It looks like Californians, on the whole, are backing Proposition 8… and it makes me sick. I can’t find final tallies, so if you can, leave them in the comments.
Sickening.
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You are here: Home / Mormons Winning in California
Genevieve
Here is a link to the Sec. of State/California
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/props/map190000000008.htm
Steve
This morning, I’m ashamed that I grew up in that state.
gex
These Constitutional amendments are so disheartening. When, and with how much effort, will a reversal of this proposition happen? I fear that this has pushed marriage equality out a decade or more.
Oh, and Mormons? Just to let you know, this WON’T make the other Christians like you more. You’ll still be a religious minority that mainstream Christian denominations reject. And when they go after you, I will just point and laugh. Let Mittens run again in 2012, and let the populace laugh at your underwear.
Notorious P.A.T.
That is awful. Well, there’s still Massachusettes.
Walker
As I mentioned in a previous thread, there is some indication that Proposition 8 is collateral damage from the high AA turnout. While they went for Barack Obama, they also went for Proposition 8 in large numbers.
dslak
As of 4:50 PDT, it’s only up by 400,000 with about 10% of the vote to go. Since urban areas typically turn in their final counts last, there’s still a chance it may not pass.
Here’s to hope.
gex
Just want to add, that though this is crushing news to me, that the more important battle was won. I’d much rather have the Obama win vs. preserving marriage equality than the other way around. Maybe this is for the best. The soaring joy of yesterday’s victory has been replaced with the harsh realities facing this country.
kommrade jakevich
There goes the last trace of guilt I feel for telling them to get the fuck away from my door.
Tim in SF
I wrote this at 1 AM on my blog.
—
It’s later now and I’m really fucking hungover; my head is pounding. I’m a lot less happy and a lot more furious and I’m wishing some ugly things on my fellow man that would make me cringe on any other day.
Wilson Heath
If it passes, the path is clear. Retribution. A new ballot prop invalidating Mormon marriages in California. Their little experiment in revoking constitutional rights has opened the flood gates, so now we can use the same process to pass judgment on them.
Let ’em have civil unions if they’re just as good.
(This is a married hetero in Texas, BTW. And I believe y’all having the right is important to the institution.)
Nylund
According to the exit polls I saw last night, blacks overwhelmingly supported prop 8 (I think it was in like the 70%+ range.) So might be some truth to that.
expatoz
I’m sorry MD. I tried and i feel your pain. This makes the day sad for me regardless of the Obama victory. My partner doesn’t understand why this particular ballot was so important….it just is.
Sorry…..
I will happily donate to the court challenge to find Prop 8 unconstitutional in Cali.
Wayne
Florida’s pretty screwed up too.
Dennis - SGMM
No go. Prop 8 is an amendment to the California state constitution. It can be repealed by the legislature here (Fat chance) or by another initiative in the next election.
Michael D.
@Wayne: I expected Florida to pass. Florida is the most backward state in the nation.
gex
My view, which was repudiated by the reasonable people on this blog, has been vindicated. Straight people cannot be counted on to be our allies in this. Those that are against are strongly against. I just don’t see how we are going to get the same passion and support from our straight friends. They just don’t care about this issue that much.
For the decade that I have been out and been politically active, each major election has featured a "fuck the gays" initiative that has passed. A few more states added Constitutional amendments this year and I suppose in two years we’ll see even more. Minnesota reelected Bachmann and Coleman, so perhaps we can be next on the "fuck the gays" parade.
Jennifer
Let me add my voice of disgust. This goes down as exhibit A under "people unclear on the concept". How disgusting is it that people who turned out in high numbers to finally realize their dream of equality used the opportunity to strip the rights of others?
Here in Arkansas, my trogladyte neighbors, in addition to reaffirming their racial bigotry by voting for the crazy old white man with the retarded running mate, also passed an initiative barring unmarried persons who are cohabitating from adopting or foster parenting parentless children. They tried and failed to pass a full-on ban of allowing teh gheys from fostering or adopting a few years ago, so I guess they figured this was the next best thing. They have the thanks of hundreds of children who will now spend their childhoods in group homes rather than in the toxic environment created when two adults who love each other live together without benefit of a scrap of paper.
