voting yes on prop hate
The passing of Proposition 8 on California’s ballot fills me with sadness and anger. The people of California voted to amend their state Constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, effectively undoing the California Supreme Court’s decision in May to legalize gay marriage.
The impact of this vote is lessened somewhat when you consider Prop 8 in the context of California law. Since 2005, California has had provisions for Domestic Partnerships, which are legally equivalent to marriage.1 Prop 8 was, therefore, a vote of perception: do you consider a gay couple’s relationship to be equal to that of a straight couple? Are you, as a heterosexual, willing to acknowledge that a gay person’s feelings are as worthy of recognition as your own?
That’s what this vote was about. Let’s not mince words here. To vote “Yes” on 8 is to proclaim that you are anti-gay, and that you devalue the feelings of your fellow Americans based on who they fall in love with.
I cannot understand why anyone would do this, and I’m by no means an absolutist. Abortion? I have an unshakable opinion on that one, but I can appreciate how the other side feels. Gun control? The death penalty? Affirmative action? I have strong feelings on all these controversial issues, but I can at least understand the other side’s logic. There are shades of gray, and opportunities for a sliver of common ground.
Not so with these marriage amendments. If you support these marriage amendments, or if you support anti-gay legislation of any kind, that makes you a bad person, pure and simple. I don’t care how many hours per week you volunteer at the local soup kitchen, or how much you’ve given to charity, or the good things you’ve done for the PTA. If you voted “Yes” on Prop 8, then you are a bigot. There is a corner of your heart in which ugliness and hatred dwells. The people who voted “Yes” are, to my eye, indistinguishable from the man who assassinated Harvey Milk. The only difference is that these voters are a bunch of selfish, narrow-minded cowards who hid behind the convenience and anonymity of a ballot instead of going through all the trouble of buying a gun.
To those Yes voters who would say, “I don’t hate gay people,” I would answer, “Of course you do.” What other reason could there possibly be for your vote? Biblical arguments? I refer you to President Bartlett. To protect the children? Sorry, no.2
So what’s your reasoning? Why are you doing this? To try to wrap my head around this, I had a look at the “Yes” comments on this Newsvine poll. A few excerpts (with my own commentary, of course):
“Marriage in this day and age is practically unnecessary, so I don’t see the need for it to be extended outside the man/woman meaning.”
And in ths day and age, your appendix is practically unnecessary. I suppose if it starts to hurt, we should just leave it alone.
“I don’t want my kids to have to decide what their sexual orientation is. They have enough to worry about.”
Ah, the fundamental disagreement. Homosexuality as choice, rather than biological determinant. Of course, even if homosexuality were a choice (which it is not), removing the threat of gay marriage wouldn’t necessarily prevent the local recruiter from coming around with all those fabulous gift incentives, now would it?
“Peoples 1st ammendment rights to speak out against homosexuality is taken away, a minister could be sent to jail for preaching against gays”
No, he couldn’t. This is not a first amendment issue.
“I respect ones right to choose their partner. But marriage is a choice not a right. I’ll give you insurance but not marriage. Sorry”
I’ll tell you what. You can “give me” insurance if I get to “give you” your driver’s license. You “get” to use your license on days of the week that begin with “T.” Since I’m a liberal, I’ll even throw in the entirety of months ending in “-arch.” I know it’s not exactly full use of a driver’s license, but I think it’s close enough, and what I think should be good enough for you.
“Sorry something just doesn’t seem right about it.”
You know, I have this hunch that I’d punch you in the face if I ever met you. There’s just something about you.
“Homosexual marriage should not be forced on anyone.”
No one’s forcing you to gay marry that pleasant woman you met down at the A&P.
“Although I’m pretty liberal – but not on this issue.”
I don’t think the word “liberal” means what you think it means.
“Unions yes. Marriage as defined by our religions, no.”
I agree. Separate but equal institutions have worked so very well for us in the past.
“This country has stopped being the government of the people and has become the government of the judiciary. It’ll probably be overturned.”
We can hope.
- Note that this is still not totally equivalent to heterosexual marriage. In fact, no state-level law, no matter how liberal, can grant a same-sex couple full marriage benefits. Only federal recognition can do that, and thus guarantee same-sex couples all the same tax and medical benefits. If this sounds more like a privilege than a right to you, then I invite you to grow old with your wife and retire together. Then when she passes away, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble getting by if we take away your right to collect on her social security benefits. ∧
- This study reviews the research that has examined the impact of same-sex parenting on children. The relevant finding is this: “The authors find that the children who have been studied are doing about as well as children normally do.” If someone can find me one methodologically sound, peer-reviewed study conducted in the last twenty years—just one—that shows the opposite, I’ll gladly replace this entire post with the text of Leviticus Ch. 18-20. ∧
I spent the last three months campaigning against Prop 8, now I’m working on the legal team trying to overturn it (I just finished up law school), it’s kinda difficult to overturn a constitutional amendment, but it can, and has, happened. Wikipedia or google Colorado Amendment 2 or Romer v. Evans.
The one thing that particularly upsets me about Prop 8 is that 70 percent of African-Americans voted “yes” and put discrimination into the California constitution. Had Obama not been the nominee the African-American vote would have not turned out as much as it did and Prop 8 would have been defeated.
