45
\ y X
T O W A R D G L O B A L W E L L N E S S ...
f
S P : So m e have argued that we are second-
class citizens hut citizens nonetheless. 1 think
this is m istaken.
^
It is tme that citizenship is not a single bundle,
and we may have som e items and lack others. But
“classes” o f citizenship belong to die past.
M od em dem ocratic citizenship does not
include the idea o f classes; it is an egalitarian
concept. In egalitarian societies, the dividing
line is less one o f classes than it is o f “ in or out.”
I do not believe that those who deny us rights
and responsibilities are seeking to m ake us sec
ond-class citizens; they would like to deny us
m em bership altogether.
T M : I was very moved by your concept of
lesbian and gay people as “ strangers.” Can you
explain what you mean by this?
S P : 1 use the term “strangers” to describe the
situation o f people who find them selves not sim
ply “outside” a com m unity nor “ inside” as full
m em bers hut rather as figures o f am bivalence or
ambiguity. T hey may have been raised within a
com m unity and believe them selves to he part o f
that com m unity, until they find for som e reason
that others think o f them as outside it.
O r others may think o f them as in it hut not
“really" not like “us." They live in a space that is
partly acknowledgment, partly willful ignorance,
partly rejection, and in that space the balance
among these may shift with startling rapidity.
Strangers may forget, or not know, that they are
strangers until they are hit with an insult, a law or
an assault or simply with
a cultural event that
assumes they don’t exist.
O ne o f my favorites
was Ross Perots remark
in 1992 that if he became
president he would not
appoint any gay or les
bian people to his C a b i
net because “the A m eri
can people wouldn’t like
it." It just never occurred
to him that many A m er
icans are gay or lesbian.
T h is is not an inci
dental remark. W hen a
group is rhetorically
opposed to “ the A m erican people” or when
A m erica is characterized in a way that many o f
us will find impossible to join, we are being con-
stnicted as strangers o n ce again.
the United States next year because gay rela
tionships are not given immigration rights
reserved only for heterosexual couples, I cer
tainly can say that at best I see myself as a
third-class pseudo-citizen of my country.
S P : Your experience is a perfect example of
how a citizenship structured on the assumption of
heterosexuality works to make noncitizens out of
queers. Those who would tell you that you are a cit
izen regardless of whether a particular law acknowl
edges your relationship have not seriously faced the
way that citizenship shapes our daily lives.
The refusal to recognize your relationship is only
one step removed from the [Immigration and N at
uralization Service] policy, effective until recently,
that considered homosexuality per se a bar to immi
gration. W hen such a basic element of cultural life
and meaning is denied to some, they become out
siders even while they seem to he within.
T M : How do the battles over gay marriage,
military service and immigration for binational
gay couples provide stark examples of this
“ stranger” condition?
S P : T h e battles over marriage in this coun
try and in others have been im portant both for
our lives and for what they reveal about the
assum ptions o f m odem dem ocratic states. T hose
who would deny us marriage outright live in a
world o f singular values, where there is one way
to live and those who would deviate should he
punished or pitied.
But more interesting is the “liberal” response
that offers civil partner
ship hut not marriage. In
Norway, gays and lesbians
may register their partner
ships, hut they cannot be
wedded in a state church
or adopt children.
S o m e in the U .S .
h ave suggested sim ilar
distinctions. T hese pro
posals how to our desire
to he united as adults,
hut they co n tin u e to
exclude us from broader
”
understandings o f k in
ship, and they deny the
sanction o f religion.
T hey treat us, in short, like contracting
adults. You contract for yardwork, I contract for
partnership; it’s all the sam e. But d on ’t go mess
ing with my marriage and my kids!
Proposals for civil partnerships leave us as
strangers. We might have legal rights that are
largely the sam e as heterosexual married people,
hut we will still he denied cultural equality.
H eterosexuals do not live their lives waiting
to he called into strangeness hy som e passerby
on the street who calls them disgusting. They do
not have to “ m anage their identities,” in Erving
G offm an ’s phrase, as we do. A n d if queers think
that a marriage license will change that for
them , they’re in for a rude awakening.
G erm an Jews in the 1920s were full citizens,
hut that did not make them unrecognizable. Their
strangeness was both a gift and a wound. So is ours.
"If the fundamental
promise of citizenship is
acknowledgment of one
another and common
concern for one
another's physical
safety then I would say
that lesbians and gays
are not yet citizens of
the United States
[
¡
T~ — L__J
/ f j
- J . IZI
------- J—
\
L— — 1 1
j
J
/
E x p e r ie n c e
Sh errie T ah a
th e
(503)236-5910
D iffe r e n c e
N IK K E N
Schedule a f r e e in-hom e dem onstration
o f the LEADING m agnetic technology
IN D EPEN D EN T D IS T R IB U T O R
w w w .n ik k e n .c o m
D is tr ib u to r I D.
L i
J ja
ÍJJJM l
VOICE PERSONAL ADS
Also check out
t
M ain ai
t a i H it
Mato a date
go get timer
Page 42 and 43
seepages
12 or 51
A s ballet-makers, Canfield and Balanchine both stress speed
and athleticism. Both respect the past without repeating it...
And each, in his own way, is distinctly American."
Bob Hicks, The Oregonian
2001
James Canfield, .Artis
Artistic Director
— Shane Phelan
T M : How does this affect how we relate
to one another within the lesbian and gay
community?
S P : Always, as we steer through these straits,
we are tem pted to abandon the weakest or most
different or those who tmly threaten the dom i
nant culture. A s with all strangers wrestling with
inclusion, those o f us who com e close to achiev
ing normality tend to buy it hy breaking solidar
ity with those who most personify our difference.
For gays and lesbians, this has m eant rejecting
bisexuals and transgendered people. T h is rejec
tion allows us to say that we’re really stable, fixed
in our identities, and that our gender identities
arc just as normal as those o f heterosexuals, so
including us won’t really disrupt the status quo.
Now 1 want to say that I don’t believe this fail
ure is due to the personal flaws o f any given leader
or group. S(x:ial scientists have noted this phe
nom enon o f “secondary m arginalization” for
decades, across groups that we might call strangers.
It is, I think, part o f being a stranger that there
is no "right answer.” T here are plenty o f wrong
lines, hut there is no answer for strangeness short
o f the transformation o f the dom inant culture.
S P : I d on ’t frankly know whether or when
our condition may improve. Visibility is a huge
step, and we’ve gained rights and changed the
culture in the last 40 years in ways that no one
would have thought possible in 1960.
But have we really chipped away at patriarchy
or at Am erican phallic pride? I’m not sure. |T1
T M : As a gay American in a seven-year
relationship with an Australian man and fac
ing the likelihood that we will have to leave
T im MILLER is a solo performer and the author of
Shirts & Skin, published by Alyson. He can be
reached at htmeunm.aol.crmjmilienakltmrruller.html.
T M : Do you think we always will be
“ strangers” in our country? What might has
ten this process? Are you hopeful that our
condition might improve?
October 13-20
Keller Auditorium
call 503/2- b a l l e t
or Ticketmaster
world premiere