Note: This is an older post from my Blogger days. When I first wrote this piece a number of years ago I did not foresee the rise of Identity Politics and the weaponization of LGBTQ rights. While its good to see LGBTQ people become more visible in media, the Arts and elsewhere, it has in part come about via political forces that have hijacked the struggle for LGBTQ rights for reactionary purposes. A virtual Taliban has arisen that supposedly speaks in the name of the LBGTQ community but rather than fighting for the genuine inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life of the society, instead use it as a political battering ram to smear, browbeat, cajole and terrorize their political opponents. The aim here is not so much the advancement of the human rights of the LGBTQ community as whole, but the furthering of the political and economic interests of a complacent, smug and relatively well off, middle class segment of that community. Moreover, the ensuing divisive and diversionary discourse meant to divert people’s attention from the pressing political, social and class rooted economic issues is readily used by, as Gore Vidal put it: “the second most enthusiastic Capitalist party” (the Democratic Party), to dragoon people into its waiting, wide open jaws. My observations can also be applied to feminist and “anti-racist” movements such as #metoo and #blacklivesmatter. Figures such as Jussie Smollet and Rachael Maddow are poster children for this sort of “protest through identity.” Theirs, like most of their ilk, are grievances underlain by privilege, addressed through rank opportunism and always, always genuflecting in the face of power. Future movements, beyond the usual resistance to change, will have a rough time of it because of the harm, possibly irreparable, done by the recent wave of weaponized movements created under the auspices of Identity Politics. Continue reading