Meanwhile, in Alaska, we finally understand why the state remains such a stubborn Republican stronghold – it’s because corruption is considered a feature, not a bug. This goes a long way towards explaining how they wound up with Sarah Palin as a governor in the first place – no one expected her to exhibit any knowledge or competence; just being able to demonstrate a fondness for abuse of office met the threshold.
As good a night as it was last night, let’s not kid ourselves – half or something north of half of the people in this country are still of a medieval mindset. Before we manage to drag them kicking and screaming into this century, we had to first drag them kicking and screaming into the last one. We brought them that far last night, though the kicking and screaming is no doubt far from over.
JL
@gex: People over the age of 65 overwhelmingly voted for Prop 8. Hopefully it is more of a generational issue in CA. In GA the marriage amendment passed by such a large margin and I think in this state, it’s due to ignorance. FYI, I’m straight and I did not support the GA amendment.
expatoz
Gex — I’m straight and if i could vote in any state in the US other than Tx (expat) I would vote in favour of equal rights…Unfortunately nothing like this will ever come to ballot in Texas because…..well Texas.
So I will continue to give money where i can to fight this kind of discrimination.
Dennis — are you sure that it can’t be deemed unconstitutional? My sister (attorney….granted, not California) thought that there could be a case for denial of rights.
zoe kentucky
Nice to know that with all this hope and change in the air that some things still need to change.
Yesterday, Arkansas passed a ban on gay people adopting children and Florida and Arizona passed bans on gay marriage. Prop 8 will likely pass.
As a lesbian in a committed relationship for nearly 10 years, (nonlegally) married for 6 years, it sickens me. Although today I will not be sad. One of the reasons I support Obama is that I know that he can change this too– for pete’s sake he actually said "gay people" in his speech last night. I know that doesn’t seem like much but that attitude of inclusion is critical. We must remember that we have time on our side, we just need to keep pushing for the necessary cultural shift and help more people realize that we are not a threat to anyone else’s family. We are families ourselves. It’s all been a lot faster than most of us ever would have expected. Before Lawrence in 2003 many states still had laws that made our relationships criminal acts.
Also, on a brighter note, on November 15th Connecticut will join Massachusetts in legalizing gay marriages.
Comrade grumpy realist
Courage, and let’s gear up to get this piece of injustice out of the Californian constitution.
(I’m pinning my hopes on long-term: younger people understand and support the need for SSM, old farts don’t. Heck, they’re still grousing about "mixed-race" marriages. Expect a die-off of at least some of the unthinking bigots.)
gex
Thanks, everyone for your kind words, but you miss my point. The group that comments on this blog is not representative. You all are more thoughtful and deliberate in your position on the issues. As a whole, I think the people who read this blog aren’t as religious as the population as a whole.
Remember where we are really at. Our big victory yesterday was a progressive who vocally states that he does not support same-sex marriage.
These amendments are being proposed precisely because those who support them know they need to be passed before the 65+ year old cohort dies out. They are banking on the sheer difficulty of changing Constitutions to keep these in place for a long, long time.This just isn’t an issue that is as important to straight people as issues that actually affect them. Why didn’t Obama more forcefully speak out against prop 8? Because there are more important tasks at hand. There will always be more important tasks at hand.
Jennifer
Yesterday, Arkansas passed a ban on gay people adopting children and Florida and Arizona passed bans on gay marriage. Prop 8 will likely pass.
This is incorrect. See my previous comment as to the effect of the Arkansas law. It’s equally bigoted against unmarried hetero couples. Thank god for small favors, eh?
robertdsc
I was ashamed to read my mother’s sample ballot to look up her votes on various propositions and seeing a yes next to 8.
She’d taught me so much about acceptance of other people regardless of their background. It was a terrible blow.
I’d donated to the No on 8 campaign and did my best to convince a friend to vote against it, but I didn’t ask him what he voted.
This is a scratch in the open window of Barack’s win.
Melinda
I am totally not a lawyer, but it seems to me that if California passed an amendment to its constitution denying women the vote, it would be overridden by the US Constitution. The federal courts could declare it unconstitutional. The question is whether or not they might do the same for a same-sex marriage ban and while I tend to doubt it, it’s not that long ago that I believed that an African-American could never become president of the US in my lifetime.
