Taking the Long View on Prop 8
In the immediate wake of Prop 8's victory in California, much of the conversation in the blogosphere was dominated by anger – real and perceived – by some gay activists toward African Americans, acrimony grounded in eventually refuted claims that black voters provided the margin of victory. While Prop 8 opponents were understandably frustrated, the way some lashed out at African Americans was counterproductive at best. Although the Right is still trying hard to drive a wedge between blacks and gay rights activists, the broader conversation has mostly moved on.
This weekend's historic grassroots protests against Prop 8, organized via Join the Impact, have people thinking about the future again. And that's where our focus belongs. Prop 8's supporters have the past on their side, but we have the future. My advice to the marriage ban supporters is to savor their victories now because they're going to find out what it's like to be on the wrong side of history.
Even in defeat we can see the signs of victories to come. According to a CNN exit poll, 61% of voters aged 18-29 opposed Prop 8, while 61% of 65 and older voters backed it. That tells you where we're headed, especially if you compare those results to 2000, when according to an LA Times exit poll 18-29 year old voters supported the anti-gay Proposition 22 by a margin of 58-42. The final vote tallies tell a similar story. Prop 22 passed in 2000 with 61% of the 7.5 million votes cast, but Prop 8 passed with just 52% of the 12 million votes cast. Prop 8 was also defeated across a much broader area of the state than Prop 22 (results by county for Prop 22 & Prop 8).
As I see it, the biggest story about Prop 8 is the California electorate's strong shift in favor of marriage equality in just a matter of years. A majority of white voters backed Prop 22 but opposed Prop 8. We'll be able to say the same thing about African Americans and Hispanics in the future if we commit ourselves now to doing the necessary outreach, education, and relationship-building activism – something our opponents have been doing for years.
The Religious Right is the real obstacle to equality. They bankrolled Prop 8 and led an aggressive and misleading campaign that convinced many voters that voting 'yes' on Prop 8 was a vote to protect their religious freedom and their children. There are millions of voters, of all races and ethnicities, many of whom are religious, who might vote today to support a marriage ban, but only because they've heard the lies spread by opponents of equality, and haven't had the opportunity to have a real conversation about the impact of discrimination on same-sex couples and their families.
We may have history and momentum on our side, but as we saw on November 4, progress is not inevitable, especially when the Right is willing to do and say anything to prevent it. It's time to learn our lessons, revise our strategies, and commit ourselves to strategic, respectful outreach to those Americans who need to hear from us.
Kathryn Kolbert is president of People For the American Way
gay marriage will come to CA. Just a matter of time.
This sort of asinine vote gets overturned by every court it winds up in. It will eventually go to the Supreme Court and be decided there. And then it'll be a political football like Roe v Wade forever. I just hope the Supreme court is either just or rebalanced with fewer wingnuts by the time it gets there. I'm just tired of constantly being the scapegoat for all the world's evils. It gets very wearing on one's self. The sad thing is that, we could just accept this and prevent all the pain and unhappiness that the right wing likes to create. It's not like there are no historical precedents for this. Marriage equality will happen.
Marriage equality will happen in California but not because of judicial action. The current appeals of Prop 8 are very unlikely to prevail. However another amendment of the state constitution by initiative can qualify for the next ballot, or more likely in 2012, and with a better advertising campaign will pass
each day here in Connecticut. In fact, nothing much seems to have changed as a result of the recent CT Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage. No acts of God, that sort of thing.
For the considerable majority here, the evil fucks aren't gays and lesbians, but rather Bushco and Lieberman.
Californians would do well to learn who their enemies really are.
is wrong with people of my age?
You'd have thought they'd get hip to the "divide and conquer bullshit" that is being played on us.
what if the gender aspect of Prop 8 had been replaced with a racial identifier? If California had voted on the rights of particular people to enter into what is essentially a legal contract, based solely upon ethnicity, it would be struck down as a violation of their civil rights.
Same here. Consenting adults being denied the right to 'marry' based on gender is a civil rights abrogation. Full Stop.
me-oww!
