Where Do We Go From Here?

I wasn't particularly distressed by the results of the 2004 presidential contest. A pro-war president opposed to gay marriage defeated a pro-war senator opposed to gay marriage. If it wasn't much ado about nothing, it was certainly much ado about very little of substance. But there are those who view politics less cynically than I do, and for them another four years of George W. Bush is comparable to a prison sentence.

In New York City, a 25-year-old man from Georgia committed suicide at Ground Zero. He didn't leave a note behind, only a shotgun, but his mother insists he was upset about the election, and his supervisor at work agrees he found death less alarming than four more years of Dubya. "I'm absolutely sure it was a protest," she said.

Then there are the approximately 100,000 Americans who spent the day after the election on the Internet in search of information regarding emigration to Canada. Such a move makes sense to gays and lesbians wishing to tie the knot. America's neighbor to the North legalized same-sex marriage in 2003. On election day in the U.S., however, 11 out of 11 American states voted in favor of an amendment denying marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples.

But despite these extreme reactions, the map remains as red as the blood being spilled in Iraq. Bush remains, and, in January, he'll be sworn in for a second term.

Is there a silver lining in these clouds?

If we look to history, it's not unthinkable that gays and lesbians might accomplish more with a conservative republican rather than a liberal democrat steering the ship of state. What presidential candidates say and what presidents do are rarely the same thing.

In 1916, Woodrow Wilson based his campaign on the slogan, "He kept us out of war." Within months of his reelection, this "peace" president dragged the U.S. into World War I, much to the delight of Wall Street bankers who reaped enormous profits from the "war to end all wars."

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson painted his republican opponent Barry Goldwater as a madman whose pro-war stance threatened the globe. But after burying Goldwater in a landslide, LBJ quickly accelerated the war in Vietnam and let it drag on with neither a victory nor surrender in sight. Two elections later, it was the conservatives who learned their lesson when Richard Nixon, possibly the most rabid anti-Communist to ever occupy the Oval Office, went to China. Had anyone but Nixon made such a move, they would have faced Hell from...Richard Nixon! Simply put, politicians can't be trusted, and sometimes that lack of trust can be good news to their opponents.

But the question remains, can gays and lesbians hope to gain anything from Bush in his second term?

By many accounts, Bush introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment only at the prodding of campaign manager Karl Rove who recognized its appeal to the Religious Right, a voting bloc that reportedly stayed home in 2000 and whose support Bush needed if he was to defeat John Kerry in 2004. Now that they've been appeased and Bush won't be seeking reelection, the president may opt for a more flexible position. He's already hinted that he just might favor civil unions. Those of us for whom full-fledged marriage is the goal may have to be flexible, too, by accepting civil unions as a necessary stepping stone on the road to full equality.

Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign, pointed out that 61 percent of people support equal rights for same-sex couples. So why are they against same-sex marriage?

"It's like a quiz given to the students before they had the lesson," Jacques said. "They need more education, and it takes time to do that."

Educating people on the lives of gays and lesbians should be our priority in the next four years. In order to effectively win broad support for our rights, we might also have to distance ourselves from some of those who claim to be our friends. More than one conservative pundit has suggested that the democratic party's close ties to Hollywood only helped Bush coast to victory. The party that claims to represent the downtrodden and disenfranchised looks more than a little hypocritical when its most prominent members are the pampered super rich residents of Beverly Hills. Tinseltown loves us, but some of the elites of Tinseltown also love Fidel Castro.

In 2002, Steven Spielberg was honored by the Human Rights Campaign and praised by gay activists everywhere for resigning his position on an advisory board of the Boy Scouts of America because of their anti-gay policies. "I have consistently spoken out publicly and privately against intolerance and discrimination based on ethnic, religious, racial and sexual orientation," the superstar director said. But when Spielberg spoke out after his visit with the Cuban dictator last year, it wasn't to condemn Castro's policy of placing homosexuals and other "undesirables" in labor camps, but to call for an end to the 40-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Such hypocrisy may be why "liberal" has become a dirty word, even to those, like me, who lean left.

But equal rights for gays and lesbians shouldn't be seen as a left wing or right wing issue. Gay rights are human rights, and are as American as apple pie. In the next four years, we need to work harder to help our fellow Americans understand that.


by Brian W. Fairbanks

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