Charity
I’m so sorry. This is so fucking wrong. Writing discrimination into the constitution?
Maybe an Obama-populated SCOTUS can strike this down somehow.
Bill H
I have not set foot in a church in many years, and Prop 8 is an example of why I will not do so in the future. Much of the money that provided the torrent of slimy and deeply dishonest ads favoring this piece of shit came from churches, money that could well have been spend feeding the poor and succoring the suffering. Churches spent that money promoting hatred and bigotry instead.
Bob In Pacifica
Actually, there will probably be a challenge to the constitutionality of Prop. 8. The court decision said that under the Cal constitution that as a group same-sex couples could not be discriminated against without a legally rational cause; that there was no rational reasoning; and that therefore gay marriages were legal.
This constitutional amendment bans same-sex marriages. If it passes it’s in conflict with the entire state constitution.
So the supreme court judges have to determine if an amendment which violates the whole constitution can stand.
+++
A very unlikely consideration: Since the judges ruled that same-sex couples can’t be treated differently than opposite-sex couples, the ban on same-sex marriages would, by that reasoning, require a ban on all marriages. Unlikely, but it sure would be interesting if the gay haters ended up destroying "traditional marriage" in California.
Punchy
Somewhat OT, but can someone tell me how in the fuck Alaska re-elected a convicted felon back into office?
Even the Rep won, despite being down +10 in pre-election polls. All sorts of WTF coming from Alaska, and none of it Palin-related.
Funkhauser
Time to go buy the "when can I vote on your marriage?" paraphenalia.
greynoldsct00
And Connecticut too! We voted against a constitutional convention that was engineered to try to overturn our new gay marriage law.
Jeff
I was wondering the same thing. It would make the libertarians happy. Civil Unions for all.
Zifnab
There was actually a rumor that Prop 8 somehow legalized polygamy. So that might explain the Mormon thing.
RememberNovember
F**K Mormons and their intolerant religion, F8ck them back to Fayetteville!
Any wonder why there”s a lot of porn starlets who were ex Mormons?
Any wonder what seperates Mormon from Moron? an "m".
Jennifer
On the other hand….
Remember, remember, the 5th of November,
The rout of the wingnut lot.
I can see no reason
Why a rout so pleasing
Should ever be forgot.
Joshua Norton
Since the SC in California has ruled that everyone has to be treated equally under the law, then any special rights that pertain to the word "marriage" have to be stricken from all the laws.
This hasn’t gone away by any standard. The bigots will hear about nothing but gay marriage and overturning the constitutional ban from now until it finally happens and it will drive them stark raving mad. Some pretty important gay people got married and they won’t go down without a fight.
Louise
I’m so sorry, Michael. I agree with those above who say that they have to put these shitty proposals forward now, before their supporters die off. Things are changing — just not fast enough, in some cases.
I hope against hope that there’s a way to challenge this.
Walker
I am not sure that marriages per se would become unconstitutional. But you could easily strike down any benefit of marriage as unconstitutional.
r€nato
POTD, Jennifer
liberal
@Melinda:
I don’t think so, because right now gays are not a protected class under the Fourteenth Amendment.
liberal
@gex:
IMHO keeping someone as dangerous as McCain (not to mention Palin) away from the nuclear football really does qualify as more important.
As I mentioned in another thread, these things take time. If you look at the history of equal rights for blacks and women, they typically take decades or centuries. Progress on gay rights has actually been quite rapid. We just need to put more time and effort into it.
dr. bloor
Gee, it would be a pity if progressively-minded organizations and demographic groups decided to boycott tourism, travel, and convention-related activities in CA as a result of this.
Svensker
I heard the large AA turnout was also the nail in the coffin on Prop 8. A horrible irony.
This issue has got to be the next big civil rights push. It’s just disgusting that government can deny marriage to consenting adults.
cyntax
Yeah Prop 8 definitely adds some bitter to the sweet. As does this from the exit polls here in California:
[link]
Josh Hueco
AAs have replaced white ethnics as the Archie Bunkers of the Democratic Party.
liberal
@Jennifer:
I wish it wasn’t so, but it’s hardly unusual.
:-(
dr. bloor
@Josh Hueco:
This is a joke, right?