Wikipedia: Loving v. Virginia
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
"progress is not inevitable"
great point! i think this was the attitude of many young people coming to voting age over the last decade. have to work towards it, wont happen on its own.
By and large, Americans are reasonable.
A lot of red-hot Repubs in Alabama, for example, are not anti-gay because they eat at great gay-run restaurants.
They aren't inherently opposed to gay marriage.
They just want to know it isn't going to affect their kids in school.
If we make some rhetorical substitutions, They all suck, is it still reasonable?
That is, after all, the basic argument. Equality might be nice in theory, but if the law says people are equal, we have to teach our kids that people are equal. And we don't want to teach our kids that.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
I don't get how anyone can make a rational argument that marriage equality will infringe on anyone's religious freedom let alone harm children. Equal rights for all people will hurt our children? Yeah, like they'll get the idea that "we're all created equal" or something like that and we all know how those ideas will ruin their lives.
Stupid, blind, selfish fools.
Marriage breaks down to one of two scenarios - logically, there is no other way to define it.
It is either a Three Party Contract between two individuals and the State. If it is such, then legally and plainly defined, it should be available to all citizens of the state without prejudice. It is not the place of the state to deem adult couples worthy of marriage or not.
If Marriage is indeed a religious issue - defined by religion and church, then it is STRICTLY such. That is, you are to be wed in a church of your choice by clergy of your choice. Then, by the same turn dissolving your marriage should also fall on the burden of the church. The State should not be involved at all - no marriage license to be bought from the state, etc. It falls 100% in the lap of the Church.
If religious folks and organizations decide that they want to dictate marriage - let them have it... ALL of it. Those of us without religion are certainly happy to enter into a private contract with mates of our choice without church or state intervention.
is extremely reasonable, not to mention, the truth.
Why young lovers, gay or straight, wish to bring the State into their relationship is beyond me anyway. Forget about Gay Marriage, im against ALL Marriage!!
Rothbard > Rothschild
the rights given to married couples. It's not about the label. It's about the having the same marital rights to decisions on healthcare, property rights, children, etc.
Fuck the certificate. Give equality.
Put it in the contract. If churches want to have the marriage card to themselves, great - their followers can present their three-party contract to prove their eligibility for "benefits". Couples with a secular two-party contract can do the same.
Present your legally binding contract, birth certificates or adoption papers for your children and you're set.
Incidentally - I don't ever recall having to produce my marriage certificate or the birth certificates of my children for health insurance. Given that my first name is Ambisexterous, you'd think they'd ask.
Hm. Maybe "benefits" are a don't-ask-don't-tell issue.
Either way - if marriage is indeed a State issue - the point stands that it should be available to all consenting adults within that state.
I have watched in horror as the conversation has progressed, heartened only by Stephen Colbert's satire of the blacks vs. gays fight the rabid right hopes to foment. Although I have commented to the effect that I personally encountered the most bigoted resistance when on the campaign trail against Prop. H8 from racial minorities, I sought only to note the tragic irony. I fear I might only have added fuel to the fire.
This cannot and will not play out the way the rabid right wants it to. There is a real danger in being conquered by division, and the leaders of Know Knothing Knation seem at least to know that.
This is not a fight about gay rights. It is about human rights. Equal substantive liberty. Equal must apply to everyone --- racial minorities, sexual minorities, gender minorities, and everyone in the majority --- or it just doesn't mean equal. We cannot stress that enough.
As for that long arc of history, it will bend toward justice. In the early part of the 20th Century, theocrats banned teaching anything in public schools that contradicted the Bible. They proceeded to the Scopes Monkey Trial. They won that round, but it was a victory from which they never recovered. Their irrational hatred was unmasked for the world, and though they have come close, they've never quite regained the upper hand.
May it be so for Prop. H8. The victory from which they will never recover. In the long term, their continued efforts will only unite racial and sexual minorities, which, of course, are not mutually exclusive categories anyway.
Allow Margaret Meade to close for me: Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.