It’s only a matter of time before California gets gay marriage. Prop 22, which was a law to ban gay marriage, passed by a 22-point margin eight years ago. Prop 8 passed by four. In two or four years, Prop 8 could easily be repealed.
I, too, am hopeful that the California Supreme Court will invalidate Prop 8, and am encouraged by the drop in support for a gay marriage ban in this state over the last 8 years. However, I’m a little troubled by this idea floating around that places the blame for its passage on black people. Maybe it’s a white liberal guilt thing that functions like one of Asimov’s Laws of Robotics–”Do Not Antagonize Black People”–but there are so many different ways to analyze the statistics* that I don’t think it’s fair or practical. There is a very vocal segment of the black community that likes to think that black people have a monopoly on civil rights, and they need to be challenged on the merits of that belief, not on the circumstances of their race.
* – e.g.: FiveThirtyEight.com: Prop 8 Myths
Brian,
While the initial exit polling data did support your conclusions, the full range of information we have access to now indicates otherwise:
538 article on the myths of Proposition 8
It’s important that we don’t demonize African-Americans in our haste to find problems. We need to address that particular issue with more voter education and friendship; fostering racial negativity, even mildly, is simply not productive. However, you are correct that it “is only a matter of time.” As others are saying, the repeal will happen one funeral at a time. The older generation of voters (who were really the voting bloc most responsible, as the article I linked points out) will eventually die off and be replaced with more tolerant people.
And the best part? Since the California constitution is so easy to amend, we can just throw another initiative out as often as possible. The real problems of the election are Arkansas, Arizona, and Florida, since the latter will require a vast shift in the mindsets of the population (or a miracle of the judiciary) to be reversed.
I never meant to demonize African-Americans, the 70-30 split is actually more tolerant than initial polling suggested. And 89 percent of conservative white men voted yes, so if I’m going to blame anyone…
I don’t know where my previous comment went. Into the ether, I suppose. Irritating!
The one encouraging aspect of Prop 8′s passage is the youth vote, as sociallytangent pointed out. Us young’uns don’t generally have problems with TEH GAYS!!! the way the old racist/sexist/homophobic crowd does. I agree with the sentiment that gay marriage will probably come back to California as a result of changing demographics.
…but I’m not sure I’m OK with the idea that we can ‘wait out’ civil rights. The one thing I’m not real clear about (I’ve read the law but damn if I understand it) is whether CA’s domestic partnership rights are EXACTLY the same as marriage, or not. In most states, civil unions are NOT the same as marriage in terms of their actual legal status. If CA’s domestic partnership laws really DO provide for the EXACT SAME rights, then I’m confused about why Prop 8 was put together to begin with – shouldn’t the homophobes have gone after the domestic partnership law instead? Brian, with your experience with law, am I misreading something about the domestic partnerships?
The California Domestic Partnership law is exactly the same as marriage when it comes to all state rights. California domestic partners are entitled to all state tax benefits and legal rights (i.e. visiting someone in the hospital and not having to testify against them in court) and married persons. A California domestic partnership does not, however, entitle the partners to any of the thousands of federal rights conferred on married couples. (A gay marriage also won’t entitle the spouses to the federal rights of marriage, due to the federal DOMA law.) Incidently, California’s Domestic Partnership law does not only apply to same-sex couples, opposite-sex couples over the age of 62 or 65 can also form domestic partnerships. The legislature recently passed a law allowing all opposite-sex couples to form domestic partnerships, but I believe it was vetoed. About a year ago, the legislature also passed a law allowing gay marriage, but the Governor vetoed the measure.
So why did the homophobes pass Prop. 8 and not attack domestic partnerships? It’s kinda of long explaination. In 2000, Californians approved Prop. 22 which was a law stating that marriage was between a man and a woman. After the 2006 election, conservatives in California started to worry that the California Supreme Court might strike down Prop 22 as unconstitutional so they started to collect signatures for Prop 8. They had to decide whether they were going to go after only marriage or domestic partnerships as well.
They looked at the 2006 election in Arizona concerning gay marriage/partnerships and decided not to attack domestic partnerships. In 2006, Arizona had on the ballot an initative to ban gay marriage and domestic partnerships. Now Arizona is a pretty conservative place, so it was shocking when the ban was defeated in November. The defeat was largely due to the fact that the ban included not only marriage, but domestic partnerships as well. The proponents of Prop 8 looked at the Arizona election and decided to go only after gay marriage. Incidentially, this year Arizona passed a gay marriage ban, which tacitly allows for domestic partnerships, by a large margin.
Domestic partnerships are wildly popular in California. Any attempt to strike domestic partnerships will likely fail. In fact, an ultra-conservative group attempted to circulate a petition to ban gay marriage AND domestic partnerhships, but they couldn’t get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. They is some talk about the homophobes attacking domestic partnerships, but it’s likely not going anywhere.
If the courts don’t throw out Prop 8, then it’s likely going to be on the ballot again in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, as long as it takes to repeal. Unlike some states, California has no ban on voting over and over again. Likewise a Prop 8 repeal can be put on either the primary or general election ballot, and in presidential years there are two primary elections. So in the next six years Californians can vote seven more times on a repeal. For example in the last six years, Californians have voted five times not to require parental notification or consent for a minor to have an abortion, and we are expected to have to vote this down again in the next election. California politics is a contact sport.