Dennis - SGMM
Prop 8 passed by roughly 367,000 votes out of ten million votes cast – not exactly a resounding majority. The campaign in favor of it was slick, well-financed and hammered relentlessly on a few simple themes. The campaign against it, frankly, sucked. If the vote had been strictly the result of the ad campaigns Prop 8 would have won in a landslide.
Through no fault of its own, the gay community is on the hook to form alliances, raise money, identify one or two compelling themes and to be just as focused on its agenda as the opponents are on theirs. The alternative is to have gay marriage picked off one state at a time and wait another generation or so for change.
The Other Steve
I don’t know what people were thinking. As important as you might think it is, gay rights is not the priority battle.
If you want to win this battle, it has to be in the streets. Block by block, person by person.
you will not win in the courts. All you will breed is resentment.
Josh Hueco
@dr. bloor:
Sorry, I’m just frustrated. I have gay friends and a gay uncle so this was personal.
I guess it’s like white Southerners voting Republican because at least they’d be above the AAs on the social totem pole.
SueinNM
I’m so upset about Prop 8 that I’m having a hard time feeling celebratory today … and I’m not gay. I live in NM, so I couldn’t vote, but I grew up in CA and all my relatives are there (San Francisco Bay Area.) I donated money, and I know all my family voted no (my Dad, a Republican, abstained from voting for anything or anyone but said he had no trouble with gays marrying.)
I’m so disgusted by the bigots. God, I despise the Mormons right now. I’ll give them an earful if they ever again come to my door.
Joshua Norton
Hardly the 2/3’s majority required to amend the constitution under normal circumstances. The California public initiative process has been hijacked by outsiders, the corporations and the right wing to force its agenda by making a series of end runs around how the law is supposed to be enacted.
Josh Hueco
@Joshua Norton:
The same thing’s happened in Oregon too. The initiative process was supposed to be a way for the people to speak over an unresponsive legislature. Now it’s a tool for out-of-state interests and their sock puppets like Bill Sizemore to wreck the state.
Gus
Shit, I had such high hopes that the good people of California had entered the 21st Century.
burnspbesq
Latest on 8 per LA Times:
The margin is approximately 400K with over 94 percent of the votes counted.
Breaking it down by county is instructive: the margin in five heavily populated, heavily Republican, heavily evangelical white folks counties – Kern (Bakersfield), San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, and San Diego – is approximately 480K. More than enough to offset a lead in the rest of the state.
I hate my neighbors. And I’m not exactly looking forward to talking to my married, gay boss this morning. That’s going to be awkward.
cyntax
Frighteningly well-financed when you consider that one individual donor (whose identity is not known) put up one million dollars in matching funds. And yeah the no on 8 side pretty much sucked (and they still got money from me). The yes on 8 people got at least 2 million dollars and I’m pretty sure it was more.
gex
@liberal: Don’t get me wrong. I believe I stated upthread that the Obama victory was more important than Prop 8’s defeat. That is unquestionable. But that’s exactly the point. My ability to marry will never be an important issue to the voting public. There will always be more important issues. That’s not snark on my part, that is an acknowledgment of a fact. I know full well that this is not an important issue for our polity. And that is exactly why, for a minority who stands no chance of the demographic changes that blacks and Hispanics are seeing will be in this position for a long, long time.
Yes. But if you look at history, blacks started out with a Constitution that counted them as 3/5 of a person. We had a civil war and a 14th Amendment that put forth the proposition that black people are equal. That was reinforced by civil rights legislation in the 60’s.
For gays, the arc is very different. Constitutions and laws said nothing about us, it was just widely understood and accepted that we weren’t allowed to marry. In the 90’s, the movement wasn’t for laws that allowed us to marry – there weren’t even any on the books. The movement was to write laws ensuring that we wouldn’t be allowed to marry. Then these laws started being challenged based on Constitutional provisions that stated all people should be treated equal under the law, provisions that have helped blacks. The response to that has been a very successful state by state campaign to amend those Constitutions to make sure those laws cannot be found to be unconstitutional.
My entire point is that this does not look comparable. It is not that we aren’t moving forward, or that progress is slow. We are moving BACKWARD.
