Too focused on same-sex marriage?
Michael Bronski wonders how the BGLT movement became so centered on the issue

I recommend reading Bronski's whole essay ("Over the Rainbow"), but if you don't have the time, here's one of the more important pieces.

Marriage has become such a fixation in gay politics that I fear we may lose touch with other equally, if not more, important issues. Yes, queer legal groups like Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, who are litigating the Goodridge case and who litigated the Vermont case that resulted in civil unions, are doing incredibly important work. But that nearly every other queer legal and advocacy group has made marriage its priority strikes me as intellectually lazy. It’s the I’ll-have-what-they’re-having fight rather than the this-is-how-to-make-the-world-better-for-everyone fight. Fighting for marriage is like fighting over yesterday’s leftovers rather than coming up with something new and better. Even as we fight for the right to marry, there is still so much to do. We can’t even pass a federal nondiscrimination bill, much less make the streets safe for transgender kids who are being murdered in their own neighborhoods. So much energy is being expended on marriage that we might not have the resources to fight for other issues in the future, both near and far.

I mean, from the way it's been covered in the press lately, you'd think same-sex marriage was the ONLY gay issue... which makes sense to a degree, considering how obsessed the right wing is with preventing loving couples from getting married. And it is a huge issue for many gay, lesbian and bisexual people... But still, it's good to have some perspective on it.