I totally understand the anger, hurt and pain now roiling the gay community and our families...But it's important to keep our heads. I've been in the middle of this fight for two decades. It's important to remember that we have never had this level of public support for marriage equality before. In eight years in California alone, the majority in favor of banning marriage equality has gone from 61 to 52 percent. Meanwhile, California's legislature has voted for it, 18,000 couples are legally married in California, and legally comparable (if still unequal) domestic partnerships are available. Very soon, thousands of gay couples will be able to marry in Connecticut. The one state with a history of marriage equality, Massachusetts, is showing how good and positive a reform it is. New York recognizes Massachusetts' civil marriages.That 61% to 52% move from 2000 to 2008 leads me to believe that we are actually winning the war. We lost yet another battle, but the momentum is clearly on our side.
Calm down. We are not experiencing a massive, permanent backlash.
The next generation overwhelmingly backs the right to marry, and there is no sign of cultural reversal, even if we have suffered some electoral set-backs. If Obama has taught us anything, it is to keep our eyes on the prize, and not always to react impulsively to hatred, bigotry or simple ignorance by exaggerating its power over us. We are winning. We lost this one, by an excruciatingly small margin. But the whole point of this movement is education in support of toleration. Even though we lost, we persuaded many of something they barely thought about a short time ago...One thing we need to remember is dignity in defeat. That's how it becomes victory.
And we need patience and relentlessness in explaining our lives. And how human they are. It's not fair; we should have it all already. But we don't. And in a democracy, that means persuasion, not fiat.
I was in Placer County this weekend, a hot bed of fascist conservatism where "Yes on 8" yard signs and bumper stickers were still quite prominent. But laced through out the highway, every now and again, were the "No on 8" bumper stickers. In fact, a co-worker of my brother-in-law's printed out basic "No on 8" flyers, hastily put together in Word and distributed them to colleagues. My brother-in-law taped his to his back windshield. When I saw it, I could barely hold back the tears. With all the violence and hatred that was documented during the election campaign from the "yes" folks, he showed some mighty cajones when he put that on his truck.
But he and his co-worker were doing what we now need to get up and do. We need to get out there and change more minds. That's how we'll reverse this. Whether it be in 2010 or in 2012 or in 2018, it WILL happen. Prop 8 is really only the last gasp of the hate-mongers among us.
