Listening to these videos, especially George Takei's rap and the opening of Margaret's song and also the speeches in the Chicago march, the theme of democracy comes up over and over again.

I.e. that America is <em>supposed</em> to have democracy, freedom, fairness and justice -- and yet the officially sanctioned inequality of gay people flies in the face of that.

People are sticking their finger deep into a contradiction -- between the claims of this society and the reality. And George says that this is a civil rights struggle -- and he views it as THE civil rights struggle of the twenty first century. I think that contradiction is real. And the hypocrisy needs to be exposed (as people are doing).

And it stands in contrast to the reactionaries -- who declare (often in the same breath) that this is a "Christian nation" where their vision of "traditional families" should be the only accepted form of family -- i.e. where their anti-gay campaign is waged in the name of anti-diversity and a demand for official IN-equality (both unequal treatment of gay families, with a privileging of their particular bigoted religion). They are opposed to equality before the law -- just as these same forces have been historically opposed to the equality of Black people, and the equality of women, and the acceptance of immigrants and Jewish people and more.

But at the same time, this language and exposure raises the question of "what are we fighting for here."

Yes we are fighting for equality -- and demand it for gay people NOW, and may well succeed in winning more advances in the period ahead.

But there are also real political problems with limiting political language (and political horizons!) to demanding the completion of American Democracy (demanding that the claims and promises be made "real" for all).

And there is contained in that (i believe) an unspoken exaggeration of the degree to which this "freedom and equality" has EVER characterized the U.S. -- in other words, there is a declaration of loyalty here to the supposedly "real" credo of the U.S. (i.e. an acceptance that its believe in "equality" is real), while demanding major changes in this country's entrenched practices.

And there is an unspoken illusion of how much the profound problems of humanity can be solved within the framework of "American Democracy" (including within the accompanying capitalism, and U.S. imperialism).

There is a sharp question here of how the demands for inclusion ("we want in") connect with the struggle for more radical change ("we want out"). I think they are entwined. ("What happens to a dream deferred, does it dry up like a raisin in the sun, or does it explode....") Clearly, the frustration of just demands (made within official channels, or by peaceful petition, by reasoned voices, patiently over time, with professions of loyalty to the society overall) is part of the raw material of revolutionary movements and revolutionary situations.

How should we, as revolutionaries, engage these calls rooted in the expansion of "American democracy"? How do we speak to the sense that liberation comes through the realization of its supposed promise?