BlogBlast for Peace 2008: No Peace Without True Equality

For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be a Californian.

This was quite a week.  I was trav­el­ing on busi­ness, so on the evening of Tues­day, Novem­ber 4, I watched the elec­tion returns alone in my hotel room.  When, just after 8:00 p.m., NBC News declared Sen­a­tor Barack Obama the President-Elect, I called home to make sure that my boys were watch­ing.  Ear­lier in the day, #1Son had voted in a Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion for the first time, proudly pos­ing for pho­tos before leav­ing the house.  Big­Bob was very excited to accom­pany him to the polling place and I was dis­ap­pointed that I could not join them, but proud when I saw the photo of #1Son hold­ing up his sam­ple bal­lot with the bub­ble next to Obama’s name filled in.

As Tues­day night wore on, it became increas­ingly clear that Propo­si­tion 8 was likely going to pass.  Thus, the ela­tion I felt watch­ing President-Elect Obama’s vic­tory speech was tem­pered by the despair and revul­sion I was also expe­ri­enc­ing as the real­ity con­cern­ing Propo­si­tion 8 became inescapable.

By a mar­gin of 52 to 48 per­cent, my fel­low cit­i­zens actu­ally voted to inject dis­crim­i­na­tion into the Cal­i­for­nia con­sti­tu­tion.  I am embar­rassed for our state, and dis­gusted and appalled that any right-thinking per­son could truly believe that such a result is desir­able or accept­able in 2008.

“This is a deep, vis­ceral divide between two cultures.”

In response to the Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion results, much has already been writ­ten about the changes that have taken place in Amer­ica in the last 50 years.  But we still have so far to go.

Sadly, true equal­ity for gay, les­bian, bisex­ual, and trans­gen­dered per­sons has not been achieved and Cal­i­for­nia took a giant step back­ward this past week when Propo­si­tion 8 passed.  For­tu­nately, I remain con­fi­dent that the set­back will only be tem­po­rary.  Sev­eral law­suits chal­leng­ing the dis­crim­i­na­tory impact of Propo­si­tion 8 were filed the day after the elec­tion and it must even­tu­ally be deemed unconstitutional.

Amer­ica was founded in response to reli­gious per­se­cu­tion, designed to be a refuge from the impo­si­tion of reli­gion or religious-based beliefs by one group of peo­ple upon other per­sons.  Sadly, reli­gion and gov­ern­ment became inex­tri­ca­bly inter­twined in Cal­i­for­nia dur­ing the recent elec­tion, with reli­gious zealots using their polit­i­cal power to deny equal rights under the law to all persons.

What those per­sons who used their reli­gious beliefs to jus­tify their sup­port of Propo­si­tion 8 failed to rec­og­nize or acknowl­edge is that mar­riage is, from the per­spec­tive of gov­ern­ment, a legally bind­ing civil con­tract, not a state­ment of reli­gious phi­los­o­phy.  But the reli­gious beliefs of some Cal­i­for­ni­ans have now been inserted into our state con­sti­tu­tion.  And that is just plain wrong.

In defense of those who sup­ported Propo­si­tion 8, some com­men­ta­tors have spec­u­lated that they did not under­stand that a “yes” vote was a vote to amend the con­sti­tu­tion and dimin­ish the free­doms guar­an­teed to all Cal­i­for­ni­ans. Rather, they were merely vot­ing in accor­dance with their belief that mar­riage should be only between a man and a woman. If that’s the case, you can blame the sleazy adver­tis­ing cam­paign employed by Propo­si­tion 8 orga­niz­ers that included inflam­ma­tory, incen­di­ary tac­tics such as half-truths, out­right lies, intim­i­da­tion, and threats to stir up the elec­torate and gain support.

Protests are tak­ing place across the state, about which many Propo­si­tion 8 sup­port­ers seem sur­prised.  “Well, they say, we’re glad that’s over. Now we can move on and get back to every­day life. Hope there are no hard feel­ings.”  That sim­ply isn’t going to hap­pen. As C.W. Nevius, writ­ing in the San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle, observed today:  “This is a deep, vis­ceral divide between two cul­tures. And, with more protests sched­uled this week­end in San Fran­cisco and in the state, it seems the anger and resent­ment will only increase.”

In increas­ing num­bers, Propo­si­tion 8 sup­port­ers are por­tray­ing them­selves as vic­tims, describ­ing them­selves as “shocked” by the reac­tion from its oppo­nents. Really? If you voted to take away some­one else’s basic, fun­da­men­tal, and con­sti­tu­tional right to do some­thing that you have had the right to do — and taken that right for granted — all of your life, how can you claim to be sur­prised by or a vic­tim of that individual’s right­eous anger?  It bog­gles the mind, frankly.  One sup­porter of Propo­si­tion 8 claimed she was hor­ri­fied when she was called a “homo­phobe.”  What did she expect when she openly declared her sup­port for a mea­sure that, in the minds of its oppo­nents, con­sti­tutes noth­ing short of hate and a rejec­tion of an entire group of peo­ple because they share one immutable characteristic?