Here's to the future.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
A bit of math for ya...
Estimates are that blacks made up approx. 10% of the total vote count on Prop. 8 in CA this year (11,803,018), which would be 1,180,302. If the estimates of 70% in favor of Prop. 8 are correct, that's 826,211 votes.
Now, if the black voters had voted in identical ratio to the overall count (52.2% For, 47.8 Against), that would've been 615,685, a difference of 210,526 votes.
If we adjust the total votes by this number it STILL goes in favor of approval - 50.4% For, 49.6% Against.
Sure it's closer, but not enough to swing it... so this talking point is BS.
This whole argument about "why pick on the Mormon church, et al, when the blacks blah blah...", well, there's a difference between a demographic that is (presumably) simply voting their conscience, and non-profit spending MILLIONS in order to sway the political process with their religious agenda!
"How...how long is it?"
"Well I think that's a rather personal question, sir!"
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Let gays and lesbians marry. They might as well be as suicidal and depressed as the rest of us.
Then have a great big orgy
Create a Counter Petition .
Get Signatures to outlaw Marriage as a STATE Event. Make it as it should be, a religious event, but that to obtain STATE Recognition, you must fill in a STATE Form to be linked together. Marriage is a strictly religious word. Keep Religion out of our Laws.
An old retired fart.
I don't know where the future lies but for sure this problem of the extension of marriage is a red flag able to infuriate many many people.
Same sex marriage poses many connected problems that are not stated by just saying I'm for or against it. So the rush to achieve it in the ink of law sometimes seems to lack sincerity.
First and obviously, there is procreation and/or adoption problems which, beyond any "morality" or religious belief, pose huge legal problems.
Here lies new status for uterus lending or semen lending individuals, and the relations they will obtain with their biological issue. Here lies international problems of adoption, where actually more and more country, like Vietman, are prohibiting now any sort of adoption from specicfic countries.
Less obviously, there is the naming problem which, even if we don't realize it, is at the bottom of our patrilinear cultures. You and me bear the name of our father, even if we may add our mother's name. And the manyfold consequences of this apparently very simple fact need to be fully understood and addressed.
Please don't take that badly. I'm well over 29 — that is after tasting a bit of a marriage, I sure would'nt advise it to my gay friends.
More seriously, I think it is a deep mistake to confuse gender orientation divide and suffering with racial or minority divide and discrimination. Gays should not try to steel that show, cause it is an ideological mistake. Plus after all, one can be minority and gay. As the activists acrimony against African Americans you courageously denounce shows, the divides lies eslwhere. Obviously it is somewhere between inner city life and rural life, or between any traditional life and sophisticated circles.
Greeks had a high esteem for homosexual relations but that didn't yeld any same sex marriage. In fact in Plato's dialogue about love, one participant defend eagerly same sex love, guess why ?
Because straight love, toward the other sex, realizes nothing more than following a natural path, an inclination "dictated" by nature. Whereas, he goes saying, same sex love truly achieves higher feelings, something that, in his eyes, is more definitely human and above what he considers mere instincs, surely true love.
Knowing that, aren't you proud of being different ? Can same sex activits be proud of their choice once and forall, and maybe stop trying to emulate a lower institution —with all its terrible legal niceties that were'nt design for them in the first place ?
Just asking.
(Socrate conclusion may be simplistically stated as : The problem really is not How you love but Who you love —the true half of you you're seeking along after a mythical god did split all ancient beings that were composed of 4 arms and 4 legs and 2 heads…yelding same or different sex ideal and memorial couples !)
To correct the propagenda about France, Lionel Jospin's socialist government did'nt rule for same sex marriage, but they had a law passed creating a new institution named PACS, a sort of civil union (open to straight people) that answer legal issues like inheritance, or the right to be considered as family for such act as going to see a sick person at the hospital, and so on. I'm sure you heard of case where a lover where denied the right to go and see his mate at the hospital because medical institution did'nt know how to deal with it, family or good society would'nt bear it. Can you perhaps see any path of "negociation" along those line ?