Just this week, a coworker of mine came back from his honeymoon. He and my boss are both men who lived with their spouses for 5+ years before tying the knot. They had a very painful discussion in front of me how being married really is different and better than simply living with your partner. I wanted to fucking to scream at them to shut the fuck up or take it somewhere else, I don’t want to hear how great it is to be married.
Meanwhile, I have just taken a pay cut because my partner lost her job and has to be on my medical insurance. Which, thanks to DOMA, means I get the McCain health care solution – paying income taxes on my employer provided benefits.
p.a.
How about an effort to declare Mormonism a cult and take away their tax-exempt status? Best way to hurt them is to publicize their truly whack beliefs. (Well, as an atheist I think all supernatural beliefs are whack, but you know what I mean here).
Turn public bigotry against them; give them a taste of their own medicine. If one wants to smear some group as ‘freaks’ less deserving or equal rights than others, one better be squeaky clean one’s self. (Sorry to gay readers to use the expression ‘freak’, I’m just trying to make a point). Reasoned argument is all well and good, but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
Also,the best way to hurt any religion is through its pocketbook.
Josh Hueco
What pisses me off is that Mormons were subject to sometimes violent bigotry in whatever places they settled until they arrived in Utah. So they should have remembered what it’s like to be the despised minority and shown some fucking grace.
I fucking hate them…the racist, polygamous Mormons who bankrolled 8, the Catholics who listened to their boy-raping priests, I fucking hate them all. I’m sorry, I’m not handling this well.
Tropical Fats
Two proposals:
1) Revocation of tax-exempt status for religious groups. If the Mormons want to spend tens of millions of dollars on political advocacy, if various Catholic bishops want to deny communion to Catholics who vote for Democrats, fuck em. You want to play in the game, pay up.
2) A ballot initiative banning the wearing of magic underpants. Those things freak me the hell out, and it’s my right to impose my preferences on my fellow citizens. The Mormons taught me that.
Llelldorin
This, and it was the fault of all of us who opposed it here. Initial polls showed it behind by something like 8 points, so most of us shrugged our shoulders and went back to the presidential race. The Mormons descended on the state with one of the most brilliantly evil ad blitzes I’ve ever seen, and reversed that in a few weeks. By the time we caught up with the idea that 8 might actually win, it was too late to mount an effective campaign against it. We tried, and held it close, but it wasn’t enough.
DonkeyKong
I live in the east part of Oakland, one block below the 580 freeway. The Morman Temple is up on the hill. At night it glows like some opulant xmas tree ornament.
Last night, driving down 580 on the way back from a Obama victory party, it did’nt look opulant. It looked evil.
The next time they are canvasing the neighborhood, they won’t get a respectful, no thanks.
They’ll get an earful.
Bill H
It wasn’t just the Mormons. There were plenty of other "Christian churches" as well that were throwing money at this. Total on both sides was estimated at $73 Million, but the "Yes" side was way better funded than the "No" side. Ads running on the tv I watched were 4:1 "Yes."
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Why is it I suddenly have this image in my mind of Hugo Weaving in a Harvey Milk mask blowing up the Mormon Tabernacle?
Nicole
Seneca Falls was in 1849; the Nineteenth Amendment was in 1920. That was a long time. This is going to take a while. As a heterosexual woman whose right to vote depended on men being willing to share their voting privilege, I feel it’s my duty to support and fight for gay men and women to have the right to share in my marriage privileges. It’s what’s right.
That said, most of the country isn’t going to care unless we can frame the argument as a "It’s good for you, too." I read an article once (I wish I could remember where) that said marriage is a stabilizing force in society- the more people are (contentedly) married, the less volatile the society, due to married people generally being more economically comfortable, etc. I think it’s a good argument in favor. And when opponents say, "Well, then let them marry someone of the opposite sex" counter with not just how unhappy a gay person is married to a straight one, but how unhappy the straight person is, too. That’s the point I think Brokeback Mountain made so well- that not permitting people to love whom they love destroys not just them but the people around them as well.
And I’m not going to give up on the older voters, either- my 62-year-old father, a few years back, announced to me, out of the blue, that he’d changed his opinion on gay marriage. He’d thought the whole thing was "gross," as he put it, but then saw a documentary on TV that persuaded him people are born with their sexual preferences determined. He said, "I guess if you’re born that way, you should be allowed to get married, too." People can be persuaded; we just have to keep trying.
