Gay Marriage is not Universal Health Care

As the gay marriage and health care reform debates rage on in our ground zero state, we can't help but wonder how we got so off track. Since when did a corporate friendly "public option" replace our demands for trans inclusive universal health care? How did shared health care plans through our soon-to-be spouses replace our demand for health care for all people of every class, including working class queers who still won't have health care once they're happily coupled because neither of them have it from their employer in the first place. How did so many of us get sucked in to these distractions? And a further burning question... Why should only married people be allowed to live?

To remind ourselves, and our larger communities, that neither gay marriage nor health care reform anything short of universal single payer is going to bring us any closer to the kind of health care access we've been dreaming, we postered both Portland in Lewiston with our newest broadside. Queers must demand universal health care for all the fags, dykes, trannies and queers, even those of us who are marginalized, poor, disabled, elderly and/or poz.

and yes, there's even a historical precedent of queers fighting for universal health care in maine, like this ACT UP/Portland rally in 1994 documented by Annette Dragon for the old gay paper, Apex.