I just finished a short piece I sent over to the staff at The New Gay to review and decide if they want to publish it, entitled Can D.C. change the face of the Queer Rights Movement? The article was the brain child of two articles that I came across recently, one was from Queerty, its "We've trained the media to think we're rich and white. That's a Problem." article, which was thought provoking; and Adam Serwer's recent piece from The American Prospect about African-Americans leading the fight in the District against protest of the City Council's recent decision to recognize out-of-state marriage licenses.

I won't know if the folks at TNG will decide to publish it for a couple of days possible. Hopefully they will, I like getting ideas out there and seeing what response they produce; however, if they do not I will just post the entire piece here--which I might just do anyway for records' sake. I've included an excerpt below as a teaser.

I've published both, technically three, of my pieces before with them--though that alone does not translate to a guarantee. One was apparently riddled with grammatical errors--my curse in life, clearly--so I was extra careful this time around.

Also in the works is another piece, possibly longer, tentatively titled "Revisiting "Gay is the New Black". The phrase emerged really last year after Prop 8 and caused some controversy; however, I think the dust has settled now and there is something to be said about Queer-rights being uniquely the civil rights issue of our generation, while we continue the fight for equal rights and equal protection for ethnic minorities and women. I do not want to give it all away yet, it's still very much in a draft phase. Hopefully I can get it complete by the of the week, before I go on vacation.

Here's an excerpt from Can D.C. change the face of the Queer Rights Movement?:

One of the criticisms often levied against the queer community today is that it has failed to be representative of the very people that compose it, particularly on the national level; and has instead perpetuated a very narrow classification of what it means to be queer. The people that fall outside of this classification include people from ethnic minorities, women, the uneducated, those from the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, and others. These people and their backgrounds have largely been absent from the cultural dialog we have had over the years about what it means to be queer in America.

As a result our collective perception of what it means to be queer today is very different from the facts on the ground. This quagmire has often been exploited by social-conservatives to depict queer people as privileged elitist, rather than everyday people who, unfortunately, still live as second-class citizens in our democracy[...]
The reactionary response from the queer-community to Prop 8 and its support among people of color highlighted the failure of proper proactive steps which could have prevented the measure from passing in the first place during the campaign. What has now been seen as a clear misstep on the part of No On 8 organizers was the failure to appropriately reach out and actively work with communities of color to combat the other side, which was actively working within communities of color and their places of worship[...]
While it is unfortunately painstakingly clear that the conservative-religious hold in the African-American community contributes greatly to the sizable percentage of disapproval within the community, it is not a community where all hope is lost. In recent years we have seen several prominent voices in the African-American community speak out passionately for queer-rights, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus, CBC, and some religious leaders. And we have seen the Queer community through various venues begin to reach out.

As always I will be sure to update on the progress of things.

Update Tuesday, June 30th 11:53AM:
Just received an email from Michael, one of TNG's Co-Founders, that they are doing to publish the piece.