And now for the bad news
My heart is heavy that Prop 8 and all the other anti-equality props passed.
I find myself saying that it is surprising given how accepting the society has become...and then I remember that is why these legalized-discrimination laws are being proposed. It is the last desperate attempt of certain people to keep society from changing, from moving forward. People who are afraid of the future are trying to legislate stagnation.
They will lose, of course. That Barack Obama won gives me faith that they will lose. The young people are simply too accepting. No group has EVER managed to get public recognition and acceptance and then lost it. Not even Prop 8 did that. Yes it passed and yes that is a tragedy, but a very large number of Californians had grown comfortable with gay marriage, and the passage of Prop 8 did not change their minds. They are still comfortable, and they are shaking their heads wondering "what the hell happenned?"
The movement will continue to go forward and we will change the law again.
Though I am deeply disappointed, I am taking this more in stride than some of you only because we lost this battle in our state a couple of years ago. I lobbied the state senate. I wrote letters. I did a guest editorial in the newspaper. I fought, and we lost. So I have had, on a personal level, time to be angry and mourn and find my stride again.
The passage of these propositions is a bad thing, but it is not the end. We will prevail. We will win this.
I will dance at all my children's weddings.
Thanks for the perspective, Yondalla. I'm having trouble celebrating the presidential election as much as I would like because this result was so heartbreaking for me. What makes it particularly hard is that it does feel like rights were taken away after celebrating marriages all summer. We have never had the chance before to fight this battle from that angle, and I really thought that might make the difference.
ReplyDeleteI know we're moving in the right direction and we'll get there in my lifetime, but it does feel like a huge chance that we couldn't quite grab. Whoever decided that constitutions only need 50% to amend them, anyway? What makes them any different than regular laws then?
I too felt immense sadness at the outcome of CA. I live in MA and thankfully am married to my beloved. Ironically I read that the increased voter turnout among minorities was part of what allowed this to happen in CA. Sort of yin and yang. The increased minority vote enabled Obama to become elected, and yet it enabled others to lose a right that should be theirs.
ReplyDeletevYou were literally the first person I thought of when I browsed the headlines yesterday morning and sunk like lead over the news fromn Arkansas. I had to read it twice to even understand it. So discouraging.
ReplyDeleteMy dad did his very best to stamp out the flames of casual racism lobbed all around me by relatives born in a generation less thoughtful and aware. And he has had his own version of 'rapture' this week having lived to see this election result. Yet he squirms uncomfortably when the subject of my life long friend (and dd's godfather)'s 'lifestyle' comes up -- even though this is a person whom he adores. I guess every generation has its blindspots. Thinking on it this week, I wondered if bigotry is like cultural MRSA ... deadly resistant to cure ... ever evolving into whatever form is most expedient in the moment. Will we ever get ahead of it? If it's not race or gender or sexual preference, will it always be something?
I wish the fight for civil rights wasn't such a long battle. But I agree with you, someday, yes, someday, a day will dawn in the future, and I will have been a part of the fight that got us there. But today, it is sad.
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