Proposition 8 (and those other states that banned gay marriage).

[beccatoria]

...and it was all going so well, too.

I don't...understand it. I mean, Canada has gay marriage. Britain has gay marriage (well, okay, "civil partnerships" which aren't technically 'marriage' but give identical rights to marriage). Nothing exploded. I don't know about Canada but in the UK it wasn't even a very big deal. It was just on the front of the papers one day, "By the way, we now have same-sex civil unions." One day, I went into work and the marital status boxes in the patient database said, "Married/Civil Partnership," and "Widowed/Surviving CP."

GUESS WHAT? NO ONE EXPLODED. My rather everything-o-phobic coworker rolled her eyes at how 'PC' everything was these days, and I rolled my eyes at her, but even that piece of homophobia was at least framed in the context of "why do they have to change the ticky boxes, I bet that took someone X hours and they could have used the money for better things," rather than "why do gay people have to ruin my life by getting married?" I mean, it comes from the same place deep down, but the difference in choice of expression shows a changing attitude as to what's acceptable to say or not.

This isn't an issue that is every likely to affect me because I'm already married and it's to a boy, and in general I like boys more, and because I don't live in the US and probably won't ever move there permanently (though living there for a while is still something I'd like to feel comfortable doing).

But that's just...so entirely beside the point. I don't want my hopeful political high taken away from me but I'm so...genuinely shocked at this result and it upsets me.

Because the part of Obama's speech that brought tears to my eyes wasn't the personal stuff about his family, or even the "this is your victory too," stuff. It was the stuff about the surviving government of the people, by the people, for the people. It was the idealistic crap about our choice to treat each other fairly, to be a democracy, to make sure everyone is heard.

Since when are we in the business of taking rights away from people?

Since fucking when?

It was unfair when the rights of one group to have the rights of the majority was even in question, but it's a whole new ballpark of fucked up when we actually start legislating to remove rights that people have already won.

And 'won' here is an important word because it's not like it was a legal loophole. An actual supreme court rendered a legal verdict. If it was a legal loophole where the letter of the law went against the spirit, then those guys ought to damn well have stopped it from going through at the time.

It's ridiculous, and I'm angry about it. I'm so angry about it, I'm even kind of angry with everyone else who's not angry about it. It's as insanely unfair as it would be to go back and legislate against mixed race marriages or take away women's rights to vote.

This isn't just something gay/bisexual people should care about. This is something everyone should care about. This diminishes all of us and it's ridiculous. And we should be furious.

And right after Obama made a fairly radical decision to include, "gay and straight," like it was an actual, legitimate choice in his acceptance speech too.

Comments

[zepooka.livejournal.com]

A couple things from your friendly local Gaymerican:

- I think with all the talk about Prop 8, people forget that California (yes, California!) has banned gay marriage before (in 2000, I think?). They've just been going back and forth so many times with banning and permitting it in the past several years that people thought it might actually stick around this time. The measure passed by a very small margin, and was only so publicized because they spent ridonculous amounts of money on it.
- CA still has civil unions. A lot of US states don't even have that, and have even banned them outright. Virginia is the most aggravating of all, where they won't even recognize the unions of other states. (So if you and your partner, legally unionized in NJ or married in VT, get in a car crash in VA, you have no say at the hospital. And until 2003, you could be arrested for having gay sex in twelve or so states, which is why I didn't go to college in VA.)
- Since when are we in the business of taking rights away from people? Don't forget, this is the country that gave us slavery, welfare-to-work, NINA and Jim Crow laws, immigration quotas, salary caps for women, criminalization of religious and sexual minorities, the Trail of Tears, unequal representation for Puerto Rico, segregation...

Don't get me wrong, I'm pissed off about it too. But I'm bitterly cynical as well, having seen this roller coaster going on and on and on for the past five or six years. And though it's intensely frustrating, we have made big strides: like I said, the Supreme Court decision in '03. You know what, I'm going to Wiki the states, hang on...

Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia

Before 2003, it was illegal in those states to have CONSENSUAL ADULT sex with someone of the same gender IN PRIVATE. And it was a felony in some of them, so you could do jail time if someone broke into your bedroom with a policeman. (Which is what happened in Texas, which is why the Court overturned all of them at once.) There's some really fucked up stuff like that in our past, but it's slowly, painfully improving. The important thing, I think, is not to let the outrage and anger consume you (though I certainly encourage feeling it, like you said: it's good to be angry for change). Yes, Proposition 8 has passed (for now, that is; we'll see what happens next year)...

...but in the meantime, we have a Democratic President, House, and Senate for the first time in many moons. Live for hope!

P.S. Something I think is way more fucked up than even Prop 8: Arkansas apparently just passed a measure banning adoption by unmarried people/couples. Obviously they were targeting the LGBT community, but... well, think about it for a second. ANY unmarried people. Even the straight ones.

