"...of the 1960s"? Uh, given Stonewall happened the last weekend of June in 1969, what other years in that decade involved so-called "radical gay liberation politics"?

And given that far more of the mainstream culture are having/trying to have sex than are married/trying to marry, is sex "assimilationist," too?

Thanks.

No one is forcing you to "assimilate", if that word is so offensive to you. Gay liberation has always been about EQUALITY. No one is forcing you to marry, either. Gays and lesbians who wish to marry should certainly have that right, and it is a shame that you and your historically misinformed friends are against the rights that many gays and lesbians want.
Why are you not satisfied with letting everyone live their life the way he or she wishes to? You pretend to be so liberal, so radical, but it is merely a pose. You advocate YOUR choices and YOUR restrictions on the rest of the community, whether others want these choices of yours, or not. How intolerant.

Sorry. You confuse individual events with political implications, mostly NEVER actualized, with political MOVEMENTS. Hence the fact that, as admirable as it was in its own way, the Compton's "riot" had to be dug out of the dustbin of History decades after it happened.

As for the overreaching condescension of "need some schooling," age alone allows me to say that I've read more books on the history of the LGBT movement than I'd venture you know exist. PLUS the fact that I've personally known some of its pioneers. Would you like to know whether Frank Kameny [you can look him up] preferred white meat or dark at that Thanksgiving dinner I cooked for him and other history makers just possibly before you were born?

Now that doesn't make me any better than you, or more entitled to an opinion, but, collectively, it makes me better informed, and, in any case, as we all are, deserving of respect you seem unwilling to give anyone who dares question the sloppiness of your writing and the impudence of confusing ideology with a priori Truth.

No, I see no need to listen to the aural regurgitation of such ideological soup from another "intellectual ghetto" kitchen.

And I'm still waiting for the answer to my question about whether you've abandoned assimilationist sex which was entirely serious.

OMG, Ryan Conrad and the Yasminites are back !!! To paraphrase what I have read before on Bilerico, I am not going to let Maggie Gallagher, Pope Benedict, Ryan Conrad, or Yasmin Nair, or Senator Mitch McConnell tell me whom to love, whether or not it is politically correct in their dystopia that I be permitted to legally marry, and whether I sufficiently embrace their politics of "otherness" and "don't want to fit in at any cost" and "misfitness" enough, in order to be politically acceptable in their other universe.

Ryan, I lived through the '60s, and one of the main tenants which we had was "live and let live". People were encouraged to "do your own thing". If you did not accept someone else's life choices, you simply said "that's not my bag, " , and learned to be tolerant. You and the Yasminites have embraced the hyper-aggressive politics so fashionable today, of Glen Beck , Rush Limbaugh, the National Organization for Marriage. These people and groups may as well all be called "the national organization against gays and lesbians."

When will you folks recognize that gays and lesbians are not your enemies? Elements of straight society oppress us. Yasmin has written so much in the past about all the oppressive "privileges". Well, it is "straight privilege" mainly by by religious fundamentalists that oppresses LGBT persons in America today.

Today's "radical queers" are not only standing on the shoulders of the forebearers in the gay and lesbian liberation movements as they enjoy gay and lesbian rights and freedoms unheard of in the golden '60's and '70's, they are spitting in their faces and on their graves by creating false issues. You "radical queers" are free to have your own groups, raise your own money, and hey, a really radical idea, why don't you all actually do something constructive rather than just bitching and dumping and the gays and lesbians who are actually doing something positive for other gays and lesbians, and who actually can raise money for the LGBT constructive issues. Ryan and Yasmin, you are generating so much very negative energy all the time against fellow gays and lesbians, to use a more recent expression, "chill", PLEEZE.