On the other hand, maybe after all, gay marriage will do good even to straight people by desacralizing that strange and mysterious institution that is marriage.
Not just the religious right, but specifically the MOR(m)ON church. I say, tax them as a political organization.
One of the lessons I learned from both business school and Sun Tzu is to change the playing field and use stealth to win instead of using a direct attack.
Gays and Lesbians should publically and loudly acknowledge that "marriage" is a religious activity. After all, the groups that pushed Prop 8 were all religious, so it should be easy to prove in court that "marriage" is a religious activity.
Of course since "marriage" is a religious activity, the state should NOT be controlling it in any manner. The US Constitution clearly documents that the state may NOT make any laws that control religious activities and hte churches have fought for this right long and hard.
With that in mind, it should be easy to get the courts to declare all of hte marriage code unconstitutional for two reason, "marriage" is a religious activity and that "marriage" as defined by prop 8 discriminates against one class of citizens.
The reality is that the "marriage" laws have nothing to do with religion. They actually deal with property and contract law. That is, the "marriage" laws are just a neatly wrapped packages of laws that simplify the legal union of two people.
The third nail in "marriage's" coffin lid is the state can not have two sets of similar laws that apply to different sets of citizens. This is the now classic "separate but equal" problem. The last tiem the courts looked at this problem, they said that the state had to apply marriage to everyone. NOW, if "marriage" is declared unconstitutional, then the "Civil Union" laws would have to apply to EVERYONE and marriage would be eliminated.
That is every one that wanted to have the legal benefits of a state sanctioned union, would need to register the union with the state, following the criteria in the law (which could NOT have any religious restrictions). If a couple also wanted a spiritual sanctioned union, they would have to find some "religious" person to mumble a few words over them. Note that the "religious" person would no longer be authorized to certify the union to the state, only state authorized SECULAR individuals would be able to do that.
This would be the ideal situation - a complete decoupling of the secular and religious functions.
Of course there would be a few slight problems.
- Since there would be no "marriage" in California, only civil unions, no one in CA would be able to use any of the "marriage" provisions of federal or non-CA law. I suppose if several million people in CA suddenly lost their federal tax "marriage" exemption, and sued the IRS that problem could be changed quick.
- Religious people might resent that they could no longer "one stop shop" but would have to have a two step process.
- Since everyone would have to have a civil "ceremony," many may opt to not bother with the churches. This is essentially what has happened in Europe where the state only offers the legal "civil union" and the churches can offer ONLY a spiritual union.
Personally, I think that Gays should eliminate "marriage" as a state activity and have everyone in the state be in a civil union not "marriage." It would let the churches "win" on marriage and make "marriage" irrelevant at the same time. Once there is no state "marriage," the clause in the laws defining "marriage" will be come meaningless.
Once everyone in CA has a civil union, marriage is irrelevant.
A thoughtful post with constructive discussion of strategy for actually accomplishing something.
Don't forget that this is not merely a "Gay" issue. This is an issue of "equal protection under the law" and when one group of people can be singled out for "special treatment" in the form of abridgment of their rights, then no one is safe from similar treatment elsewhere.
I am not gay, and frankly, I confess that I am not personally comfortable looking at or envisioning homosexual behavior. But that discomfort is my own personal concern - and should not be a source of political capital for those who would seek to leverage it into a kind of legal oppression of those who - to no one's harm - are wired differently.
I really believe that if the anti prop 8 activists had been able to build a public education campaign to counter the lies of the bigots, the measure would not have passed. For that reason, I also believe the day is coming sooner rather than later, when marriage between consenting adults is treated equally by law, regardless of the orientation or sex of the partners.
[Your subject line is was offensive-Sitemonitor]
The numbers against gay marriage have dropped so much over the last 10 years, that I think in another election cycle or two that the bigots will be on the losing side of social evolution - like they always are.
You can't stop progress, no matter how much of a hate-on you can get. Poor bigots, soon they won't have anyone left to hate but themselves. Maybe that's their problem.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
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