Yesterday was a setback for sure, but we’ll win this one. We just can’t give up, because the other side won’t.
Notorious P.A.T.
Well said.
Comrade Kevin
@Bill H:
Yes, indeed. If you looked at the small print at the bottom of the Yes on 8 ads, major funding also came from the Knights of Columbus, i.e. the Catholic church.
lou
It’s not just prop 8 in California. Florida had its own Protection of Marriage Act and it passed the requisite 60 percent in order to become an amendment.
It’s pretty sickening because it bans civil unions as well as marriages and probably will prevent gays from being able to visit partners in the hospital or adopt.
I don’t know why this was ignored while the focus was on Prop 8. maybe everyone assumed that it wouldn’t reach the 60 percent threshhold.
Notorious P.A.T.
Proposition 8 sucks, no doubt about it. But consider what would have happened if Obama lost:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/05/supreme_court/index.html
Martin
I’ve been having the same image for the last day. I wonder if the Mormons and Catholics realize how many straight Californians are pissed off enough to spit fire today?
James F. Elliott
I for one hope all the LDS churches in my hometown of San Jose, California spontaneously burst into flames.
With their parishioners trapped inside.
Seriously? Fuck those people.
CarolinCA
I went to undergraduate school at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. A Californian, I knew nothing about the LDS church…I just wanted to be in a school that had a strong bioengineering department.
My four years there was a crash course in the reality of the sort of political and financial power that the "Latter Day Saints" bring to bear when promoting their appalling social and cultural agenda.
I don’t think that many folks in California realized what they were up against when the LDS church became so directly involved with Prop. 8.
I don’t want to sound like some sort of paranoid nutcase here, but we have to be very clear about the fact that wherever we try to ensure that LGBT people have the right to marry, adopt children, or seek work without being discriminated against, we will be going up against the LDS church.
Yes, homophobia is everywhere and we have a lot of work to do if we’re to overcome it. The LDS church, though, is a monstrosity.
I don’t care if they want to practice their idiotic religion, but they should not be able to impose their freaking agenda on my state. Like all civil rights struggles, this will be fought out in the courts, and I know that in the long run justice will prevail. But in the meantime, there’s an issue beyond LGBT civil rights…it’s the issue of how wrong it is for a "church" to be able to do this shit.
James F. Elliott
In a calmer moment, I wonder if any fellow Californians would like to work on wording and submitting a proposition to repeal Proposition 8 for the 2010 election? If we’re going to have a state constitution that’s so easily amended, let’s go balls to the wall and make these fuckers bankrupt their life savings defending their bigotry every two years.
I also plan on submitting a proposal to state Senator Joe Simitan for his annual "There oughtta be a law" contest to make all state-recognized matrimonial unions simply "civil unions." Let the religious have "marriage." If you don’t register for a civil union, no state tax bennies for you.
[email protected]
iluvsummr
I can’t believe it… So sorry Michael. How does a constitutional amendment get repealed (anyone know what the steps are)?
Martin
Same steps to get it passed in the first place. Ballot measure, pass by a plurality. In CA, it’s relatively easy to get the signatures. You need 8% of registered voters signatures. We’ve got about 17M registered voters, so you need to collect about 1.3M signatures, which sounds like a lot, but really isn’t that hard to do.
I think we just need to sue this one out of existence. Seriously, just sue to prevent the state from recognizing marriage at all. That invalidates Prop 8. It’d be far more damaging to the Mormons and all than had Prop 8 been defeated. I want to twist the knife…
Trollhattan
I’ll be interested to see how the votes on 8 fell across class lines, because I felt the pro-8 campaign was largely aimed at the less educated and, well, heavy breeders.
Folks who don’t live in the west don’t understand the influence mormons have here–everywhere, not just in Utah and swaths of Idaho and Arizona, where they dominate.
The intent and spirit of the proposition is to bully others by taking something away that they’d been granted, just like an out-of-control homeowners association fines someone for having weeds in their yard, then puts a lien on their house when they don’t comply. I really didn’t think it would pass but I suspect the pleasure some get from fucking with others won the day.
