Gay Girl / Straight World
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Having sat with the results of Proposition 8 for a couple of weeks now, I wish I could report some attitude change, some sort of epiphany that made me realize that everything would be okay. We had, after all, won the big victory of overcoming racism and cynicism in electing Barack Obama as president; we had, as Martin Luther King Jr. had hoped, judged someone on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
Gay Girl / Straight World
But it turns out I’m still upset.
Call me a sore loser or someone who doesn’t respect the will of the voters, but I can’t stop thinking about the elation and despair of Election Night, the simultaneous step forward the country took while California stepped back. To the people who voted in favor of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, I must ask, why? To steal some of the sentiments of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, why would you vote against something that affirms a loving, committed relationship? Why would you vote to denigrate an entire population — and although we are a minority, there still are a lot of us out there — to second-class status? Because, plain and simple, that’s what you did. You decided that your religious beliefs and convictions should determine your vote on a nonreligious issue. You took your distrust and misunderstanding of people and codified it in the California Constitution. You took away a right, something that’s happened only once before, during Prohibition.
You made bigotry the law.
In a well-funded campaign, the Yes on 8 people waged an ingenious battle. They said gay people were to be feared, and same-sex marriage would be taught (or, if you believed the television ads, rammed down your child’s throat) in public schools. Too bad the same folks making the “kids first” argument don’t seem to be too involved in their own children’s education, since most everyone knows the state’s education code doesn’t require schools to teach anything about marriage. Even Superintendent of Schools Jack O’Connell said Prop. 8 had “nothing to do with schools or kids.” Religious groups wouldn’t have been stripped of their right to refuse to recognize, condone, or perform marriage ceremonies; this was, after all, a conversation about civil marriage and the more than 1,000 rights and benefits that are granted to couples who have the specific title of “marriage,” not the separate and decidedly unequal distinction of “domestic partnership” or “civil union.”
Frankly, I think those of you on the victorious side are sore winners. When patrons started boycotting your business because you had donated to the Yes on 8 campaign, making it known they would not give their hard-earned money to a prejudiced company, you said it was unfair and discriminatory. Aside from the giant wad of ironic audacity you seem to carry around in your back pocket that I’d like to chat with you about, I’m left wondering, have you never read a history book? One of the most effective political tools is the boycott: The widespread rejection of the bus system in the Deep South in the 1950s quickly comes to mind. American consumers are some of the most powerful people in the world, and the fact that they’re voicing their opposition to you by hitting you in the pocketbook shows they’ve learned from history and you haven’t.
And, speaking of history, I’m reminded of a few times in the past when the majority of people weren’t spot-on about issues we don’t blink an eye at now. Giving women the right to vote? Are black people worth a full person, or just ³⁄5? Should interracial couples marry? Do lobotomies fix depression and mental illness? In fact, I recall in the not-too-distant past when the majority of Americans supported the Iraq War and President George W. Bush. But with America’s most unpopular president ever going about his lame-duck days and the war sputtering along, I’m left thinking about how wrong the majority was then, too.
Clearly, I’m upset about the results of Prop. 8. But, in the spirit of these holidays of giving thanks, I’m reminded that there’s always something to be grateful for. Many of the young people shouldering the weight of this latest civil rights battle have never before been solidified around a cause. For a generation of people who haven’t had to genuinely fight for their rights, I look to them to be the fire in this long-winded war.