Last week, the University of Tampa granted domestic partner benefits (DPBs) to same-sex couples, giving health insurance and other benefits extended to married faculty.’
It’s about time!
This big example of much ado over nothing has been frustratingly drawn-out for years, a tug-of-war between faculty and UT administration.
Still, we should bask in this progressive step forward while we still can because, tragically, the rest of Hillsborough County is not so fortunate as county commissioners outvoted a measure to even discuss DPBs.
Last week’s legislative measures shouldn’t be looked at as minor, local victories’mdash;they’re an example of how our culture is revolutionizing yet warring with itself.
After all, opinions will show that DPBs are still controversial and not without detractors.
The Gay Rights movement is unsettling our nation like the Civil Rights movement, Feminist movement and every other social movement in American history.
Like every other social struggle before it, the Gay Rights movement is dismantling what may be the final frontier of patriarchy.
Not in the faux-feminist sense of men getting the biggest slice of the pie all the time, but in the sense that our culture is shaped from a (white, heterosexual) male perspective.
Here’s something we use everyday: speech.
From a male (though technically sexless) God to our rather limited vocabulary when it comes to sex (think long and hard’mdash;pardon my crude pun’mdash;about what sex sexual verbs derive from), our language is pretty much male.
When people want to preserve ‘traditional values,’ what they really seek to protect are male-centered values.
It is gay men particularly that throw this ‘traditional values’ crowd through the loop’mdash;not that lesbians don’t have it rough, but I feel gay men generally break more cultural rules.
A guy’ puts on a dress and it’s gender-bending.
A girl throws on sneakers, jeans and a t-shirt’mdash;it’s a day in the park.
Female intimacy is perfectly acceptable.’
From a young age, girls are encouraged to be sociable and forthright with their emotions, to develop deep emotional relationships with other girls.
Do people even use the phrase ‘male intimacy?’
Culture is defined by what men do.’
As long as men stay in that box, then all is well with the world, which is one of the cultural reasons gay marriage is such a hot topic.’
A same-sex couple alters what exactly a family in the ‘traditional’ sense should do.
There are no obvious roles like mommy and daddy, nurturer and provider.
Though there are rights to be won, there is so much squabbling between feminists, gays and racial minorities (not to mention all the in-fighting) that a lot of people are blind to our common goals.
Belonging to all three groups, I’ve always been a fan of moral justification for defending the civil liberties of any oppressed group, but here’s a cultural one: not too long ago, culture was a white, male heterosexual patriarchy.
Everything was defined by white men.
Groups are so self-absorbed and busy individualizing their historical sufferings’mdash;forgetting that all suffering is suffering and an affront to essential human dignity’mdash;that we’re all wasting tremendous amounts of time!
At the end of the day, we all suffer for being ignorant, for thinking our pain is greater than someone else’s pain or our belief is right.’
Feminists, gays and other minorities’mdash;as the small fish in the great pond we call America; we need to work together in solidarity.’
We share collective pain.
As survivors of struggle and hardship, we owe it to ourselves, each other and those to come to put aside our ignoble self-pitying and work toward bettering our country.
Division has been our greatest foe, yet here we are separating ourselves, both within and without our separate groups.
Civil liberty and justice need to be claimed because this is a collective fight.
When your great-grandmother could vote for the first time with other American women, our votes mattered.
When my grandfather could drink fountain water without being told he was a second-class citizen, it was the coolest drink we’ve ever tasted.
When everyone is granted civil liberties, it’ll be your sweetest day.
Derrick Austin may be reached at daustin@ut.edu.
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