Here's my 2 cents...
Your friend, JohnnyV, has some strong feelings about gay rights. I can relate to that a bit, as the current attempt by the religious right to roll back sexual freedoms and human rights disgusts me strongly. His statement, "
I am a fascist for gay rights", is over the top, but I suspect there are many in the GLBT rights movement who might say that in the passion of the moment but don't mean it literally. I am confident that the mainstream GLBT movement isn't going to resort to violence or anything else that would hurt the general public and therefore GLBT rights.
And here is where I am going to piss off some of my fellow bisexuals... I think that gay folks have a point when they contend that bisexuals haven't pulled their weight when it comes to advancing gay rights. Many of us bisexuals are in the closet - much more so than gay folks.
Harvey Milk said rather famously that the greatest thing that a GLBT person could do to advance gay rights is to come out of the closet. When I first heard that it sounded very odd to me and I didn't believe it; I though how could simply coming out help gay rights, and I thought that folks who are in the closet could do many other things to advance gay rights that are more effective than simply coming out. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that Mr Milk was right. When GLBT people come out of the closet their family, coworkers, friends and neighbours all realize that homosexuality is not what the religious right claims it is. It puts a face to homosexuality with dozens and dozens of people. Many parents have concluded, after their child has come out, that homosexuality can't be all that bad if their own child is homosexual - because they know their child and they know he/she is a good person. So coming out is a very powerful act, that helps all other GLBT people.
But many bisexuals have other considerations that make coming out more difficult for us. We might be in a straight marriage where the spouse may not know, or may know but not be ready to come out themselves as the spouse of a bisexual person. And many bisexuals live in small towns or suburbs where the community is much more hostile to an openly gay/bisexual person than an inner-city community. Inner-city gay folks have a support network and insulation that rural and suburban gays/bisexuality do not.
So for these reasons and more, bisexuals do tend to be in the closet more than folks and, in that limited sense, do not pull their weight for GLBT rights.
But your friend is dead wrong when he extends that into a blanket statement such as
"[Bisexuals] haven't contributed to the movement at all" (ahem, has he forgotten
Brenda Howard's contributions), and confesses a desire to exclude bisexuals from the GLBT rights movement.
The gay community needs the bisexual community, and for that matter, they need the (straight) swinger community, the libertarians, straight couples who watch porn together, and the feminists too - anyone who believes in sexual freedom. Gay people alone cannot grant themselves full equality - it needs to be done by a majority of the populace who conclude that sexual freedom and sexual equality are important human rights - that in a just society people can't be discrimated against for what they do in the privacy of their own bedroom.
So I wouldn't sweat it to much that you couldn't convince your friend that the bisexual and gay communities have so much in common and need each other. He is badly mistaken.
Keep in mind that in our own, bisexual, community we have folks who are a bit radical. There are some bisexuals who vote Republican/Conservative, hate all things gay, and think that homosexuality/bisexuality needs to remain in the closet. Every community has its radicals I guess.
- Drew
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