The program mainly dealt with the opinions of some individuals on how to assist certain members of the LGBT underclass (prisoner populations, homeless, unemployed, etc). Somehow the idea is presented that if only we can all band together and destroy the members of our LGBT communities who are ahead a bit, or who have achieved something, that even though this will not solve the problems of the underclass, we may all be miserable together. There were NO concrete proposals, (not one single one !!!) on how to assist the LGBT underclass or other radical queers, simply manifestos on what should be attacked and destroyed in the LGBT community at large. The only suggestions or examples were attacks on same sex marriage, with no explanation offered on how this is really a bad thing.
Examples - the program wrongly asserts that same sex marraige is for rich white gay males. Nationally, most of the marriages in every jurisdiction have been between women. Furthermore, in places like the District of Columbia (Washington DC for all you who flunked geography), the applicants for same sex marriage licenses thus far have overwhelmingly been persons of color (black/brown/Asian) of all socio-economic strata. They are flooding into DC from all over. Again, these are largely women.
There was some carping about employment issues. OK, then why don't any of these people support ENDA (Employment Non Discrimination Act)? Others vaguely mentioned "immigration issues" with not a single example of how this is skewed aginst the LGBT community, and not a single example of what remedies are necessary. I do recall that a commenter above, MS. Nair, has written on Bilerico in the past against the LGBT immigration reforms advancing in Congress, as she has also written against the federal hate crimes legislation.
The only part of the program that I thought had real merit were the comments concerning violence against LGBT persons. But once more, no mention of the successes with Hate Crimes Legislation or the important work of those supporting the Matthew Shepherd Act and the Laramie Project. I guess his life didn't count because he was only a gay white male. Again, how does gay/lesbian marriage worsen the plights of victims of violence?
I did not wish to enter the military myself. However, many LGBT persons do go into the military, for all the same reasons that straights do. Many want the educational and career benefits. The military(with the GI Bills over the years) have been the road to home ownership, higher education, etc. for millions of Americans. Why not let the LGBT persons who want the same also get it? Whether some of the wars the country engages in is a totally separate issue, and should not be confused with the rights of LGBT persons in the military. I think that it is a shame to trash people like Dan Choi, as this program did. He is a hero on so many levels.
We can have some honest disagreements about the health insurance situation. In my opinion LGBT money at this time on health insurance legislation would be a waste because of the many hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the big lobbyists on the issues. After a bill is passed and enacted, LGBT groups can focus on the reality of the final legislation (with all its flaws) and make proposals how to improve it for LGBT persons. The reality is that health legislation will be an annual federal legislative issue now for the rest of all of our lives. These first costly rounds art not the ones for us to loose money on. However, like it or not, there are some gays and lesbians whose partners and children are assisted by the fact of marriage in those jurisdictions where it exists.
Of course, it is a real scandal that AIDS is such a problem. These funding issues are mainly local matters that demonstrate why local organizations are so necessary to promote these matters. AIDS work can not all be done by national organizations out of DC, NY, or LA.
No where in any of this program was a connection drawn to show that the existence of the same sex marriage issue in the media or in state legislatures and courts is in fact worsening the plights of the LGBT underclass. Of course, not a single scientific study or credible opinion polling is cited either.
There was an undertone to the report and to the comments that LGBT persons should proudly accept the label of loosers in society at large, and that all such persons should band together to rant and attempt to destroy the capitalist state.
The head of Queers for Economic Justice was espousing such nonsense, as his organization in fact also does. There is much gratuitous bad mouthing of gay white men and the national organizations. It sounded to me like the LGBT version of penis envy, jealousy that their organizations and budgets are bigger. Well, in non-profits, there is a "market" at work also. If your ideas are acepted by people, and if you are friendly about it, you can attract supporters and money. People who try to destroy their own communities do not usually get supporters or money, and yet they are fiercely complaining about it.
Finally, several interviewees used Maggie Gallagher's lines about how gays and lesbians already have domestic partnerships in some states, why do they want more? Aren't domestic partnerships and marriages really the same? Well, in a word, they are not the same, and what most gays and lesbians want is Equality. Look at the court decisions on these matters and Supreme Courts in California, Iowa, New Jersey have all explained this, especially how it plays out in the law. I know that the word Equality offends people like Ryan Conrad, who contributes to the Unequalitywebsite, and famously denounces equality. Well, go ahead and be inequal or less. I, and millions of other LGBT persons want equality. You don't have to have it if you do not want it. Equality means that LGBT will then have to accept more personal responsibility for their lives, and will no longe have "the system" or "capitalism" or "the oppressive gay white males" to blame for their misery. Self responsibility is considered to be the major task of maturity, and it is simply a task that many in all facets of society (LGBT or straight) do not want.
I have never heard anyone in any of the pro-same sex marriage movement oppose other LGBT organizations or to not wish them well in their efforts. I see no reason why LGBT persons can not proceed with a diverse agenda supported by whomever wishes to support a particular issue. Just quit trying to cut other LGBT persons at the knees, and stop denying civil rights to the millions of LGBT persons who want them.

