I agree with you that it makes sense to prioritize outlawing workplace discrimination against GLBT individuals before anything else, then struggle to secure the rights of GLBT parents and youths, and, building on the successes in the first two areas, move onto winning the equal right to marriage.
If working-class GLBT activists had their own strong liberation movement autonomous of such liberal groups as the Human Rights Campaign that prioritize the needs of gay men and lesbians of middle strata, and/or if we had a powerful political party on the left in which GLBT activists, as well as other activists, collectively work out the party's goals and strategy and tactics to achieve them, we would have a better chance of proceeding in a fashion that we should.
The thing is that the Democratic Party is not a political party but a collection of fund-raising machines that do not provide for any space for collective debates among activists to set the party's direction; the Green Party provides us with space for discussion but is still too small, weak, and electorally focused to become the main organizer of social movements; and absence of genuine mass political parties makes US politics very much decentralized, with a myriad of groups doing their own things unable and unwilling to consult others. So, practically speaking, we are not in a position to strategize together.
That said, Lambda Legal , which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Oklahoma lesbian couples, has also been working on challenging discriminations in employment and family laws: <http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/issues/record?record=4> and <http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/issues/record?record=5>.
>Knowing your audience - was RE: [lbo-talk] Washington Blade
>DSR debburz at yahoo.com
>Mon Nov 8 07:30:24 PST 2004
<snip>
>lesbians in Oklahoma filing suit in a state, which is remarkably
>like Texas and where the ground for gay marriage is about as
>breakable as the rock hard ground of the Dust Bowl days is quite
>another.
The tenth circuit is not as conservative as the fourth or fifth circuit, or so I heard.
We'll see if Lambda Legal succeed in making the Supreme Court apply Lawrence v. Texas (<http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=02-102>) to the marriage question.
Cf. <blockquote><http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=02-102> JOHN GEDDES LAWRENCE and TYRON GARNER, PETITIONERS v. TEXAS
on writ of certiorari to the court of appeals of texas, fourteenth district
[June 26, 2003]
Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Thomas join, dissenting. . . .
Justice O'Connor simply decrees application of "a more searching form of rational basis review" to the Texas statute. Ante, at 2. The cases she cites do not recognize such a standard, and reach their conclusions only after finding, as required by conventional rational-basis analysis, that no conceivable legitimate state interest supports the classification at issue. See Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S., at 635; Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U. S. 432, 448-450 (1985); Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U. S. 528, 534-538 (1973). Nor does Justice O'Connor explain precisely what her "more searching form" of rational-basis review consists of. It must at least mean, however, that laws exhibiting " 'a ... desire to harm a politically unpopular group,' " ante, at 2, are invalid even though there may be a conceivable rational basis to support them.
This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. Justice O'Connor seeks to preserve them by the conclusory statement that "preserving the traditional institution of marriage" is a legitimate state interest. Ante, at 7. But "preserving the traditional institution of marriage" is just a kinder way of describing the State's moral disapproval of same-sex couples. Texas's interest in §21.06 could be recast in similarly euphemistic terms: "preserving the traditional sexual mores of our society." In the jurisprudence Justice O'Connor has seemingly created, judges can validate laws by characterizing them as "preserving the traditions of society" (good); or invalidate them by characterizing them as "expressing moral disapproval" (bad). . . .
. . . Today's opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned. If moral disapprobation of homosexual conduct is "no legitimate state interest" for purposes of proscribing that conduct, ante, at 18; and if, as the Court coos (casting aside all pretense of neutrality), "[w]hen sexuality finds overt expression in intimate conduct with another person, the conduct can be but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring," ante, at 6; what justification could there possibly be for denying the benefits of marriage to homosexual couples exercising "[t]he liberty protected by the Constitution," ibid.? Surely not the encouragement of procreation, since the sterile and the elderly are allowed to marry. This case "does not involve" the issue of homosexual marriage only if one entertains the belief that principle and logic have nothing to do with the decisions of this Court.</blockquote> -- Yoshie
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