The Oracle: Pollyanna politics in the GLBT community
I am on a number of different GLBT list serves and discussion groups. What strikes me is how like Pollyanna our community can become. For those of you who are not familiar with Pollyanna, she was a young girl who could see the good in any situation. The novel that told of her exploits was published at the beginning of the last century. Pollyanna could find the silver lining in any situation by playing the “Glad Game. “ It originated in an incident one Christmas when Pollyanna, who was hoping for a doll in the missionary barrel, found only a pair of crutches inside. Making the game up on the spot, Pollyanna’s father taught her to look at the good side of things—in this case, to be glad about the crutches because “we don’t need ‘em!” Well just listen to the marriage equality activists in our community. Sometimes they make Pollyanna sound like a pessimist.
I have had to endure analysis by GLBT leaders that have said Maine was a partial victory. Jesse Connolly in an analysis of the loss of marriage equality in Maine on the Huffington Post said “It may turn out to be simply this: that by moving this basic premise of equality from the sink hole of catastrophic defeat state after state, year after year, to within striking distance of a win, that we are almost to the finish line?” Give me what he is smoking. 31 defeats when the issue is taken to the voter and Jesse thinks that we are almost at the finish line? Jesse, this is not grammar school where everyone gets a participation medal, this is politics. Unless the courts help us, we are dead in the water for at least a decade when it comes to marriage equality. I know our community does not like to hear that, but it is the simple truth. As Pollyanna would say “at least they didn’t vote to put us in concentration camps!”
It is time for our community to wake up and acknowledge that the last five years have been a travesty with the American voter. Please stop saying “the campaign was well run, but the opposition lied in its media.” That’s politics, wake up. We need to fight back with comparable attacks instead of saying “we told the truth and that’s why we lost.” Better yet, we need to follow the “everything but marriage strategy” followed in Washington State and the voters agree. The measure passed with almost the exact opposite vote in Maine, with over 52 percent of the public voting with us, instead of against us. They are not ready for the word marriage, but they are ready to give us our rights. I am definitely like Pollyanna when it comes to that “glad, glad, glad!” I hope our leaders listen and change our marriage equality short term strategy.
Stampp Corbin is a nationally recognized entrepreneur and LGBT activist. He was Co-Chair of the Obama National LGBT Leadership Council and a former Board of Director for the Human Rights Campaign. Stampp is currently a San Diego City Commissioner for the Citizens’ Equal Opportunity Commission. He can be reached at stamppcorbin@yahoo.com.
