When I found out that California’s Prop 8 passed, my heart sunk. I couldn’t believe it for the first few seconds and thought maybe there was a typo with the ordering of “Yes” and “No.” How could we support the measure to not only discriminate against gay couples but to also withhold them from their constitutional rights?
I felt real disappointment in our supposedly progressive state that’s supposed to lead such civil rights issue as legalizing gay marriage. Maybe it will take five, ten, or fifteen more years for the country to realize this, but we will look back someday in the same way we look back on the women’s suffrage and civil rights movements.
As political commentator Keith Olbermann points out in this six minutes of why discriminating against homosexuals is not just a legal issue, but a moral one, we once prohibited interracial marriage. We’ve come a long way, having just voted our first African-American into the highest office. But we still have a long way to go.
Tonight I was looking through my old notes from a class I took in college about the construct of the nation-state. Below is part of a paper I wrote for the class, slightly tweaked to accommodate this post. I include it here to illustrate the point that defining those with rights in a specific nation means defining those who do not have those certain rights, be they citizens or not.
Political scientist Benedict Anderson defines a nation as an “imagined political community—imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign…imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” [1]. In other words, members of a nation—or those living within the physical borders of a politically constructed space—share a sense of community and camaraderie, a concept of belonging to the same homeland.
While it is true that nation-hood appeals to an inclusive sense of brotherhood and community, nation-hood in practice relies heavily on exclusion. History Professor Prasenjit Duara believes nations by definition exclude or marginalize—often violently—others who are not believed to be deserving citizens. He proposes that we view “national identity as founded upon fluid relationships” [2], for “the national self is defined at any point in time by the Other” [3].
In order for a group of people to identify with national ideals or character, they must distance themselves from any opposing national identities. This dynamic permeates the politics of nation-hood, and national identities are usually only as stable as the extent to which citizens oppose marginalized others. In essence, the strength of a nation lies in the mobilization of citizens to believe in their own nation’s cause, and fight against any opposing or conflicting causes, lest they threaten the citizens’ right to existence.
In order for citizens to transcend this stronghold of national loyalty, which often incites them to war, discrimination, hate, and great sacrifice in the name of preserving the nation, they must be able to identify how political, economic, and social forces push tactics of othering to persuade and control a given group of people. This tragic demise of human discernment in the face of powerful othering tactics to supposedly unify national goals is evident in the nation’s struggle to keep gay marriage illegal.
So we see that nationalism, while a lofty, feel-good, and pride-inducing term to some, is built upon a dark secret: a nation state is only as strong as its practices of exclusion (regardless of the slew of inclusive promises it may declare). On a basic level—survival of the states—it only makes sense that a nation would persecute homosexuality in order to promote heterosexuality (which has a better chance of ensuring reproduction of more workers and soldiers to uphold the nation’s borders).
But I don’t think people realize that marriage is fundamentally a legal contract, issued by the state—it’s not a religious privilege. Marriage is a state-issued transaction, which is why days after Prop 8 passed, I started to see that this issue won’t be silenced, and it’s not going to go away.
If gay marriage is not legalized—on the grounds that it’s clearly unconstitutional to discriminate against gay couples—by 2010, there will likely be another vote in California; it’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when. And a matter of how, as blogger Little Cog, in “An Opinion on Gay Marriage Rights,” proposes that marriage become religious-issued, and civil unions remain in the political domain.
However, I don’t think it’s just constitutional integrity we need as a country—it’s this end to such hateful othering tactics. When we discriminate against those with a different sexual orientation than ours, we become the others, because here, discrimination is illegal.
For those of us who see this issue with the vision of our future generations, we can take this time to end the othering in our own lives. Yes, we can support the cause and become politically active, but we also need to stand in our own integrity to be sure that we are not allowing ourselves to other in the name of the nation or any other cause. We can be who we are without having to make others wrong for being who they are.
If we don’t—if we rely on group or an organization or a company or a government to tell us who we should accept and respect—then we do ourselves a great disservice and we will be the ones to suffer most. To the human species, survival means working and coming together to share and learn from on another so that we can create our world the way we want it. When we pit ourselves against those who have not done any harm to who we are, and who do not threaten our existence or our identity, it’s our loss.
References:
[1] Anderson, B. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. New York: Verso, 1991, 6.
[2] Duara, P., “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When,” Becoming National, 151.
[3] Duara, P., “Historicizing National Identity, or Who Imagines What and When,” Becoming National, 163.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Sadly, othering seems to be a persistent human trait. The best we can do is set up a system that corrects for it. Much in the same way that the federal government assume politicians will become corrupt and so it uses the separation of powers to play them off each other. Great, well thought out post.
Thank you!
Change rarely occurs without upset. No matter how progressive our state may be (or seem, in this case), it is still made up of individual people. They will fight change that they cannot understand or blindly cling to change that offers them an easy return for little or no sacrifice on their part. And we all know that isn’t real change.
If people are told they stand to lose something, anything, they will funnel their energies into protecting that something even if the threat is only a perceived one. This only stands as yet another reminder of how permeating ignorance can be.
@Little Cog- Yes, this separation of powers may be the only thing we can do at a large scale to counter othering, for now at least. The good news is that individually — right now, we can turn any othering lingerings *we* may have, into compassion and understanding.
@StayWoke – You’re welcome, thanks for reading!
@Mellisa –
Mm, so true. You bring up some sad points, but they speak for many people. I think the biggest problem with othering is that it creates a “threat” when really, none exists (except in the mind).
I’m eager to get my hands on the transcripts for the hearings about the Prop 8 repeal that are underway, and see if California will uphold the constitution or sanction othering…