I’d like to welcome new writer Leslie Basden to AWOP’s GLBTQ page. Leslie is a writer and a substance abuse counselor who works primarily with male inmates and parolees coming through the criminal justice system. She resides with her long time partner (and now spouse) and is second mother to their grown daughter.
I admit that I’m still reeling from the voters’ setting aside of equal marriage rights for Maine citizens exactly as California voters did in 2008. Maine even blocked the implementation of equal rights until citizens had an opportunity to vote on the question. In California, thousands of marriages took place during 2008, and mine was one of them. 
When California took up the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the west coast version of Maine’s Question 1, the California Supreme Court refused to annul the same-sex marriages that took place while it was legal in that state. Eighteen thousand same-sex California couples tied the knot in 2008.
It’s important to remember why many of us want this benefit, and there are a number of excellent reasons, and there are a few that we don’t speak about very often. Let me explain my own reasons.
1. Finance. A recent New York Times article broke down the expected cost of living in same sex relationships without benefit of marriage rights, including health insurance, income tax, loss of social security payments, and medical care related to family creation. “In our worst case,” the Times reports, “the couple’s lifetime cost of being gay was $467,562. But the number fell to $41,196 in the best case for a couple with significantly better health insurance, plus lower taxes and other costs.” We pay more and get less from our government than traditional couples, and it’s not pocket change. And because women still do not receive equal pay for equal work, the financial situation for female couples is doubly damaged.
2. Health. I’m not talking about the cost of health insurance here. The stress of living in a world of entrenched discrimination against us cannot be ignored. In the PBS series, “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?” medical doctors and other researchers suggest that African-American babies have lower birth rates and more premature births, and this is attributed to a lifetime of racial discrimination against African-Americans. African-American women who are well-off and take good care of themselves have a much higher rate of premature births and low birth weights than comparable white women. Is it a stretch to think that discrimination against gay and lesbian people must also be negatively affecting our health? How much does the stress of overt discrimination damage us? How many of us suffer from addiction and other mental health problems compared to our straight counterparts?
3. Suicide. Anti-gay rhetoric and legislation affects our gay and lesbian children every day. If we continue to accept the status quo and allow the discriminatory behavior of others to touch and manipulate the well-being of gay and lesbian children, the suicide rates of these kids will continue to remain outrageously and tragically high. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to the Massachusetts 2006 Youth Risk Survey. A 2007 San Francisco State University Chavez Center Institute study shows that LGBT and questioning youth who come from a rejecting family are up to nine times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. And for every completed suicide by a young person, it is estimated that 100 to 200 attempts are made (2003 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey). Allowing same sex marriages to take place gives gay and lesbian children healthy role models and hope for their own happiness in adulthood.
4. Secularity. It is a blot on our history that some citizens are still treated unfairly in the name of organized religion. No one’s religious beliefs should provide an excuse for discrimination. If a person’s faith guides his or her personal behavior, I’m more than willing to support the right to live a particular way. The same courtesy should be given to us. Our beliefs guide our behavior, and most of us believe that how we live is consistent with our own values.
Today, these are the reasons I will continue to fight for marriage rights for all of us. As with all struggles for equal rights, it will continue to be two steps forward and one step back. It is the nature of the process, and I doubt we’d be able to make the kind of progress we are seeing today if those opposed to gay marriage weren’t so blatantly bigoted. We need them to demonstrate how unreasonable they are with respect to our rights. And we will win this war.
Why I Fight For Our Right To Marry originally appeared on A World of Progress TeamZine on November 21, 2009.
Leslie Basden
Leslie Basden's Blog
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It’s sometimes hard to identify your own culture – particularly for Americans, who are comprised of so many different people. People overseas often ask me what my favorite American food is. When I say Mexican, they just give me a strange look. But really, what is American food? Burgers and fries? (no, those are “French” fries).
In East Africa, it seems no dish is more popular than “chicken and chips” (a tasty & inexpensive dish of fried chicken and French fries). So what might be considered an authentic “American” dish is actually much more popular in Africa.
