Sound Taste

Latinas opened the door for gay marriage, Pt. 2

This week we found out New York has opened a back-door way to legalize gay marriage in the state. And once again, like I wrote about here, there's a courageous Latina setting precedent.

Gov. David Paterson's decision to have state agencies draw up rules consistent with accepting same-sex marriages performed in places where it is legal to do so (such as Canada, Massachusetts and, maybe soon, California) was based on a court case decided a few months back, Martinez v. Monroe County.

Rochester residents Patricia Martinez and Lisa Ann Golden won the right to have Martinez's health benefits as a community college administrator extended to her spouse, who she'd married in Canada in 2004. Not a shocker that health insurance has become important enough to warrant enduring a rough, invasive court proceeding.

The case was reported when the decision came down, and was clearly recognized as a precedent-setter. The news this week in the low-key directive drafted by the gov's legal counsel was that by asking state agencies to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed legally elsewhere, Paterson was institutionalizing a potentiality.

Let me be clear. I'm not a defender of the importance of marriage as a concept. After all, the institution was invented to control women and property (thanks, Engels!). But seeing families and couples denied rights automatically granted to any random married couple is just wrong.

[Pix of Patricia Martinez and Lisa Ann Golden via NYT]

Latinos opened the door for gay marriage

I have to admit, I only read the headlines in California's Supreme Court gay marriage decision this week.

So I did not notice the revealing tidbit that Gary Dauphin footnoted a couple of days ago: the Supremes' decision was largely based on the 1948 case Perez v. Sharp, which challenged interracial marriage bans way before Loving v. Virgina (1967) and involved a Mexican American woman and a Black man.

The reason the couple was denied a wedding license and the case went to court was that Andrea Perez was considered "white." Gary posted her picture. I'm re-posting it here. If she's white, I'm downright Aryan.

Like Mendez v. Westminster, the school desegregation case that predated Brown v. Board of Ed by almost a decade, Perez v. Sharp was also a key precedent-setter with Latino plaintiffs that crowbarred the door open to extend fundamental civil rights to others.

Gary argues that it's no coincidence that this case (I would argue both cases) took place in the other state I consider home, California. This supports Roberto Lovato's theory that California is ground zero for Latino-led radical social change in this country.

Yet another instance in which we are erased from the history of fighting for American civil rights, human rights. Been here all along, time to make sure others notice.

Friday Go Gos

When I first started this blog, I thought I'd stick to my public writer's persona. But slowly, my dear readers, you have been finding out about my obsessions with accordions, with lucha libre, with Kal Penn.

And now, another confession: before I was a punk, I was a preteen lover of new wave. Bow Wow Wow, Adam Ant, Depeche Mode. And no band did I love more than the Go Gos.

Listening to them recently, I was shocked at how good some of the songs in Beauty and the Beat are. I especially love "Lust to Love," "This Town" and the eternal teen heartbreak of "How Much More." God bless Jane Wieldin's guitar.

Though I didn't know it in 1982, the band had both punk and Latin roots. Under the name Dottie Danger, full-cheeked Belinda Carlisle sang for the Germs for a bit, and two of the original members of the band had suspiciously Chicano-sounding names: Margot Olaverra (bass) and Elissa Bello (drums). Any more details from your files on the Secret History of Latinos, Jim?

In the past few years, there's been more examination of the Latin role in the LA punk scene, in this book, this exhibit and this one. I've only seen the American Sabor exhibit and don't have Spitz's book. But I assure you this subject'll be part of my summer research.

So, for that punk-new wave link (and to see how nicely these gals' looks have held up), here's a recent live cover of the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated." (Sorry, embedding was disabled.)

And below they perform "Has the Whole World Lost Its Head?" in Tops of the Pops in 1995. The song, which sounds like vintage Go-Gos (and that's a good thing) was one of three originals in the 1994 2-disc retrospective Return to the Valley of the Go-Go's.