I listened to the documentary. I have mixed feelings about it. For starters, I agree that marriage has trumped all other issues right now. No state has adopted an LGBT non-disrimination statute in the last year or expanded existing legislation. Marriage seems to be the only thing that matters (aside from a lot of talk at the Congressional level). Reduced focus on marriage and increased focus on the myriad forms of discrimination would be helpful.

However, I think the documentary did not do a good job presenting the issues that the Beyond Marriage project (http://www.beyondmarriage.org/) presents. There are a wealth of relationships that would not be benefited by changes to marriage laws. Also overlooked are the critiques of marriage and family presented by lesbian feminists and gay male sexual liberationists (and Ms. Nair -- couldn't resist the shout out!).

My point of disagreement is the criticism that rich gay white men only give money to support causes that help them. Why is that surprising? Should we expect otherwise? I doubt that political contributions are purely altruistic. If rich gay men perceive that marriage laws are the only source of discrimination against them, why wouldn't they focus their political giving there? They would be foolish not to. Prisons and homeless shelters are often beyond their realm of experience so they are unfamiliar with the discrimination faced by people in such situations.

Not very long ago, media coverage of gay issues was limited to park arrests, firings from government jobs for being gay, and then slowly evolved into also including the annual Pride events in many areas.

Then, there was an explosion of coverage of most of the so-called gay agenda. What accounted for this explosion? Simply, the decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court to recognize same sex marriage, followed by several other courts. Since that decision, LGBT rights are front page news everyplace, on every TV show, and on all the talk radio programs. Until gay marriage, this was not the case.

What do you do if you are an organization or an individual who wants some news coverage for yourself? Of course, you need to craft a way to connect your views to same sex marriage. It does not matter whether you are for it or against it. This is not an ideal world, but this is what works. Several LGBT individuals and organizations who have no audience and little financial support have decided to carve a niche to grab some media attention. What do they do? They proclaim themselves as LGBT persons or organizations AGAINST same sex marriage. Voila. Media attention that they never could have gotten otherwise in a million years. The spotlight on these LGBT anti-marriage types quickly wanes as an examination of their true agendas demonstrates that they really are not grounded in LGBT rights, but in revolutionary economic rhetoric with Cuba style solutions.

The radio documentary criticizes large LGBT organizations, especially the Human Rights Campaign (for its support of same sex marriage) which the program very wrongly calls an institution for rich gay males, mostly white. For all those claiming legitimacy of their positions through claiming spiritual descendancy from Stonewall, it should be noted that the national organizations would not support any of the same sex marriage cases any place in the country until the courts started ruling in the favor of the individuals who bravely brought the cases. Then, the organizations also saw that overnight, the media could not get enough of the LGBT Agenda as long as marriage was in the mix, and suddenly HRC and all the others began to support the same sex marriage movement. As an issue - it works miracles. It has gotten much of the public to support LGBT rights (including helping the anti-hate crime, and employment discrimination proposals) and it has raised all sorts of money for the big organizations. To their credit, the national organizations were smart enough to seize the unexpected historic moment, and to capitalize on the momentum generated by these marriage cases, even though they initially did not support them for fear of adverse court decisions. We would all be criticizing the big organizations if they had failed to capitalize on the marriage cases!

As worthy as the several issues of the LGBT underclass are of solution, they will never get the money nor the support that they deserve within or without the LGBT community. The issues all deserve to be fought for by the big organizations. However, can most of us imagine giving money to the current individual radical queer spokespersons for these issues who have no agenda other than killing off the LGBT spokespersons and organizations who are more successful, especially if their success is related to the marriage issue? And should the "radical queer" LGBT groups be ranking a hierarchy of suffering to determine whether LGBT issues should be supported or not? What's wrong with supporting all LGBT civil rights for all LGBT persons?