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LGBT Parenting
Secretary Clinton Speaks Out
Hi All-
I just wanted to pass along this link to a speech given by Hillary Clinton at a recent human rights meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. I think the video is about 30 minutes, but you can also read the transcript at this link...
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Re: Secretary Clinton Speaks Out
Disclaimer: This is coming from a place of extreme frustration with the "system," and I haven't watched or read the whole thing.
I think it's such a cop-out to focus on gay rights in other places when egregious violations happen right in your own back yard. This may sound overly dramatic, but honestly, as someone who doesn't have permanent status in this country and whose family may be threatened with separation at some point (or the choice to live in some third place where K, J, and I have no family, friends, or roots), I find this borderline offensive. "Gays rights are human rights, blah, blah, blah," but in your own country the LGBT community is denied BASIC HUMAN rights that are given to heterosexuals. Maybe I don't run the risk of getting beaten up because of my sexual orientation, (though many DO - I just happen to live in a tolerant state), but I'd choose to get beaten up every day if that would guarantee that my family could stay together in the place we WANT and SHOULD BE ABLE to call home.
I know we need to start somewhere - how about HERE?
Vent over. Sorry.
Absolutely. My problem with it is it came out of (or after) a memo released by President Obama on Tuesday morning encouraging federal agencies to defend LGBT rights abroad. How about those same federal agencies defend LGBT rights here?
I think Clinton is generally awesome, by the way.
TDMKLM...I am sorry for the struggle you and your family face.
She did say this:
I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time. I speak about this subject knowing that my own country?s record on human rights for gay people is far from perfect. Until 2003, it was still a crime in parts of our country. Many LGBT Americans have endured violence and harassment in their own lives, and for some, including many young people, bullying and exclusion are daily experiences. So we, like all nations, have more work to do to protect human rights at home.
Thanks for this, Seattle. That was the missing part for me, and I was too angry to read through because of recent developments in my own struggle for rights. In the couple of articles I've read, when they discussed the gaps in this country, administration officials basically blew it off with arguments of the "well, at least people don't face physical violence or death" sort. Uh, actually, they do.
Anyway, thanks again for pointing out that Clinton did address the shortcomings here.
Amen, T! I am glad to see Obama and Clinton standing up for gays abroad, but can't help but feel the same frustrations about our lack of progress here on basic issues like DOMA!!!
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer
Ditto. Tdmklm - One of my close friend's partner is also from Brazil and he ended up entering into a sham marriage to get residency. It was incredibly risky and stressful time - and horrible that he had to legally marry a woman to get permanency rather than marrying the man he has loved and lived with for 9y+.
tdmklm -- My first girlfriend was from another country, and though she had spent much of her life here as a student, she was not a permanent resident or citizen. When we graduated from college I was absolutely terrified that she would have to leave, and absolutely irate that I could do nothing to keep her here. If one of us had been male, we probably would have married right after college, and I remember feeling utterly powerless that I couldn't do so. It was one of the things I always brought up when people would say stupid things like, "Why are you fighting so hard for a tax break?" Taxes, schmaxes -- I get SO MAD that they can break up families!
(In our case, it worked out well -- we eventually broke up, so I'm glad we weren't married, and she eventually married a man (for love, not immigration), and we're all great friends now. But it's still wrong!)
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A coworker and I were having this discussion yesterday and we both think this is actually a very smart political move for Obama. By elevating LGBT rights to "Human rights" and addressing on a international level he is making it much harder for the right wing to fight LGBT rights at home.
For example - shelter, food and water are all human rights - you won't ever hear a republican argue that that someone in the world doesn't have the right to food or water. So by taking LGBT rights out of the micro level and pushing up to the macro level it becomes much much larger than just gay marriage, etc. Overtime, and if other nations start making LGBT rights on par and the same as human rights it will be more difficult for a right wing politician (hell, even some left wing) to say "I don't think the people here at home deserve basic human rights."
Of course none of this happens overnight but in the big picture of politics this is pretty damn strategic, IMO.
True, I hope you're right. However, I seriously doubt republicans think anyone has a right to anything - you have a right to what you can buy, period. If you don't have the money to buy it - even if it's food or shelter - you don't have a right to have it (case in point - recently proposed cuts to WIC, food stamps, and heating assistance). So, while the idea that republicans would get behind basic human rights and that would lead them to see the LGBT community in a different light (i.e., in terms of basic human rights), I'm not going to hold my breath.
Another complicating factor is that regardless of what happens anywhere else in the world, people on the far right here will always (wrongly) use religious texts as "proof" that the LGBT community shouldn't be "given" the same rights they have. Even for those with a "hate the sin, not the sinner" mentality, the idea that we should have all of the rights that come from being in a committed relationship is not something I see them getting behind.
IMO, in the long run this won't matter because the majority of young people don't give a rat's behind whether someone is LGBT or not. We will have equal rights eventually, but I'm honestly tired of waiting (and I dpn't have all the time in the world to wait).