A Common Cause

When one takes a look at the real liberal and progressive agenda (not the current Democratic Party’s agenda, as they are trying to pitifully mimic the Republicans and sell out their voting base they claim to represent) the focal point is civil rights and liberties. There are numerous issues compromising of civil rights such as racial civil rights, women’s rights, reproductive rights, freedom of religion and freedom from religious tyranny, LGBTQ civil rights, etc. It would be difficult to say you’re for civil rights or you’re a liberal or progressive but you ignore one or more of these issues or group(s) of people who are usually at a political disadvantage at the same time (ie: the current Democratic Party). As being a civil rights/liberties activist (or a liberal or progressive) creates the impression that you’re for the rights and liberties of everyone and not just for some, or when fighting for civil rights/liberties is convenient for you (ie: once again, the current Democratic Party who are all about convenience these days).

A little over a year ago, the March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C. was one of the largest women’s reproductive rights demonstration ever. But pro-choice activists, celebrities, and notable feminists such as Gloria Steinem weren’t the only ones in attendance, as there were several activists of other civil rights groups marching along side them. Activist groups from the LGBTQ Community were also demonstrating for another common cause, apart of the idea of civil rights for all.

Along with the seven pro-choice organizing groups (PPFA, American Civil Liberties Union, Black Women’s Health Imperative, Feminist Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, and National Organization for Women), more than a dozen LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) rights organizations joined the hundreds of other organizations that cosponsored the march. They included the Empire State Pride Agenda, the Family Pride Coalition, Gender PAC, Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.

Pro-Choice and LGBTQ: A Clear Connection

The reproductive rights movement may not always have embraced the needs of sexual minorities, but it certainly does today. A belief in issues like comprehensive sex education, reproductive health care, personal freedom, privacy, the right to have non-procreative sex, and sexual autonomy form a strong bond between activists in both movements.

In March, this connection made the news when Joe Solomonese, former CEO of the pro-choice advocacy organization Emily’s List, was elected president of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest political LGBTQ rights organization.

The LGBTQ community was also out in force at marches held locally and on college campuses in conjunction with the March for Women’s Lives.

“Essentially, both the choice and LGBTQ movements strive to promote civil rights,” says Kate Killingsworth,…[…]

Shulman, who has worked as a program associate at the Empire State Pride Agenda, says it’s important to be active in both communities. “There are so many reasons that the pro-choice and LGBTQ movements should be working together,” she says. “We’ll get farther in our struggles if we acknowledge our commonalities and understand that there will be times that we agree to disagree.”

Resistance and Change

Shulman also says that she has encountered some resistance to including reproductive rights issues in an LGBTQ rights platform, and vice versa.

Killingsworth says the same, noting that these types of differences have always existed within the progressive movement. “For example,” she says, “the women’s suffrage movement did not embrace women of color, and the choice movement of 1970s America didn’t embrace lesbians.”

Divided we fall….

Christian Burgess, a Planned Parenthood volunteer and social worker in New York City, says, progressives “can be so divided, only focusing on causes with which individuals feel directly connected, rather than joining together and recognizing the links between all justice movements.”

Or completely ignore progressive issues period like the current Democratic Party. Whoops–did I say that out loud–again?!

Burgess says, for the most part, people accept both his pro-choice and gay identities, but he occasionally encounters comments like, “What do you care about reproductive rights? You’ll never have children.” And gay men, he says, can often be indifferent to pro-choice issues.

Personally, I have found that some guys my age, both hetero or Gay/Bi/Trans, can be indifferent to the reproductive rights issues because well, they think that since they’re guys they have nothing to worry about. Of course that’s just from my personal experience and not a citation from large professional research.

But those attitudes are changing. Pro-choice groups like Planned Parenthood, Choice USA, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and the National Organization for Women have publicly demonstrated their support of LGBTQ rights.

In July 2004, PPFA issued a statement applauding the U.S. Senate’s rejection of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have rewritten the Constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. “Planned Parenthood opposes any attempt to use a constitutional amendment to circumvent or weaken the Supreme Court decisions that guarantee fundamental privacy rights and equal protection under the law,” the statement said.

And Choice USA, a youth-centered national pro-choice organization, recently issued a fact sheet focusing on the connection between the two movements.

The document, entitled “Crossing the Lines: Reproductive Rights as a Queer Issue,” notes, “The oppressions of women and LGBTQ people are all based on patriarchal and religious fundamentalist attempts to control bodies and expressions of gender and sexuality that are considered nontraditional.”

We’ve always known this so why has it taken so long for some people to realize that activists for women’s civil rights, Queer civil rights, and reproductive rights all struggle against the same kind of prejudice and bigoted social constructions promulgated by the same opposing ideological group?

The fact sheet goes on to stress the importance of access to contraception and other health care, comprehensive sex education, equitable marriage laws, and parental rights.

[…]

Its policy paper notes that unintended pregnancies and the desire for family are both part of the LGBTQ experience, explaining why anti-choice policies are just as harmful to LGBTQ people as they are to the straight community.

Other shared reasons for concern across both movements are clear. For example, the federal government has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into abstinence-only sex education programs, which advocate abstinence until marriage as the only way to reduce the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

These programs omit any discussion of condoms and other methods of birth control and fail to address the risk of HIV infection. They are not only sexist but openly hostile to LGBTQ kids, who do not have the option of legally marrying.

And believe that therapy will cure “the Gayness” in young people and adults. Or just make them hate themselves even more.

[…] “It comes down to this,” says Killingsworth. “No one has the right to tell me what I can do with my body or with my life, and with whom I choose to share them.”

Activism for civil rights/liberties or the liberal and progress agenda should not divide us who claim to represent and fight for it, rather unite us as civil rights and liberties are for everyone, and everyone has a right to participate within the movement for the cause. Unless preserving and promoting civil rights and liberties are too inconvenient for some people like the current Democratic Party. Yeah, I said it again.