural life, and that is why I say your directive to me is presumptuous. Rural life has some amazing advantages. People pull together to help each other in much more meaningful ways. i.e. they literally give you their clothes when yours were lost in a fire. They bring food if someone lost their job or had to go to the hospital and can no longer work. And not just their neighbors. Word gets out, and the food comes. An informal “welfare” system exists. I think that’s why they have trouble understanding unemployment benefits and food assistance programs. But I can assure you, upstate NYers were just as angry about “welfare for black people” as north Floridians.
In rural areas there is much less strife and wariness. I know people to this day who leave their keys in their unlocked cars when they go “downtown” because they don’t want to lose them. And that is true in New England and the Deep South. That is a much freer way to live.
However, none of that was germane to the point I was trying to make. Might I suggest that you are painting me with the equally unfair broad brush that you accuse me of painting rural residents with.
I would never suggest that you are projecting onto me boyhood hurts that I don’t have but you might. That would be presumptuous.
posted by Clayton on
I live in a small town in Louisiana (20,000 people). Admittedly, it’s a university town, but I moved here from a town of similar size that didn’t have a college or university. In both, I’ve been an out-of-the-closet gay, and in both I’ve met with a pretty high level of acceptance. Yes, my husband and I encounter the occasional homophobic plumber or junior high school kid, but as recent events have suggested, even “gay havens” like San Francisco and New York aren’t immune. In the meantime, just by living our lives openly, we feel like we’re doing our part in helping to change attitudes.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Michael and I have had the same experience. Rural areas (in rural Wisconsin, anyway) are not a necessarily a wasteland for gays and lesbians, a hell hole devoid of life. Rural gays and lesbians are spread thinner on the ground in rural areas than in urban areas, but we are part of our communities, and we make a difference in our own way.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“If most gays and lesbians in rural areas stay silent or bolt for the city, there’s no one and nothing to push back at ingrained prejudices.” In Pennsylvania, GOP state representative Mike Fleck is trying to change that.
I didn’t get around to checking on Fleck’s record until this morning, but one thing that Fleck is apparently not trying to change is Pennsylvania marriage law.
The Washington Blade reports that a bill [HB 1647] was introduced in the Pennsylvania House early on September 9 to bring marriage equality to the state. The article notes that the bill had 34 sponsors when introduced, including at least two Republicans.
Not among them, according to the article, was Mike Fleck. I checked Fleck’s legislative website this morning, just to make sure that he hadn’t signed on since, and sure enough — he touts the fact that he sponsored 601 bills and resolutions, but HB 1647 was not among them.
Where does the Republican Party find guys like this, anyway?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Updating my earlier comment regarding marriage equality, a new marriage equality bill, HB 1686, was introduced in the Pennsylvania House earlier this week. Here’s a summary from the House website:
The good news is that Republican Chris Ross is a sponsor. The bad news is that Mike Fleck is not.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Again, its is easy to say that “small town life is always x” or “big city life is always y”.
If you are gay, small town life can be OK, even — in small, quiet ways progress — if you have a good paying job, if you got some good generational-family connections, if you can find a social support network to turn to when their is discrimination/harassment.
The challenge is what happens when you are a gay kid in a rural middle or high school, where their is simply no way you are going to get much support beyond a vague, anti-bullying policy.
The challenge is what happens when you are a gay adult in a rural community, where your job is more blue collar. Legally, they may not be able to fire you (at least not overtly because you are gay), but they can sure make your daily life miserable and you can forget about advancement, same thing if you work in a small business where getting the customer to like you is critical.
I think we are also going to start seeing — in light of the poor economy and high levels of student debt and aging population — more 20/30-something relocated back to small towns.
posted by Jorge on
Where does the Republican Party find guys like this, anyway?
I think what you’re really asking is, “where does gay America find guys like this, anyway?”
And I don’t like it.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think what you’re really asking is, “where does gay America find guys like this, anyway?”
And I don’t like it.
Don’t like what? The fact that Fleck is not willing to sponsor a marriage equality bill that at least two straight Republicans in the House are willing to sponsor? The fact that I checked it out and reported on it? Or the fact that I dared call out a Republican gay legislator for being less than, uh, supportive of equality? What?
Stephen touted this guy as a change agent. So far, all he seems to be doing is proving the adage that the more things change, the more things stay the same.
If we want to talk about change agents, we should be talking about the straight Republican representatives who are sponsoring the marriage equality bill in the Pennsylvania House, not the gay Republican who isn’t. Republicans who support equality are the change agents.
Jorge, let me ask you a blunt question. You’ve indicated that you support Rick Santorum in the past, if I remember right. Santorum is very upfront about the fact that he opposes marriage equality. Where do you stand on the issue?