Imperfect Union: As we win political victories, LGBT collective values become harder to pin down

Opinion: My grandfather was a union man. I didn't know this till I was shown a photo of him, long after he died, taking part in an upstate New York strike. Aside from that picture, his labor history is a mystery to me. I never met him, thanks to his three-packs-daily unfiltered Camels habit, washed down with a couple quarts of Pabst Blue Ribbon. When I saw that photo, though, I remember feeling proud. I, too, am a union man. Not that I ever belonged to one, mind you. I've never worked anywhere with a union. And the one I and others tried to start at the Washington Blade a decade ago was a lost cause. As someone who has never been a stellar negotiator – it's the same reason I suck at bridge, I simply can't master the pretense – the idea of worker representation has always appealed to me. Sure, I've often been the worker left holding the bucket while others dither, but that doesn't make me any more wary of labor than of management. Simply, in the power dynamic of one side, bosses, having authority over the other, workers, I think the playing field should be relatively level. The alternative looks like the industrialized extension of serfdom or sharecropping. Where the LGBT community is concerned, I'm apparently not alone. In light of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's (R) assault on collective bargaining by state employees, dozens of LGBT groups have allied themselves with the workers, according to Pride at Work. These groups range from the National Black Justice Coalition and Human Rights Campaign, to the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition and PFLAG. Some of the groups supporting the workers have obvious motivations. Walker is aiming at the teachers' union, while the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network has reason to defend them. Same too for LGBT Democratic organizations, with Democrats generally being long-allied with organized labor. But many are just part of the left-leaning progressive umbrella. ... (more)

lesbian television lesbian books lesbian dvd