Yet another unpopular opinion from me

[sasha_feather]

There's a famous clip where Barney Frank lays out the "radical gay agenda" (wink wink that it is not radical at all), and says it consists of:
1. Marriage equality (I've already griped about this here, but to recap: it leaves asexual, poly, and single people in the cold, and privileges monogamous relationships)
2. Protection from Employment discrimination
3. Serving openly in the military
and
4. Hate crimes legislation

I actually support 2 and 3, so let's talk about 4. The reason this plank of the platform troubles me is because is about punitive justice rather than transformative or healing justice. It is about punishing bad behaviors, but not about addressing root causes of those behaviors, such as the widespread acceptability of violence and homophobia in US society, and maybe some things about masculinity, and gender policing.

Also, it feeds people into the prison-industrial complex. The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. In particular, black men, gender queer people, and other oppressed groups are disproportionately imprisoned. Prisons themselves are places where rehabilitation is rare. Sexual assault is a known prison problem.

Black and Pink outlines a bunch more reasons for being suspicious of hate crimes laws: They do nothing for the victims or their families, they are easy ways for states to score points with oppressed groups without actually providing any services for us, and more.

You can read more of my rants at my ideas tag!

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Srsly -- like in principle, sure, anyone who wants to serve should be able to, but in practice I cannot bring myself to actually spend any energy or time fighting for my right to do so, b/c... I would rather spend my energy on promoting a world that focuses less on military solutions in general. ^^;;

Sasha, thanks for that compilation link -- super useful!

[sasha_feather]

Yes, it has a lot to do with where we spend our time, energy, money, etc! While I am very glad about the end of DADT for a number of reasons (including the fact that I currently work at a VA hospital), I would rather put resources toward anti-poverty, anti-homelessness initiatives, and getting people out of prisons, etc.