The idea of a counter-proposition to overturn 8 seems like a non-starter. If it was this hard to defend an established right, imagine how difficult it would be to sell voting for establishing that same right. IMO the only possiblilty here is in the courts.
Don
That was never a measure of any perception of equality, that was purely in there to throw an electoral/representation bone to the South. By recognizing 3/5 of the slaves they increased the South’s representation in the House and their sway over selecting the President.
gex
@Don: Perhaps, but not the point. The point is, black people started with the constitution and laws working against them, but those were eventually rectified. For gays, it is going the opposite direction. First the DOMA laws. Now the constitutional amendments.
Xenos
Not all churches are the same. My local Episcopal Church congregation got so upset when the Bishop forbade the priests from conducting same-sex blessings that the priests are now refusing to marry anyone. Not until full marriage rights are recognized by the Church.
CarolinCA
Don’t generalize about churches. Please. Progressive religious folks are some of our greatest allies in this struggle.
This thing really has me angry today. Mormons make up about 2% of the California population overall; their church should NOT be allowed to exercise so much influence over the political process here. How do we implement a "Get the Fuck Out of My State" initiative??
Comrade Dread
I’d be fine with this.
Get a proposition on the ballot that the State can only issue Civil Union licenses for all regardless of orientation/preference.
Get the State out of ‘marriage’ altogether.
And then, if you want to find a church that will perform a marriage ceremony for you in front of God, family, and friends, so be it.
But I’d also like to suggest that calling people ‘assholes’ ‘bigots’ ‘homophobes’ etc, isn’t the best way of winning an argument or appealing to your opponent’s sensibilities.
burnspbesq
@James F. Elliott:
Abso-fuckin-lutely. Where do I sign?
Polish the Guillotines
This shit pisses me off to no end. It’s easily as ugly a part or California history as the Chinese Exclusionary act. Worse, even.
A) What the fuck is wrong with my state that a simple majority is enough to amend the goddamned constitution? That’s (obviously) a recipe for disaster.
B) Mormons? The LDS church needs it’s tax-exempt status revoked. I damn sure hope those complaints are being filed with the IRS.
C) If you live in California, bombard your state assembly and state senate reps about this. Let’s get this abomination repealed.
Fucking hell. I’ve lived in this state all my life, and I love it. But sometimes shit like this happens and I think I’m living in bizzaro world.
liberal
@gex:
I think you’re oversimplying and missing an important point: the "expanding sphere of liberty."
Quite a few people realize, or will come to realize, that gay rights are important, because while gays comprise a relatively small fraction of our population, not protecting gay rights is not consistent with more general, abstract principles of human rights.
You might as well as why many Jews got involved in the civil rights movement. Of course, as individuals, they did so because of their commendable beliefs and courage, but as a group, it seems pretty conventional by now to assume that Jews as a group realized that protecting minorities in general would behoove their own condition. (Full disclosure: I’m a white, straight lapsed Jewish male.)
But that wasn’t for the benefit of blacks. That was for the benefit of southern states.
Yes, but if you actually read the text of Section 1, you see All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The great Due Process and Equal Protection clauses have meaning beyond that of the context of the Civil War and Reconstruction. They point towards the expanding circle of liberty.
I think you understate how bad oppression was in the past; it went well beyond not being allowed to marry (viz, lack of a positive right), and included a lack of many negative rights (viz, less prosecution of perpetrators of anti-gay violence).
Yes, on the timescale of about 10 years. Much, much shorter than it took to overcome slavery, or to grant women suffrage. Of course, it’s easy for me to counsel patience, since I’m straight, but I really do think you have to look at the arc of history (painful though it might be for the near term).
Agreed, that sucks.
liberal
@Nicole:
Agreed. This is a point I’ve been making repeatedly. Though IMHO this issue will be resolved in a good way in much less time.
Strictly speaking, this is an example of the naturalistic fallacy, but it really seems to matter to people in this case. That’s another point: science is strongly converging on evidence that homosexuality is inborn (not that it shouldn’t be obvious). AFAICT the right wing nutjobs get freaked out anytime there’s news in that direction.
liberal
@Polish the Guillotines:
Yeah, direct democracy has—empirically—been shown to be a failure. IMHO the writing was on the wall after Prop. 13.
