Martina Navratilova: "What Democracy Is All About"
VisibleVote08 asked tennis great and LGBT activist Martina Navratilova to comment on what she expected from the candidates hoping to gain the Democratic nomination. I'm happy to share some excerpts of her answers and want to say how important I think Martina's opinion is. She is someone who really appreciates being an American, someone who fled her home and family in what is now the Czech Republic in 1975 to escape communist rule. She became an American ciitizen in 1981. Ten years later, in her last U.S. Open singles final, Martina had lost to Monica Seles but the crowd gave her an ovation for the ages. She said that day: "I'm so damned proud to be an American."
Here are some of Martina's words on democracy:
"...When asked “What issue is most important to LGBT people?” is the same to me—lack of and even erosion of equality, and therefore erosion of freedom. What is at stake in this next election for us is America’s future and its standing in the world. We cannot be the world’s leader when what we say and what we do are two different things. We cannot shout about democracy and freedom while running roughshod over same here at home.
By singling out a group of people (the LGBT community) and making sure equal rights don’t apply, you are nibbling away at the core of what this fabulous country stands for—as in “the pursuit of happiness” for all.
“Should a candidate’s stance on gay issues trump other important issues?” Well, if you don’t think gays should have the same rights straight people have, you are saying “no” to me on what is important to me, and you are saying “no” to our LGBT community on issues that are important to us all—young, old and all the ages in between; black, white and all the colors in between. Who else would you like to exclude? Where exactly do you stop?
If we don’t, as a group, have the same rights and protections, then we are limited in what we can achieve. We are handicapped by limited possibilities, and other very important issues like health care or financial security are very much imbedded in the lack of these equal rights and protections.
When we as a people don’t have equal rights—like the right to marry, and the right to join the military—we are being marginalized and to me that is not acceptable.
When we as people don’t have there equal rights there is a lack of freedom, lack of equality and lack of fairness. What is our democracy about then? And on a financial note—how come I have to pay same taxes as straight Americans but don’t have their rights?
The two most noble things one can do—join the armed forces and have a monogamous, loving relationship with equal protection under the law—we cannot have. We are denied those possibilities. Hence we are not full-fledged citizens. We have no shot at ever being equal in the eyes of John and Jane Doe.
When the gender of your life partner is the single most important reason whether or not one has equal protection under the law, when the gender of your potential sexual partner is the most important reason whether or not one can join the military, when someone thinks they know what the gender of your future partner will be and they beat you up for it and that’s ok, we all have a problem.
Why is it that all the industrialized countries have seen the light, have evolved and have thus given many more rights to gays and lesbians in their countries than we have done here? Why are we so far behind, with more states lining up to take away any potential at full on equal rights for us?
In 1991, in the run up to the election, the gay equality issue was a mainstream issue and was certainly OK to speak about. As the political pendulum has swung very much to the right, our issues have become either not spoken about at all or worse yet, used as a dividing wedge. This needs to stop and with that in mind, I would really like to know which of these candidates is willing to speak out for us. Because by speaking out for us, they speak for all that America stands for: freedom, justice, fairness and equality.
That’s what democracy is all about.
Greg Hernandez has covered the entertainment industry for the Daily
News since 2001. He's considered a bit odd by some for his obsession
with box office numbers, has been known to camp out near the kitchen
at premieres for first crack at the hors d'oeurves, and Greg's never
seen a red carpet he didn't want to stroll down.
Comments
MARTINA FOR PRESIDENT!!!!
Posted by: David Ehrenstein | August 9, 2007 12:28 PM