noel on 8

You may (or may not) have noticed that I didn’t have a lot to say when the California Supreme Court upheld Prop. 8 last week. Partly this was because I was planning a trip to Fresno, home of some of my favorite literary peeps and my very favorite sort-of-second-hand store.

But mostly I didn’t have a lot to add. Gay marriage? Still for it. Bigotry and government meddling in people’s personal lives? Still against it. Meehan, my only queer appellate law expert friend (everyone should have at least one), hadn’t versed herself in the particulars of the case yet, so I couldn’t weigh in on the whole revision vs. amendment issue.

Luckily, my friend Noel has all sorts of smart things to say on the Huffington Post. According to Noel, LGBT folks are an oppressed minority, contrary to the media’s portrayal of gay men as rich and fabulous, and gay women as rich and fabulous and crazy (at least on The L Word). Although it always feels weird to deny fabulousness and talk about one’s own oppression—unless you were in Chris Cunningham’s UCLA English classes in the late ‘90s, where nothing was more fabulous than one’s own oppression—sometimes you’ve got to do it.

You’ve got to admit that there’s something—maybe many things—that your people need and don’t have. Kudos to Noel for doing it, and making some important and nuanced connections.