Blind Prophecy

I’m going to reiterate some points from yesterday that got overshadowed by the emotional baggage vomit.

Opponents of marriage equality barely won. In 2000, 61.4% of Californians voted for Prop 22 (a.k.a. The Knight Initiative) which comes to 4,618,673 votes versus 2,909,370 against. In 2008, Prop 8 passed at 52.5% (which translates to 5,387,939 votes for banning gay marriage and 4,883,460 voting against the ban). It’s easy math, folks, there were more people voting the pro-marriage equality position in 2008 than there were people voting against us in 2000.

	Percentage against marriage equality	Percentage for marriage equality	Total votes against marriage equality	Total votes for marriage equality
2000	61.4%	38.6%	4,618,673	2,909,370
2008	52.5%	47.5%	5,387,939	4,883,460

To achieve this narrow victory, over $73 million was spent. This is the most costly ballot initiative in California’s history. I have no doubt that the LGBT community is willing to keep spending money on this fight, but are our opponents?

The millions of LGBT Americans who are hurt and angry are not going to sit down and shut up now. We will not forget the slogan “silence=death” that brought AIDS activism and the modern queer rights movement into the open. There will be more ballot initiatives. We will work to repeal this vote in 2012, 2016, 2020… as long as it takes until this ban on equality is overturned once and for all.

Nor will we wait until then. We will use every weapon in our arsenal. Already, legal groups and advocates are challenging the constitutionality of this ballot initiative. Their argument, and it may be a valid one, is that minor revisions of the California constitution may be done by popular vote, but an amendment which dramatically alters the constitution must first be approved by the state legislature. Since the California Supreme Court based their decision on fundamental principles of the constitution, and this amendment would change those fundamental principles, the argument makes sense. Also, the act of the public majority has fundamentally challenge the court’s role in protecting the rights of minorities – an essential part of the check and balance system of American democracy.

So, yes, I’m angry about the vote. I’m angry that my fellow Americans still think that it’s okay to treat us as second-class citizens. I’m angry that people think that they have the place and the wisdom to cast judgment on my life based on nothing more than who I love.

But I’m also hanging on to my perspective. Look how far we’ve come in 8 years. Consider how far we’ve come in 20 years.

Despite my anger yesterday at the leaders of the Mormon church, I also believe that most people (Mormons included) can and will come to look back on this chapter as an embarrassing and shameful point in American politics.

It’s time for the queer community to become more engaged. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be enraged. We will take this hurt and become stronger. Blog after blog today have been filled with queer Americans expressing a well of almost infinite anger.

Kenneth Walsh of Kenneth in the (212) writes:

But as a gay American, yesterday was the worst day of my life. (Yes, it even caught me by surprise.) I’m feeling sad, depressed and completely humiliated by the anti-gay voting that went on around this nation of mine. And I am so overcome with anger that this country sees it within its rights to even allow my fellow citizens — my so-called equals — to vote on my rights. MY rights. So while our president-elect joyfully boasts that we ALL now know that it’s not just rhetoric anymore that ALL Americans really can be anything they want to be — and I see the utter joy and hope and sense of pride in the eyes of so many Americans — in my heart I’m more convinced than ever that that’s just not true. Gays and lesbians DO NOT have the same rights as other Americans. Gays and lesbians ARE NOT equal to their straight counterparts — white, black, Asian or otherwise. In the eyes of our country we ARE second-class citizens. A gay person COULD NEVER be elected president. (Is it any wonder our parents scream and cry and panic and experience a death in family when one of their children is gay?) Arkansas, Arizona (my “home”) and Florida are just the latest to rewrite their constitutions to remind me how worthless they think I am. But it’s my beloved California that went and delivered the killer blow. I didn’t realize it would hurt this bad, but it’s like being punched in the stomach over and over again. How exponentially worse it is when a state that I love, a state that I called home and a state that finally has the decency to treat me as an equal then turns around a takes it all away. It’s cruel. It’s crueler than cruel.

Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project writes:

But I’m not joyful; I feel robbed. Americans didn’t support the LGBT community. Instead, we’ve been slapped back into place with marriage amendments in Florida and Arizona and an anti-gay adoption law in Arkansas. The ultimate insult, the California marriage amendment to strip LGBT couples of their right to marry, looks poised to pass even though opponents rattle lawsuit sabers and refuse to concede until all absentee and provisional ballots are counted.

I don’t feel hope; I feel despair.
I’m Angry

I’m angry with Americans for transcending race, but not sexual orientation.

There’s a moment in the trailer for Milk where Sean Penn as Harvey Milk stands before a massive crowd and yells, “I know you’re angry. I’m angry, too.” It was the opening rally cry (along with those angry protests at Stonewall Inn in New York) of the queer movement, it will be our rallying cry until the end.

We will be angry, we will take our anger and become stronger, smarter, more radical in our convictions, more persistent in our demands for equality. We will make change happen. We will not stop because of the actions and the votes of those who haven’t yet come to understand. We will speak, we will organize, we will prevail.

Filed under: politics, queer rights by Jere Keys