Wednesday Assignment 1: Hot topics: gay marriage

Hello everyone,

In this blog, I will be focusing on the concepts of assimilation and radicalism through the readings from class and how that applies to gay marriage. Assimilation is a group of people assimilating to the culture and society that they live in and radicalism is bringing about change. There are four different movements that will be examined through these concepts. They are the Anti Vietnam war movement, Women’s movement, the Gay rights movement (based on the readings), and the Chicano movement.

First is the Anti Vietnam movement, in the article entitled, “Overview of Anti-Vietnam War Protests”, by Tom Wells, he talks about how people protested the Vietnam War in the 1960’s. One notable thing that makes this protest interesting is that many students were protesting the War at this time. With these students, they were a bunch of young idealists who wanted to raise awareness about the moral wrongness of this war. If you did not know, these students were actually more peaceful protesters. In his article, Wells says, “However, construction workers in New York assaulted a group of peaceful student demonstrators, and (with White House assistance) some union leaders organized pro-administration rallies (Wells 2).” Even though students did in fact were using peaceful means of protests, they did in fact set up protests and demonstrations as well as the government using demonstrations of their own to support their cause. It was those who did not agree with the anti Vietnam movement like the construction works and the government responses to demonstrations resulted in violence. This movement, I think, falls under assimilation because the goal was a more peaceful demonstration do bring about change to end the American participation in the Vietnam War. The next examination is on the Women’s Rights Movement.

The Women Rights Movement has a long history where many women are fight for equal rights that men have. As we know in a historical sense that women were in the subordinate role in a patriarchal society. Coinciding with the Civil Rights movement, the women’s rights movement also took off. In the 1970’s, this movement got through the government an amendment called the “Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)” that would allow equality based on sex and gender, thereby providing equality between the sexes. Surprising, there were women, particularly Mormon women, who were opposed to this amendment. So this group of women was resisting the women’s movement resisting patriarchy. These women primarily found out about this amendment through their churches. In the article, “’The ERA Is a Moral Issue’: The Mormon Church, LDS Women, and the Defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment” by Neil J. Young, says, “Across the nation, Mormon women stepped forward to carry out their church’s fight against the equal rights amendment. Most remembered having never heard of the ERA until learning about it at church. Ruth Peterson Knight was raising three small children in Virginia when she received an anti-ERA pamphlet in church one Sunday (Young 624).” This goes to shows that the church was getting involved with politics through their church members (although this action is not the point of this entry). They were claiming that because women subordination role was a part of their religion’s way of life and is defined in the bible in that way, the government should not redefine this role and go against g-d. Although Mormons do not have much political influence except in Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, it was enough to prevent the amendment being passed. This was a type of peaceful resistance in the form of politics because the way they resisted was based on persuasion, voter support, legislation, and Mormon religious morality. Up next is looking at assimilation of the gay rights movement.

The Gay Rights movement is a current civil and social rights movement that has been in the news. In the sense of this movement, it started out as radical. According to the article, “The Gay Liberation Movement” by John D’Emilio, he says, “Rioting continued far into the night [referring to the riots in 1969 where the police raided gay bars]… (D’Emilio 36). The point here is that the movement started out as radical for a reason: to get the message out that people were gay and the community is looking for equal rights as heterosexuals. Nowadays, the movement takes more of an assimilation standpoint in the sense they are looking at legislators, public education, and supporters of civil rights and social justice to spread the word that this lifestyle is fine and that you should support it because you are striving for equality for everyone. Finally, the last movement looking at radicalism and assimilation is the Chicano movement.

The Chicano movement is the movement involving Mexican Americans. There is a dispute as to when this movement began, but the latest one was since the civil rights movement. But since the 1960’s, their struggles have paralleled the civil rights. In addition to that, the Chicano group is looking for a cultural and acceptance as well. Though there is difficultly with this movement. In the article “The Origins and History of the Chicano Movement” by Roberto Rodriguez, he says, “The reasons: lack of historical memory, regionalism and sectarianism, but also government efforts to destroy this nascent movement (Rodriguez 9).” This movement has been more or less quite unless you have the issues of Sheriff Joe Arpio’s crime suppression sweeps in Maricopa County. This group goes along with assimilation because they are very quiet and the only thing they do is protest when they feel like there is an issue of injustice.

The article, “The Unfinished Dialogue of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X”, by Clayborne Carson, talks about MLK and Malcolm X’s preferred methods of protests. MLK preferred nonviolent and civil disobedience opposed to Malcolm X’s militant perhaps violent methods of civil rights. The gay rights movement, I feel that it followed more of MLK’s footsteps. In the current movement, the movement has been trying many methods to try to pass laws and create awareness to achieve equal rights. Their current movement uses tactics such as public education, holding vigils, talking with legislators, and looking for public support.

In Carson’s article, he argues that both MLK and Malcolm’s preferred methods of movements can work side by side. I do not think that is possible. With at least 3 movements, I think that MLK’s version of movements work. With Gay rights, women’s rights and the anti Vietnam movements, non violence captured the nation’s attention and allowed for changes in the law and society regarding each movement.

Sincerely,

Steven Weingarten