More Fashion in Politics

I read this post in the Caucus a few days ago, and it got me thinking that fashion has a role in politics and protest. It's something I've already thought about a bit, but the knotted white ribbon felt different from an Obama button, I kept thinking about a stupid piece of ribbon, and I wondered why that was.

So. The knotted ribbon. I kinda like it. It's simple. "tie the knot! Oh, I see what you did there." And it's white, because… marriage is all about purity and white? I take it back, I'm starting to think the ribbon is… either brilliant or awful.

The whiteknot.org site tells us that "The White Knot is the symbol for marriage equality. It takes two traditional symbols of marriage—white and tying the knot—and combines them in a simple way to show support for the right of gays and lesbians to marry"

Which is great, I guess, but, uh, how exactly does it "combine them to show support for the right of gays and lesbians to marry?"

When I first started writing this, I was so gung-ho on this white knotted ribbon. I had this whole thing about visibility and its importance all thought out. Then I realized there is nothing gay about a white ribbon with a knot in it. So how visible is it?

The white ribbon ignores the cause. It's full of marriage symbolism (the knot, the color white) and devoid of anything queer. It'd be so easy to take a rainbow ribbon and knot it. You'd have marriage symbolism and gay symbolism. I wonder if that could symbolize gay marriage?

But it can't, because the last thing you'd want to do is remind people that the issue is about two people of the same sex getting married. The causes of "Marriage Equality" and white ribbons erase that: it's not about same-Sex or Gay Marriage, It's about equality. And whenever it gets framed so clinically, knots and white and equality under the law, I start wondering why we don't just settle for every democratic politician's favorite phrase, "civilunionswiththefullprotectionandrightsgrantedtoheterosexualcouples." Because if we're talking equality, tax laws are tax laws, hospital visits are hospital visits, and civil unions are marriages. So why not? It's just about equality, isn't it?

It's obviously not, despite what the white knot people seem to think. So why not civil unions? Because Civil Unions are presented as this palatable alternative: Equality, not Same-sex, white, not rainbow, civil unions, not marriages, and I'm sick of feeling so damn unpalatable. I don't need a ribbon from my own movement to reinforce that.

As much as the Gay Marriage movement might need a symbol, it definitely doesn't need one that bleaches it of what it is.