Let's have a look at the homeless child population in Arkansas over the next few years, hm? You can't use a blanket to put out a candle.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you for the information - I wasn't aware the California still had civil union, so that's something. But could you clarify for me what the difference is between a civil union and a marriage? Because in the UK we use the term "civil partnership" but that basically means identical rights to marriage and I'm assuming that's...not the case here or it would be purely a matter of terminology and nowhere near as big a deal?

As to the civil rights issues you bring up, yes, absolutely, we have a horrible history of civil rights abuses. But in general, over the last century and a half, we've been reversing that. I may just be uninformed, but I can't think of any other recent examples of situations where once equal rights were won, we went and reamended major laws in order to take them back away. It would be like re-introducing salary caps, re-introducing force relocation of native american populations, re-introducing no votes for women or non-white people, etc.

It takes us a horrible, shamefully long time, sometimes, to realise that people are people but once they get put in that category, since when do we demote them?

As to the adoption thing, that just...it's insane.

Apparently God hates gay people more than he wants children to have loving homes.

[zepooka.livejournal.com]

I could be wrong about the legislation patterns back in the 1960s, but something tells me that segregation, for example, probably also went back and forth several times before people finally wised up and said, "OK, enough of this". (And it took MLK to really get that to happen.) I think perhaps it seems like we're taking a step backward because we actually haven't stepped forward yet; our foot is just hovering in the air before deciding where to land. The path from slavery to integration took over 100 years (interracial marriage was somewhere in there), and we still see the repercussions. The Stonewall Riots were just under 40 years ago, so it's astonishing that we have come so far; people just need to recognize that there's still a ways to go, and it won't happen overnight.

As for civil unions, it varies by state. California is actually one of the ONLY states (along with NJ - woo!) where civil unions are exactly equivalent to marriage in just about every way except in name. (And the federal government doesn't recognize it as equivalent, but one of the only, or perhaps THE only, good things about DOMA is that it allows more liberal states to go nuts when it comes to actually permitting gay unions.) This whole "marriage" thing is 50% symbolic, 50% federal-level.

Don't get me wrong, it saddens and aggravates me that gay Californians are being "demoted" (I like your term!), but I take a great deal of joy from the fact that if McCain/Palin were elected, the entire gay COUNTRY would be, well, fired. :P

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the information. As I mentioned below to heyiya I think my indignation stems less from a realistic assessment of history and more from a strong emotional feeling (which is obviously purely subjective) that refusing to recognise rights apply to people is awful, but knowing that rights apply to people and then trying to take them away by changing the law is just...a different level of vile because then you can't even claim ignorance as a poor excuse.

I mean, you make an excellent point about McCain/Palin because DEAR LORD that would have been awful. But at the same time, if a blue state like California makes a decision like this, on this issue, I think it's fair to be hacked off, even if Obama has the potential to make things a whole lot better (or at least prevent them from getting worse)?

Either way, dude, I hope one day you can get married if you want to without running away to Canada.

And yes, the icon is pretty awesome isn't it? ;)

[zepooka.livejournal.com]

The good news is that I can, at least at the state level, and I'm on the proper side of the country to do it. ^_^ Massachusetts isn't so far.

What people often forget is that California actually isn't as blue as people think. You have millions upon millions of screaming liberals, Mexicans, and Hollywood starlets... but you also have millions upon millions of business owners, computer industry tycoons, and Central Valley farmer hicks. California may have the most liberal groups as part of its population, but there are a LOT of people in CA.

Actually, to carry over an example, California may be very DEMOCRAT as a whole, but not as (socially) LIBERAL as people think. Blue does not = Liberal which does not = Democrat. The example of Mexicans: millions of (legal) immigrants are obviously going to vote for Obama for better recognition by the federal government, and just as obviously are not going to support gay marriage because they're usually very Catholic and socially conservative. They may want a politically and economically permissive government, but I'd bet money that most Latin American immigrants, when push comes to shove, they aren't going to support gay marriage.

Anyway, there are other reasons why I wouldn't want to get married in this country, or in California. I just kind of want to move to Europe and have that be the end of it. ^_^

[zepooka.livejournal.com]

(btw, have i mentioned i LOVE the icon you used here? ^_^)

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Arkansas apparently just passed a measure banning adoption by unmarried people/couples. Obviously they were targeting the LGBT community, but... well, think about it for a second. ANY unmarried people. Even the straight ones.

And, of course, immigrants whose marriages aren't recognised as legally valid (but who also aren't necessarily entitled to get remarried legally in Arkansas).

[zepooka.livejournal.com]

Another case: single mother has kids and gets married to a guy so kids have stable father figure. Mom dies before stepdad can legally adopt kids (which you have to do in all states, I believe; you don't become legal parent instead of guardian just by virtue of marriage). Stepdad is screwed out of taking care of "his" kids. This is the kind of thing you see in Lifetime movies, where the stepdad tearfully triumphs over the manipulative family of the mother, but now, in Arkansas, that happy ending will never happen.

Very! Fucked! Up!

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Argh!