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| "Moose and squirrel are making great trouble for us" |
(Joking, joking . . .)
I'm actually unsure of how to feel about or proceed on the Great Soviet Boycott of 2014, aka We're Here, We're Queer, Just Not at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
It's not that what's happening to gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered + people in Russia isn't significant or important. I think it most definitely is. It's awful enough that "homosexual propaganda"--the right to talk about one's gayness in public or do any sort of advocacy or acknowledgement of homosexuality--is now suppressed under Russian law, apparently for political reasons. As well as because of good, ol'-fashioned ignorance and hate.
But if pictures and first-person accounts are to be believed--and I see no reason not to believe them--it's more than just "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" à la russe. Much more. It's violence, it's hatred, it's killing, it's threatening by the uniformed and the uninformed. It's a serious, terrible business that should be addressed with various forms of protest and pressure. We should show our support to all of the world's oppressed, whether gay or not. And we can show that support and action in many different ways, including boycotting the Sochi Olympics--or by attending and participating and performing many, many, many acts of civil disobedience on site.
* * *
For a couple of reasons, my preferred approach is the latter. I'm all about embarrassing Vladimir Putin and his crony fascist cohorts. He does Russia its citizens no favors by controlling the country year after year. Unlike Edward Snowden and a host of other opinionated folk I know on Twitter, I don't consider the current Russian government or the current Chinese one better options for freedom and fairness than the United States.
Then again, I hardly think the U.S. is perfect or innocent. Furthermore, I'm not in the middle of the Edward Snowden maelstrom either. Nor would I want to be.
Really, I know I should give a shit more about Eddie and the issues he brought out into the light, but again, too much of the Twitterati has told me how I must feel and think. Despite my more urban American trappings, I'm a mistrusting cracker at heart. You can't make me do something or believe in someone that I don't want to, no matter how loudly you yell at me, no matter how sure of yourself you seem.
And that mistrusting crackerdom and resistance to proscribing my thoughts and feelings by the Twitterborg, that invades my thinking about the so-called "gay agenda" and the response to Sochi. Yes, I'm still bitter over the gay marriage debate in the U.S. Not that the U.S. Supreme Court decisions didn't go far enough--all in all, they were pretty impressive, if limited, actions from a fairly conservative court. No, I'm more bothered by the focus for the last several years solely on gay marriage, an important right (if we want to call it that) but one that ultimately will affect and benefit a select group of people.
I agree that having institutional respect for our relationships might go some distance in helping nurture and sustain those relationships and the freedom-fighters in our army of lovers. But! What if I never have a solid, long-term relationship? Goodness knows, I've tried and still continue to. But what if? How do my civil rights stand outside of the framework of a relationship and marriage?
Not very tall, not very proud, I'm afraid. I'm barely tuned into the mainstream newsfeed, let alone the alternative, activist, progressive, yadda yadda yadda press, but so far, this is the only article I've seen from Big Media in which activists discuss the fact that essentially most of us LGBTQI+ peeps in the U.S.--including in Pennsylvania--have no legal standing when it comes to fair housing, employment discrimination, freedom of assembly, or a host of other civil rights that many Americans take for granted.
I do believe we have the right to bear arms, though. Just not the right to be held in a big bear's arms.
I don't know that I'm actively complaining about this situation, at least not in any sort of screechy, strident way. However, it is an unfair situation and can be a frightening one as well. Really, many of us have to depend on the kindness of strangers and friends to co-exist safely and securely in this world, whether in the shadows or out in public.
But there are many other people in America that must feel the same--women, African Americans, Latinos, persons in wheelchairs, those suffering from mental illnesses or intellectual challenges, the working class, the middle class, Muslims, Jews, Mormons . . . the list goes on. Heck, there are even a number of upper class whites that feel disenfranchised in this land of opportunity. Obviously. They've been highly vocal about this since November 2008.
I think I'm more irritated (rightly or wrongly) about how gay civil rights have been totally co-opted by pro-gay marriage supporters. It's as if the other rights aren't significant. It's as if everyone can feel good about themselves by saying they are pro-gay marriage without thinking about or supporting any of the other issues that confront us. It's as if everyone can wrap their heads around a bourgeois concept like marriage and family but still demonize single people, solitude, a less tidy approach to sexuality, not being parents, and apartment dwellers. To name but a few.
