A privileged personal history of gay rights activism

When I was in high school in the late 1990s, a group of amazing students formed a club one day. They called it the GSA, or the Gay-Straight Alliance. Smalltown, Connecticut, offered an incredibly sheltered existence to all of us, back then. I went to school with literally fewer than 400 students in the 9-12 grade and graduated with something like 98 other kids. And they all looked and behaved just like me. Anyone who behaved even slightly differently, therefore, was subject to scrutiny and side-eye.

Now, we were fairly nice kids, and while a few of my more bullied friends could tell you war stories from that school that would make you shiver, from where I sat in seventh period World Cultures, we all seemed pretty open, honest, and kind. There was the immature name-calling every once in a while, the hallway fist fight once in a blue moon, a few people everyone whispered about for one reason or another. Many of us (and really I can only speak for myself, but I'm guessing many of us) did not understand the reality of oppression, of marginalization, because it truly did not affect us. We were white, straight, well off monetarily, and children. As such, we threw around the phrase "that's gay" very easily, and I distinctly remember at least twice when separate students were made to feel supremely uncomfortable because someone started a rumor that "they were gay." I have no idea how it must have felt to have to walk around with that label, true or not, particularly when they had not yet made a personal choice to share that private information. I do know that I saw red faces, tears, and students drawing into themselves. As if being gay were the absolute worst. Again, I say we didn't know any better, but someone did. Where were the adults?

All this to say my alliance with progressive causes did not start until well after I left high school, and even college. I literally did not understand oppression. I had no concept of it. So when the GSA came along, and quite a few of my friends were in it, I would hang out with them after school every once in a while, when it was convenient to me, mostly to chat with my friends. It may as well have been a sewing circle, or a club for frisbee golf for all I cared or paid attention, but it did spark just a sliver of awareness in me personally, that there was a group of people who felt ostracized enough that they needed a group to support them. And my childhood self did like the idea of equality. Even then I thought that people were people and we should all just let them be and let them love and treat them fairly. I just also thought that they were already treated pretty fairly. I truly had no idea. I was busy reading MacBeth and studying Elementary Functions and playing soccer, and singing in choir, and heading up the Environmental Team. I figured my life was full and complete and did not for one moment consider how incredibly selfish it was.

It's important to note that I didn't even think I knew any LGBT people. I really figured that every single time something like that was brought up, it was mean-spirited talk meant to segregate a person and find something not-normal about them so that they would be made fun of for like a week. I was a fairly smart kid...but I never put two and two together that if I thought being gay or a lesbian or bisexual or transgender was a huge insult meant to wreak havoc on teenage self-esteems, then perhaps I was part of the problem, even though I thought I was doing my diligent part by saying things like, "no, they're not!" I mean, really? So very little I understood in those days.

Turns out, at least two people I knew there were transgender, and many more gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, queer, or without sexual orientation label, per their preference. And that it was okay for them to identify that way. That it wasn't necessarily a source of ridicule, but actually a legitimate identity to be protected, to be held sacred, much like my straight, white life was never questioned. I wish I had known that, then. I wish those students had been able to say with confidence, this is who I am, and I wish I, as a straight person, had known that the correct answer wasn't to immediately thrust the person back into "normality" but to venture to understand what life must be like having to hide from your earliest years. I wish I had known that a better answer than "no, they're not!" would have been, "and what the hell is wrong with that?"

But I didn't know. And for that I am sorry. Regardless, all this is to say that yesterday marked an official turning point in the nation, and the high school friends I still keep in touch with have grown in leaps and bounds since 1996, everyone celebrating, everyone understanding what an enormous weight has been lifted now that our government agrees that love is love and we should not police which gender people have the right to fall in love with.

This entry has been personal and whiny in the face of tremendous societal change for a reason, and that is to say this:

One of the collateral victories in this fight is that when my kids go to high school, they will already know that LGBT people are not a segregated flock of people there only to provide a petty comparison to what straight kids don't want to be. I've taught them from birth that "girls can marry girls and boys can marry boys" and now that we're living in Florida, I can tell you that they came home from kindergarten and first grade at least once a month telling me that so-and-so said I was a liar, or that so-and-so's mom said I was totally wrong and what I said was a sin.

That's not really going to happen anymore in a way I cannot defend. As they grow, I can point to this decision, and guide them in the knowledge that people who identify as LGBT are not only okay, but amazing because they fought for their rights and actually won a battle in our lifetime. When my kids go to high school, "gay" won't be used as an insult. It won't be interchangeable with "stupid" or "ridiculous" or "something I really fucking dislike right now". And that might be a very small thing, but a very good thing. And maybe it's not so small after all.

My children will grow up in a world where more people are treated as equals in the eyes of the law regardless of their personal choice of who to be and who to love. And if they decide they are part of the LGBT community, those who have fought together so hard in my lifetime while I was busy failing Home Economics have paved the way for them, not only personally, but legally, and rights will be afforded them that have been kept away from this group for so long. And I am eternally grateful.

Congratulations, everyone, and thank you. You did it. #lovewins

What Does Corporations Are People Mean?

In light of the recent SCOTUS ruling on Hobby Lobby and other corporate giants being allowed to deny women birth control within their health coverage plans because it goes against their religious beliefs, I thought a primer on the laws surrounding corporations as people was in order.

Slate does a good job covering some of the bases of this particular case, but let's sum up:

- Eric Posner, writing for Slate, reminds us that the word "people" in terms of corporations is a sort of legalese short cut--never a good idea, in my opinion, to mince inexact words when describing the law.

- This 'artificial person' (going back to the 1700s definition) has certain rights: property ownership and contractual rights, to be specific. As such an entity, it is responsible in the courts as itself, which protects the shareholders. In other words, the buck stops (or is supposed to stop) at the corporation because the Supreme Court went ahead and made it its own thing. This, in turn, protects the owners as well, because when Hobby Lobby (or any corporation) fails financially, the actual people behind the artificial person do not suffer the immense losses involved in billion-dollar industries.

- Until recently, according to the New York Times, the "Supreme Court, in business cases, has held that “incorporation’s basic purpose is to create a legally distinct entity, with legal rights, obligations, powers, and privileges different from those of the natural individuals who created it, who own it, or whom it employs.”"

- Until, of course, the Citizen's United case, where, as Slate says, the justices based their ruling not on corporations as individuals with rights but on the real individuals behind the corporations and their rights as a collective group.

The ruling this week was simply an extension of this incredibly garbled, incredibly unethical ruling.

What we are looking at now is Hobby Lobby owners asserting that their religious beliefs as individual people behind a corporation, should be a basis for how that corporation is ruled upon in a court of law. They are, in essence, making themselves responsible for the actions of Hobby Lobby, intertwining Hobby Lobby as an artificial person with them as real people. They are saying they want to become Hobby Lobby, so that they can use the business to push their agenda.

And, in doing this, they also want to maintain the separation of themselves from their business when it comes to protecting their own assets monetarily. And the Court said yes.

Nutshell: In ruling that Hobby Lobby can restrict women's health care, the Court has muddled two entities--the real person owner and the fake person corporation--giving the owner/corporation mutant all the protections of both--free speech, freedom of religion, freedom to engage in contracts, freedom to sue (as either entity), freedom to own property.

In doing so, the Court has neglected to relook at those protections on a grand scale, so that the owners of Hobby Lobby could turn around in bankruptcy and say "just kidding, we aren't Hobby Lobby, we're the people behind it. Don't punish us." And the Court would be like, "yup, you're good."

This week, we have seen the elevation of big businesses and their owners. We have seen the crippling demise of the worker, in real time.

Keep in mind, the average Hobby Lobby employee makes less than $9 an hour.

Who really needs protecting here?

And who is the bad guy?

Honestly, in this case, I blame our Supreme Court. Someone needs to delve into this corporation person thing and straighten it the hell out.


For more on how this impacts women and society, check this post out by Life, Love, Liturgy.

Sarah Galo writes about her personal struggle and how birth control is necessary for women in Relevant Magazine.

Bree Davis writes about the problem with the double standard on health coverage in Denver's Westword Blog.

A gripping personal tale here at Anatomy of a Mother.

Sarah Seltzer writes about how this ruling sets women into a second-class status for Forward.

Claire O'Connor, meanwhile, is stirring up dissent amongst commenters over what the decision actually means in the long haul, over at Forbes Magazine.

Raising Kvell has a piece about the effects of this decision on women.

Leslie Schwartz writes about the effects of this decision on the children, over at Build the School.