<\/a><\/p>\n

You’ve probably noticed that this is a racial justice blog. I don’t usually write about LGBT rights. In fact, the first post<\/a> I wrote about LGBT rights was really more about the right wing and the way the right manipulates homophobia to build support for a broader, fundamentally racist agenda. I returned to the issue a few times, like here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. But these posts diverged from my usual topic and primary work.<\/p>\n

But then I wrote about marriage equality on Monday and the post went viral. So many people went to read the post that my site crashed…twice. And today, I appeared on Democracy Now! <\/a>to talk about the issue. Follow that link and you’ll see the segment.<\/p>\n

Whenever I’m in the media I always leave the studio thinking four things: 1) I love the way make-up makes my skin look, 2) my media nerves make me look manic!, 3) I wish I had more hair, and 4) why didn’t I say…<\/em><\/p>\n

On the “why didn’t I say…<\/em>” front, just why didn’t I answer Amy Goodman’s first question about why I think my post on marriage went viral by saying,<\/p>\n

I think my post on marriage equality tapped a deep well of emotion in people. So many of us don’t live in traditional nuclear families. In fact, most people in our society don’t. These families deserve the rights and protections bestowed upon those who marry, too. Unless we redefine the family beyond marriage we’re neglecting the very real and urgent need for full protection of most of us.<\/p>\n

And those of us who choose non-traditional arrangements don’t want to be penalized for opting out of marriage. Those in non-conjugal relationships that are nonetheless vital to our lives, and we who wish to avoid the culturally laden institution of marriage, don’t want to be coerced into marriage in order to protect our families. Freedom to marry, yes! But freedom from marriage, too!<\/p>\n

So, there’s a lot of concern about our loving LGBT community, and a little indignation, too.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And then, more concern about my sadly thinning hair, my media nerves, and all the internalized sexism and homophobia that makes me embarrassed to wear make up all the time.<\/p>\n

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You’ve probably noticed that this is a racial justice blog. I don’t usually write about LGBT rights. In fact, the first post I wrote about LGBT rights was really more about the right wing and the way the right manipulates homophobia to build support for a broader, fundamentally racist agenda. I returned to the issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[74,609,213,521,80,512],"coauthors":[1367],"class_list":["post-4551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-african-american-civil-rights-movement-1955-1968","tag-beyond-marriage","tag-democracy-now","tag-freedom-schools","tag-lgbt","tag-marriage-equality"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/marriage-equality_0.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10610,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions\/10610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racefiles.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=4551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}