Speaking of resignations that fail to make me cry: Gay Orbit reports that Cheryl Jacques is resigning as the head of the Human Rights Campaign, and contends that those who defend her record are misreading it. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that anyone’s considering Michael himself as her successor, since that first post of his is one of the most economical statements of how gay activists need to frame and enact their positions that I’ve read in ages. (He also mentions the tricky what-do-the-‘rents-get-the-boyfriend-for-Christmas problem. Last year, my parents hilariously solved it by getting us, jointly, an all-American Hickory Farms gift set. What made it hilarious was that they decided–I AM NOT making this up–on this one. As soon as I opened the box, I started guffawing so hard I couldn’t inhale, and when I finally calmed down, I was like, “Darling, I would say this is a symbolic gesture of approval, but I don’t think it was intended to have that much subtext.” We kept the little condiment knife as a memento. I value it more than my Wedgwood cups. Where was I?)



My feeling is that the election will probably, in hindsight, prove to have activated quite a few gays who didn’t go much for politics before–just not in the way leftists have been hoping for. Loud-mouthed activists tend to get little more than eye-rolling from most gays who are just living open-but-unshowy live and don’t think the sky is constantly falling, which has allowed the recent record of intrusive public-school programs and marriage-or-bust campaigning to go relatively unopposed from within gay ranks. The 11 state marriage amendments that passed may, one can only hope, rouse a few quiet types to wonder just what that hell big gay organizations are pushing supposedly on their behalf. It’s a shame that it has to be that way–I’d prefer government intrusion in daily life to be limited to the point that thinking about it all the time was not necessary in order to be an informed and responsible citizen–but the way things work is the way things work. The big-guns organizations need to know that they’re being watched by constituencies beyond their usual urban groupies and yes-men.



1 December 09:51 EST

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 30th, 2004 at 23:50 and is filed under marriage, misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.