Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

A week ago, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I noticed an article in the Washington Post titled "Gay Rights Groups Map Common Agenda." The article spoke about how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (or abbreviated LGBT) advocacy groups united and published their agenda for the upcoming year. The agenda included:

"...pushing for equal employment opportunities; adding sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crimes law; fighting for protections for children of LGBT couples; overturning military restrictions on gay soldiers; opposing anti-gay state and federal legislation; and fighting for the freedom to marry."

Later, in the article, it cites the LGBT's recent victories despite Bush winning back the White House and 11 states outlawing gay marriage. Those victories include:

"In California, the new year ushered in the strongest domestic partnership benefits in the country. In Montana, the Supreme Court ruled that excluding same-sex partners from dependent health benefits offered to state university employees violated the state Constitution's equal protection requirements. In Illinois, the legislature passed a bill banning discrimination against gays, joining 14 other states with such laws.

"...It was only 18 months ago, after all, that the Supreme Court struck down Texas sodomy laws, which extended the right to privacy to same-sex couples."

Now that's all well and good. Go for them.

Still, I couldn't tear myself away from my cardinal principle of "when all else fails, fuck shit up." It seemed like this agenda created literally beauracracy on the way to the struggle for Civil Rights. Like, as opposed to defying the system and carrying on with gay marriages because it's about love, people are waiting merely for the government to justify them. This sentiment appeared in Paul Starr's article today in the NY Times, where he states:

"Democrats have paid a historic price for their role in the great moral revolutions that during the past half-century have transformed relations between whites and blacks, men and women, gays and straights. And liberal Democrats, in particular, have been inviting political oblivion - not by advocating the wrong causes, but by letting their political instincts atrophy and relying on the legal system."

This captured my reaction to the LGBT agenda perfectly. Though their victories admirable and their goals modest, I read it on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and thought to myself: Where's the sit-in? Where's Rosa Parks? Where's the peaceful march on Washington"? Sure, we had a few weddings in Frisco and New Paltz, but why did it stop? Why are we waiting for the government to approve what we already know to be right?

We've grown so accustomed to saying, "Oh we need the legal system to justify us" that we've forgotten history. We're hoping to get the results without the struggle, without attempting to fuck shit up. This isn't just gay marriage, this is abortion. This is gun control. This is all you can imagine. All we should get up and do something about, but instead we trust our lawmakers to right our wrongs for us.

Yeah, and that worked out so well on Election Day.

So, as we maintain the status quo on the eve of choosing the lead of the Democratic Party, we're left waiting and watching on the sidelines. Hoping it all goes according to plan. And forgetting Martin Luther King's words in front of the Washington Monument...

"And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, 'When will you be satisfied?' ... No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream."