Nathan writes:
> 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.
-In order to maintain their human dignity, people must be free to obtain -whatever objects they want/need in order to fulfill/express their sexuality. -Whether these items are toys from a sex emporium or pervertables from Home -Depot is irrelevant. What is important is that people are free to obtain -these items without interference from the government or puritans.
And a conservative would rightly respond, why is this a more fundamental right than my right to run my business as I choose, as long as everyone I associate with consents to the arrangements? This was the constitutional standard for decades, when the Supreme Court struck down minimum wage laws as violating the inalienable "right to contract."
The question is not whether laws banning sex toys are stupid -- we agree that they are-- it's whether it's a good idea to give courts greater and greater power to override democratic decisions, a power they have constistently abused over the decades.
> And the result has been far more states passing constitutional amendments
>to make such even more impossible.
-Ah yes, those legislatures which queers are supposed to rely on for help. -You have proved my point, thank you.
Which also shows the uselessness of state courts acting, when they are so easily overturned. I should note that whether state courts act is largely irrelevant, because they are so easily overriden. They are generally useless in advancing progressive policy and are far more likely to strengthen rightwing backlash.
My critique is directed at federal courts, whose decisions are almost impossible to override given the obstacles to amending the US Constitution. And anyone who thinks they are better off depending on the goodwill of the Rehnquist Court than legislatures, which have been advancing gay rights bills forward year by year, is just ignoring history and sense.
> Even successful vanguard court decisions often create more backlash than
>actual progress.
-So we queers should just sit back, keep quiet, endure our oppression. Don't -dare create backlash. If queers had the FULL support of progressives, -things might be different, but the left is too riddled with sexphobes for -that to happen.
No-- but maybe you should insult allies who agree with you on policy just because they disagree with you on tactics. Another reason I think court strategies are bad is that it allows legal activists to blow off allies and not do the hard coalition work needed for long-term political gains.
If this is how you treat someone who agrees with you 100% on what the policy should be, how do you expect to create alliances with people who actually disagree with you, but might be willing to build coalitions based on mutual respect and coalition building.
The whole worship of legalism and constitutional strategies is all about self-defeating single issue politics, not in the sense that all those issues aren't vitally important, but in the sense of claiming a right to pursue that single issue without regard to building alliances or how your strategy might impact or hurt other people.
And if anyone dares raise that problem, you insult them. Your response is just one more exhibit on why legalism on the left has been so destructive.
Nathan Newman