You know, Bill Richardson had a poor evening, but I kind of like his pragmatic approach. He doesn’t want to support gay marriage because he doesn’t think he can deliver on the goods once he is president. Kucinich may be in favor, but since he doesn’t really think he’ll be president, talk is cheaper for him. Richardson does think he can deliver on domestic partnership, and I think he truly means what he says. I met a gay activist recently from New Mexico, and he confirmed what my impression is of Governor Richardson. He will actually do what he says. And he has proven that. He has certainly done more for gay rights than Obama.

Then the question of choice. Ah well. Yes, to be right in the movement you have to attest to this article of faith: Homosexuality is something you are born with. Never mind that for some of us the question is extremely complicated and that choice and genes are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories. But are we judging Richardson by what he answers to that question, or that what his conclusion actually was. I heard him say clearly that for him it is a matter of equality. And it is. What actions do you want your politicians to take? Actions that further the cause of equality. It truly doesn’t matter to me what Richardson thinks “causes” homosexuality. I think he will take appropriate steps to support equality.

Personally, I think it is banal to attest that homosexuality is caused by genes. Truly banal. All of my life in one way or another is an expression of who I am, and being gay is not a separable “part” or “aspect” of who I am. I know that some people would like to create the impression that being gay is “just” part of who you are. Not for me. It is who I am, and I am who I am in part because of what I was born with, but to a much larger extent because of the choices I made. The flippant way in which Melissa Etheridge dismissed the possibility of choice, shows what a poor imagination of our lives we truly possess. She said something like: “Do we just decide in seventh grade that being gay might be cool.” Really. That is silly. What is more important is that being gay might mean something very different for Melissa Etheridge than it means for me. Keith Boykin to simply states: “I know I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be gay.” Please. The struggle of my life is to choose to be myself. Choice is the critical matter and the freedom to choose to be myself is the ultimate freedom. It is a much broader issue than being gay. Can I really be myself in this country?

Most damning about the question is that it perpetuates that we have to explain why we are gay. As if it is an affliction. It only truly matters what Richardson says about this if you believe that he has to share your notion of gay as an affliction. I don’t believe that at all. All I really want for him as a politician is that he advances the cause of equality.

You know, originally the statement that we are born as gay people was a politically expedient decision. If we are born this way, then we cannot be asked to change. And by and large, I think that the political choice is correct on one condition. Being gay has to be portrayed as white. Because we all know that being a person of color is not a matter of choice, yet this country has had no hesitation to create racism. If gays are white, we can ask for sympathy and have a reasonable chance of getting it. But if not all gays are white, chance that we get sympathy are greatly reduced. So, the gay movement has to be a much stronger voice for equality across the board than it is. Racism in the gay community is very real and a very real political choice. Because somewhere in the back of his mind, HRC president Joe Solmonese knows that only white people get the pity that he relies on in the way he furthers the struggle for gay rights.

And that is why I am grievously disappointed in last night’s debate. The imagination of gay rights, is so narrow and so poor. A few issues really is all it is: marriage equality, hate crimes legislation, I am born this way, and don’t ask don’t tell. That is all it was. The candidates addressed HIV, but the panel didn’t ask about it. So eager are they to pass on that issue, now that the epidemic is gaining color and affecting heterosexual women more and more. It is no longer a gay issue in the very narrow sense of the term. But for me it is a poverty of imagination. To see gay rights, gay issues in the narrow sense disconnected from injustices to all may be politically expedient, but it will not really further the goal of equality across the board. It will allow us to be pitted against one another, gay people against people of color for instance.

So gay people have to talk about universal health care, about poverty, about racism, and yes, about HIV. Many other issues too, have to be ours.

Talking Points Memo has a good Roundup of the debate.

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