FRACTALISED FRAGMENTED THERAPEUTIC BLOGGING: On Loyalty Oaths or Ebony and Ivory Live Together In Perfect Harmony

Tuesday 15 September 2009

On Loyalty Oaths or Ebony and Ivory Live Together In Perfect Harmony

The following has been clipped from The Bilerico Project Report dated 14 September 2009.

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I'm sure you've all heard by now that Rep. Jerry Nadler plans on introducing a bill to repeal DOMA in the House, and that Barney Frank isn't co-sponsoring because he's worried that the "certainty principle" will be a poison pill that will kill the bill and that it will be a distraction from other legislation like ENDA.

Personally, it seems like a rather academic debate right now considering that the bill won't be voted on until at least after the 2010 midterms and that it won't pass the Senate in Obama's first term, if it does pass within the next decade. Sorry, I just don't feel the optimism here.

But there are also plenty of reasons to think that Frank either should or should not cosponsor the bill. There is a strategic debate there, and we're having it because the person at the center of that strategic debate is Barney Frank, one of the gay movement's smartest, most powerful, and staunchest actors. If it were anyone else, he'd probably be shouted down as an "uncle Tom" or a "traitor." If anyone would have paid attention in the first place.

More extreme (in rhetoric and emotion, not politics) members of the LGBT population have already gotten fed up with Frank. Aravosis is now referring to the Congressman as "formerly gay," because apparently having a different opinion on a strategic discussion means that you're no longer allowed to suck dick. Joe Sudby, who generally shows more restraint, said:

But, sometimes, we really need our allies to be our allies, not just the smartest people around.

His comment is fairly representative of what a lot of people are actually saying when they call someone an "uncle Tom" for not agreeing with them that marriage is the most important issue ever, for example. They don't want people to think on their own or help out as they can - they want loyalty.

But loyalty isn't defined as loyalty to the community or loyalty to a certain goal. It's defined as "You're a good, loyal, real gay person if you agree with me." For some reason, it's not a definition people on the left use, but the center-left/big-city liberal section of the community that's always just assumed it had the God-given right to define the strategies, goals, and composition of the LGBT movement.

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