The pro­po­nents of Propo­si­tion 8 ridicu­lously named their web­site “Pro­tect Mar­riage.”  Allow­ing all per­sons to marry poses no threat to “tra­di­tional” or “het­ero­sex­ual” mar­riage.  Same-sex mar­riage has noth­ing what­so­ever to do with het­ero­sex­ual mar­riages or fam­i­lies.  The argu­ments in favor of dis­crim­i­nat­ing against same-sex mar­riage actu­ally fail under their own weight.  After all, if it is best to raise chil­dren within the con­text of a state-sanctioned, civilly bind­ing con­tract of mar­riage, shouldn’t it stand to rea­son that chil­dren of same-sex unions would be bet­ter off if those unions are also sanc­ti­fied and legal­ized by the state, thereby plac­ing them on a par with their het­ero­sex­ual counterparts?

Most offen­sive to me is the argu­ment that same-sex cou­ples should not com­plain because they have long had the right, under Cal­i­for­nia law, to become reg­is­tered domes­tic part­ners.  (See Cal­i­for­nia Fam­ily Code sec­tions 297–297.5.)  There­fore, Propo­si­tion 8 sup­port­ers assert, there is no need to make mar­riage legally avail­able to same-sex part­ners as they already enjoy “com­pa­ra­ble” rights.  That’s akin to the “sep­a­rate but equal” approach to edu­ca­tion for chil­dren with dif­fer­ent skin col­ors that was inval­i­dated by the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Edu­ca­tion 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

The elec­tion of Barack Obama as our next Pres­i­dent was a water­shed moment that I con­sider myself priv­i­leged to have par­tic­i­pated in bring­ing about and wit­nessed.  I anx­iously look for­ward to his inau­gu­ra­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of the plat­form upon which he ran.

But for those of us embroiled in the fight for civil rights, there can be no peace until all dif­fer­ent kinds of fam­i­lies can law­fully co-exist in Cal­i­for­nia.  That day will come when Propo­si­tion 8 is again over­turned by the courts as uncon­sti­tu­tional and the right to marry declared equally avail­able to all per­sons, irre­spec­tive of gen­der or sex­ual orientation.

Included in the Novem­ber 17, 2008 Best of Me Sym­phony at Dodge­blogium.

Pre­sent­ing the finest of the writer’s blogs by the blog­gers who write them: Top 5 Picks as cho­sen by the Novem­ber 14, 2008 WOOF Con­test contestants.

Poetry:

• Daisy Book­worm — Fire and Water: A poem look­ing at the con­tra­dic­tion of human emo­tion. Specif­i­cally a fiery tem­per and an icy heart.
• ~wil­low~ — NaNo: Jackie’s Lament: Her NaNoW­riMo main char­ac­ter does a bit of introspection.
• Dragon Blog­ger — The Sav­age Woman: A Poem about a wild sav­age woman and try­ing to tame her heart.

Fic­tion:

• H Ben­jamin Petrie — Father pt.1: A father deals with bring­ing up his two daugh­ters alone after the death of his wife.

Non-Fiction / Opin­ion:

• JHS, Esq. — Blog­Blast for Peace 2008: No Peace With­out True Equal­ity: There can be no peace in the world until all per­sons are assured equal­ity under the law, irre­spec­tive of their gen­der or sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. Sadly, the fight against dis­crim­i­na­tion must con­tinue here in Cal­i­for­nia in the wake of the Novem­ber 4, 2008, election.

Brought to you by Plot­Dog Press with the Ser­ial Sus­pense Screen­play Inter­ven­tion.

Other Novem­ber 14, 2008 Con­tes­tants:

Fic­tion:

• Alex McGaughan — Chap­ter 16: Really … Shut Up, Squishy: Chap­ter 16 of Chil­dren of the First, a ser­ial web­novel. There’s magic, a lit­tle drama, and a whole lot of snark.

About Writ­ing:

• ~wil­low~ — !noitanillop-ssorc: A dis­cus­sion of three very dif­fer­ent books.

Poetry:

• Dragon Blog­ger — The Dragon and the Knight: A poem about mis­judg­ing based on hearsay.
• Dragon Blog­ger — Wait­ing For Your Return: A Twit­ter poem con­structed from ran­dom words about miss­ing some­one when they are away.
• Dragon Blog­ger – Will You Be There If I Fall? A poem about ques­tion­ing if your part­ner will be there for you.
• Mar­garet Nor­kett — In My Life: A poem about lift­ing one­self out of depres­sion and self-pity.
• Dragon Blog­ger — My Lady Is A Sports Car: A pas­sion­ate poem com­par­ing a girl to a sports car.
• Dragon Blog­ger — Loathing The World: A poem from a Twit­ter con­test; crafted to include 7 ran­dom words.
• Dragon Blog­ger — What Have I Done? A poem about mak­ing a choice that you bit­terly regret.
• Dragon Blog­ger — Afraid: A poem about being afraid of life.
• Jen­nifer M Scott — Danc­ing Dust in Starlight: Tooth­less pilot­ing across the waste­land, clutch­ing the fresh pho­tographs only to come.
• Jen­nifer M Scott — Moral­ity Sphere: The moon­less monastery sits cow­er­ing in eclipsed shadows.
• Jen­nifer M Scott — Nurs­ery Rhymes for Chil­dren: New nurs­ery rhymes.

Want to par­tic­i­pate in the next WOOF? Sub­mit a link to your best writ­ing post of the week using the form at the bot­tom of this page.

Thanks for vis­it­ing Col­lo­quium … hope you will return soon! You can sub­scribe to Col­lo­quium by click­ing here!

Tech­no­rati Tags: Blog­Blast for Peace, Plot­Dog Press, W.O.O.F. Con­test

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