Polish the Guillotines
@liberal:
You are not kidding. I’m getting pretty serious about supporting a constitutional convention.
AnneLaurie
Here in Massachusetts, we got gay marriage due to an activist politically-appointed-by-a-Republican judge who grew up in apartheid South Africa. Of course once Judge Mitchell committed her assault upon narrowmindedness, its proud defenders rallied to re-amend the State constitution to protect themselves — but a funny thing happened on the way to the cross-burning. The longer our gender-blind marriage act is in effect, the more "average voters" refuse to consider taking their neighbors’ civil rights away. Apparently the personal experience of finding out that letting *more* people get married doesn’t somehow degrade "everyone else’s" marriages really does change peoples’ beliefs for the better!
Which, I admit, does not make the current situation any less horrible for those non-bigots living in states with DOMA laws still polluting the books. But it does seem to indicate that the mooted "backlash" against gay marriage falls apart once more civilized statutes do get passed, as they will, if only because the staunchest defenders of I’ve-Got-Mine legalism age and die. Here’s hoping the Obamanation Victory Tsunami enpowers a few more activist judges to choose to do the right thing, and overturn the sorry remnants of bigotry and narrowmindedness that all DOMA-style laws represent.
Marshall
Yeah, direct democracy has—-empirically—-been shown to be a failure.
Agreed. The proposition system in CA totally sucks. We need to get rid of it.
Darkrose
@Walker:
I was sick of hearing this last night, so I did the math based on that one exit poll. Assuming that it’s accurate–which, with a sample size of 2,250 voters, is a big assumption–then the ration of white voters to black voters for Prop 8 is stil 3:1.
Blue Raven
@The Other Steve:
Fuck. You.
Fuck you long, hard, and deep with a rusted chainsaw.
I am entitled to my day in court. I am entitled to fight for my rights as a citizen. I WILL win in the fucking courts and on the streets. I have won before, I will win again. And you, sir, can get the fuck OUT of the goddamned way if you’re not going to help.
No love,
The Queer Rights Movement
zoe kentucky
It’s very sad that Prop 8 passed but it’s not the end of the world. Seriously. But how did California’s domestic partnership law change when it was called marriage? No matter what it was called it’s still a "fake" marriage because it only existed in the boundaries of the state– take a weekend vacation to Las Vegas and suddenly you’re no longer married. What kind of real marriage equality is that? The symbolic kind that rings sorta hollow, unfortunately.
As a lesbian in a 10 year relationship I feel we have a lot to be thankful for right now– we now have a president who *IS* inclusive of our families. I don’t fault him or Hillary for mincing words on marriage because I am a pragmatic liberal– I want them in office working on our issues, both behind the scenes and in the forefront. I think Obama and others will lead when the moment is right but I don’t want them to sabotage their own political careers for the sake of the lgbt’s struggle over marriage v. civil unions.
The other fact is that the GLBT community is not unified on the issue of marriage. There are plenty of us who want the rights and don’t give a crap about whether it’s called "marriage" or "civil unions," I just want the rights, dammit.
Regardless, I also think this is the end of the backlash era. We have had amazingly fast change on glbt rights in this country– things will and are getting better all the time. So chin up, folks. It’s coming, we just have to have a little patience and be prepared to do a lot more work to help people understand why these rights are important to us and our families. It’s something that a lot of us seem to forget but we need to change hearts and minds too, not just laws.
gex
Those who are comforting me today are right, and deep down I know it. But for today… Today I am angry. I am angry because last night I rejoiced. I fought long and hard and hoped for Obama’s victory. Went to bed late, had trouble falling asleep because I was so happy. I awoke this morning hoping to feel refreshed by this new day in America. And while everyone else is still reveling in the afterglow, I am angry, hurt, and crying over the Prop 8 result. I cannot get over the fact that Californians would vote on new protections for farm animals while at the same time voting away protections for me. I know it wasn’t African Americans who put it over the top, but voting 70-30 for? I was happy to see such a breakthrough for them while they were yanking away my rights.
Frankly, I’m as upset that I don’t get to share in the happy as I am about the result. And I’m very, very angry.