RODHAM CLINTON ON GAY MARRIAGE
With 'friends' like these
By Leslie Feinberg
When it's Election Day, Democratic candidates assume that
lesbian and gay voters--given the choice between the donkey and
the elephant--will pull the lever for them.
Democrats like Al Gore and Bill Bradley, who would like to
occupy the Oval Office, and Bill Clinton, its current occupant,
have competed with the International House of Pancakes for
waffles when the question of gays in the military is raised in
this election year.
And Hilary Rodham Clinton has proved that she, like the
president, is no "friend to lesbians and gay men."
Rodham Clinton--a virtual candidate for the U.S.
Senate--sounded like Jesse Helms recently on the question of
same-sex marriage. "Marriage has got historic, religious, and
moral content that goes back to the beginning of time," she
told reporters Jan. 10. Sounding like a verse from "As Time
Goes By," Rodham Clinton said, "I think a marriage is, as a
marriage has always been, between a man and a woman."
Rodham Clinton appears to be a student of the Fred
Flintstone School of Human Sociology. In fact, dramatic
transformations in the economic organization of human societies
have brought with them corresponding changes in concepts of
religion, morality and marriage systems
The nuclear family in which "father knows best," state
outlawing of same-sex love, and the oppression of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and trans people are relatively recent historic
developments in the long course of social organization. They
arose with the cleavage of what had been cooperative societies
into societies of haves and have-nots.
Today, the defense of the "sanctity" of heterosexual
marriage by the church and the state are a defense of the
capitalist system of paternity and inheritance that insures
that wealth and private ownership will continue to flow from
ruling-class heir to heir.
Rodham Clinton dropped a bombshell when she said that she
would have voted for the anti-gay federal "Defense of Marriage
Act" had she been in Congress in 1996. President Bill "I feel
your pain" Clinton found common cause with arch-reactionary
Sen. Jesse Helms when he signed the law banning federal
recognition of same-sex marriage into law in 1996.
Democratic Party candidates count on their image as being
more progressive on social issues than Republicans. But whether
it's a hard cop or soft cop in office, they all administer the
same class-riven system that results in exploitation for all
workers and inequality and injustice for the disenfranchised
and the downtrodden.
But there's another choice for the lesbian, gay, bi and
trans movement. One that can usher in genuine change. And that
is to take to the streets in a militant, multi-national,
politicians-be-damned mass movement that makes demands in its
own interests and makes its own history.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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