Why is this? Was there a concerted effort by activists to appeal to people's emotions and experiences with the focus on a shared commonality of marriage and children? Was the goal to turn off the harsh spotlight on gay men's "unsavory" sexual behavior that had shown too brightly during the 1980s and '90s? Is it that so many of those "unsavory" men died during the '80s and '90s and aren't around to see their issues brought to the forefront? Instead, our marriage-loving, child-rearing queer folk are the bearer of our standards? Is the right to marriage somehow not a "special" right compared with the right to fair housing and a ban on employment discrimination?
It just galls me that after all this time, some activists are waking up to the idea (or finally acknowledging in public) that we have not overcome. Rather we've just gained the ability to marry in a select group of states--or perhaps, better stated, the right to have the state's right to grant Adam and Steve/Mandy and Sandy a marriage license not left to be undone by the federal government.
Seems like a narrow victory at best.
* * *
So, to the point, this is why I can't get behind the big call-out for a boycott of the Sochi Winter Olympics by huge swaths of the Twitterverse and Stephen Fry. (And while I'm at it, can I just say I find I am increasingly at odds with what appears to interest said universe? Including cat pics, bad gifs, Neil Gaiman, Star Trek references, Star Wars references, Firefly, "cis" versus "trans," and various strident forms of opinion and activism I am becoming too afraid to address in writing for fear of being boycotted myself?)
I do enjoy the Olympics, mind you, and I know the athletes and planners have worked diligently to make the games a successful event. However, I also don't think the need to snowboard or ice dance overrules the right to walk down the street near a person of the same sex and not get bashed in the head for it.
Nonetheless, I'm not convinced a boycott is the best approach for any of the parties involved, not for the athletes or the Olympics or Russia or LGBTQI+ individuals in Russia. Will gay people be scapegoated even more if no one shows up to the big event? Will they be punished for the civil disobedience of others? And what about other dissidents in Russia and the world over? If we couldn't boycott Berlin in 1936 or Beijing in 2008 (or Atlanta in 1996--the lack of gun control, our prison system, our economic and social disparity, our penchant for the death penalty are all human rights issues, are they not? All worthy of boycotting it would seem), how can we or why should we boycott Sochi in 2014?
I feel liked we're being pushed toward something in a you're-either-for-us-or-against-us way by an protected class of activists who know no fear nor any consequences. Russia is not the UK. Uganda is not the U.S. I can't help but mistrust the judgment of the pushers, however well-meaning, however passionate they may be.
Personally, I prefer civil disobedience. Maybe it's the softer approach, but it would draw attention and hopefully the right kind of attention. I love the idea, as expressed by my Twitter friend Pam, of rainbow-colored bobsleds zooming toward the finish line. I imagine pink-beclad speed-skaters and envision cross-country skier/sharpshooters aiming for triangle targets instead of regulation round ones. Let a few sports figures take a stand and get arrested for the freedom to play, rather than our leading the charge to do nothing, to be unseen, to sit this one out. It will be great winter sport to watch the opponents of freedom and human rights on display to the entire world, shields and swords in hand. But then again, I always did prefer the San Francisco marriage-ins of a few years ago, when happy gay couples decided to marry en masse as a way to make their wishes and their civil disobedience known.
However, to each his or her own. And that may be my ultimate concern: I don't want the world to be told how to feel about this, how to behave and react, especially by a group of activists who have poorly managed the attainment of gay rights in our own countries. Maybe there's a long goal that I'm missing--circuses today, bread tomorrow--but I've seen no evidence otherwise, just a steely resilience in the face of ignorance and obstinacy with an aim to achieve something that is ultimately rather middle-class, narrowly focused, and, above all, self-serving to the elites. Please. Even the Cheneys support marriage rights for that sleeping-with-the-enemy daughter of theirs.
Again, cracker, curmudgeon, whatevs. I'm not that radical, I'll admit. Just tired and perturbed. The older I get, the more I embrace the crank role oftener than not. Hopefully these days I see through the bullshit spewed forth from all sides. Including my own.
There are a lot of emperors out there and a lot of them have the worst fashion sense imaginable. I'm on my way to being the Suri's Burn Book of LGBTQI+ rights.
And more power to me.
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