(I know – it begs the politically incorrect question – why do all black people like fried chicken? But it’s like Dave Chappelle once said about food and racial stereotypes – “I love chicken. What’s so bad about that? There’s nothing wrong with liking chicken. If you don’t like chicken, there’s something wrong with you.”)
Food preference was just one aspect of African culture that I couldn’t pinpoint – did it come from America, or did America pick it up from Africa? Tie-dyed clothing, hip-hop music – even the “fist-bump” – where did these originate? Among Americans? Africans? Or African-Americans? (Repeatedly, I went to shake someone’s hand in Africa and ended up with their fist in my hand…leaving me feeling very awkward.) In the end, I realized that some culture is picked up and adopted by people across the world – and then it becomes their own.
The more cultures I see, the more I realize that American culture boils down to a few common themes – most of them picked up from the many immigrants that make up our country:
- Ambition – After all, you can do whatever you want and be whomever you want in America (or at least you’re supposed to be able to…).
- Variety – Almost every decent-sized American city has a choice of different foods: Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Mongolian, Indian, Korean, Greek, etc. Want to live rural or urban? On a ranch with horses or in a studio apartment? Want to surf, ski, swim, ride bikes, hike, camp, shop, watch movies? Play baseball, football, soccer, tennis, basketball, ping-pong? You name it – America offers it.
- Freedom – We like to throw this word around, but when it comes down to it, I’ve not seen a society yet that has more freedom than America. Can it be improved, particularly for specific segments of society or to establish a truly representative government? Of course – and we shouldn’t be content with the status quo. But in the U.S., we have the freedom to be able to change it.
- Education – Yes, there are major problems with primary and secondary education, particularly in neighborhoods where there isn’t much of a property tax base. But when it comes higher education, no one even comes close. There’s a reason everyone in the world wants to come to U.S. universities – because they are the best in the world.
But there is one aspect of American culture that is not so rosy:
- Violence – No country places such value on violence like America. It saturates our society so much that we don’t realize it. It’s on TV, movies, the news, in books. It’s in our malls, sporting events, schools, workplaces, military bases. Ever notice every movie or TV show has to show the “close up” of the person cocking or loading the gun? They zoom the camera in so you can feel intimate with that symbol of American power – the almighty firearm.
Yet when people shoot co-workers or their wives and children, we look for so many other reasons. They were mentally disturbed. They were angry over losing their job. They were Muslim (but never “They were Christian”).
Why does no one ever suggest the reason “they were bombarded with images and a culture of violence and guns from birth and can buy automatic machine guns as easy as it is to check out a book from the library?”
If we ignore the role violence in our society plays, than we are basically accepting parts of American culture as “inherent” and assuming that we are helpless to change things. But culture is never static – and if we convince ourselves that some aspects of culture are entrenched, then we have lost all sight of what it means to be American.
Because being “American” has – and always will – be an evolving mix. Through our history, we have grown culturally as new Americans arrived. Influxes of populations – some by force, some by choice – have created the variety and diversity that we enjoy. If we decide to stop the flow of other cultures into our society and declare our identity “complete,” we will lose the essence of American culture itself.
Perhaps one day the violence in American culture will change – I certainly didn’t sense any underlying aggression in the bars of Kampala, the streets of Nairobi, or the refugee camps in Rwanda. If violence isn’t universal, why must it exist in America?
If our culture does change for the better, it will be because we decided – as a society – to adopt a new value, custom, fashion, style or food from different parts of the world. The newest Americans and the traditions they bring with them to our country will inevitably become so much a part of us that we will forget it was not always “our” culture.
Being open and ready to adapt. To change. To improve. To diversify. To recognize value in things that are not always our own. That’s American.
Because if you don’t like Mexican food and the fist-bump – then there’s something wrong with you.
American culture is universal; its violence is not originally appeared on A World of Progress TeamZine on November 20, 2009.
Wil Robinson
AWOP contributing editor, international
Author of International Political Will
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