Nathan wrote:
> Do we really want to argue that the right to a sex toy is on an
equivalent level
>of basic human dignity? I don't think so.
-Maybe because you haven't spent much time with many SM activists.
-Being a sadist or a masochist, a dominant or a submissive is as deeply
involved
-with a person's individual human dignity as her sexual orientation.
Call me an anti-consumerist puritan, but if your sexuality is completely dependent on shopping, I'm just not going to grant it the same level of human dignity status. But in any case, I find it hard to believe that even SM relationships are disabled by having pre-made sex toys banned, since I suspect that such were possible in the days before prefab toys.
> I think courts are generally there to oppress people and overturn
progressive
>legislation, destroy Reconstruction, delay New Deal reforms, and gut
affirmative
>action laws.
-But they can also be tools to help. Gay marriage came through the Supreme
Court
-of Massachusetts. Civil unions came through the Vermont Supreme Court
giving
-the Vermont legistlature an ultimatum.
And the result has been far more states passing constitutional amendments to make such even more impossible. Even successful vanguard court decisions often create more backlash than actual progress. To quote an old lefty slogan, "a victory's not really a victory if it's not really ours." Anything granted from on high is unlikely to make fundamental change.
>But right now the population as a whole wants to make queers into second
class citizens
>with no rights. Legistlatures are not on queers' sides.
>In how many
>states do I have the right not to be fired because I am queer? In how
many states can
>I get married? In how many states am I assured of being able to visit my
lover in the
>hospital without interference?
While progress is not true in all places, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin have state laws that prohibit such discrimination. New York City also bans it.
Domestic partnerships are coming slower, but California and New Jersey have passed them, as has New York City.
It's not enough, but if you expect courts to deliver what organizing won't, except in a few oddball corners, you are ignoring history. The Supreme Court never delivered much on civil rights, even in its heyday-- schools never really were desegregated. Whites just fled to the suburbs and the courts refused to extend desegreation there. Change happened legislatively, mostly with the 1964 and 1965 Civil RIghts Act and the Fair Housing Act.
If you think tactically, Sandra Day O'Connor is who you should depend on for your rights, you really have given up hope.
Nathan Newman