Nothing to see here but more Prop 8 hand-wringing

[muckefuck]

I'm a lot more bummed by the success of Proposition 8 than I expected to me. Even though I knew that the last ballot measure passed easily, that polls showed a clear win, that any time we allow a popular vote on queer rights we get shafted--even with all these things in mind, I still blithely expected it to fail.

Now that the expensive legislative battle is over, another expensive legal battle begins. It pains me to think of all those tens of millions down the drain simply because a scant majority of Californians can't accept that they live in a secular democracy, that civil marriage is not a sacrament and follows different rules. That's what makes this first and foremost a defeat for liberal humanism, and only secondarily for gay rights.

I'm trying to set my lights by cpratt, who's been very upbeat in his comments today despite being one of the thousands of individuals who's just seen his marriage go *poof*. (But, then, I guess it's a little easier the second time around; think you'll get your license fee refunded this time?) We've known for years now that getting same-sex marriage is mostly a waiting game, as resistance drops with every generation. Once today's over-65s are dead and gone, the yeas will have it--but that's awfully cold comfort to anyone who would like some additional legal protections in the meantime.

There are other illiberal measures that stick in my crawl from this election--particularly Missouri's Official English law and Arkansas' hateful and unjustified barring of gay couples from adoption and foster care--but I had already resigned myself to those. For some reason, I keep having higher expectations for California, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I still don't see how this relates to richardthinks original question about "well-meaning but uncertain people" have to fear from allowing same-sex marriage. The LDS wasn't even really on the radar for queer activists until they decided to throw their support wholeheartedly behind Prop 8.

And in answer to your question, no, I don't think a couple of noisy rallies (you seem to have conflated separate events in different parts of LA in your suggestion that they've continued "for days" outside a single local and multiplied one person jumping on one car into a movement) will add up to much of a chilling effect. Right now, gays in California feel very personally attacked by the legislation and are venting that; it won't last.

Like lhn, however, I am rather dismayed to see the LDS taking so much of the heat for what was, after all, a popular decision. At first I thought perhaps I was being oversensitive to the these sentiments because of our history of persecution against the LDS, but when a Semite tells you that anti-Mormonism is currently worse than anti-Semitism, it's sobering.

[his-regard.livejournal.com]

I still don't see how this relates to [info]richardthinks original question about "well-meaning but uncertain people" have to fear from allowing same-sex marriage.

Fair enough. Let me try answering it this way: polls suggest that the nation's opinion on same-sex marriage rights breaks down into more or less equal thirds -- the people who love the idea, the people who hate the idea, and the people who don't have a problem with gay couples getting the social benefits desired so long as it's not called "marriage." I don't know what all their reasons might be for wanting the distinction. I highly doubt, however, that the people in the last group consider themselves naive or hateful, if for no other reason than they do, in fact, support the practice of gay rights.

Unfortunately, that's not the attitude taken by same-sex marriage activists, who tend to break out disparaging talk about "separate, but equal" -- which immediately links that well-intentioned middle third to vile racism we've worked 50 years to eradicate, and promptly loses their support. Even if we completely gloss over the details what "equal" means in this comparison, as a practical matter the only thing that's happened is that same-sex marriage advocates have maligned the people most likely to be swayed by their arguments. So far, this approach has failed every time in the 60% of states it's been tried (counting the current state of the do-over in Arizona between '06 and '08). If you go in knowing that there's not enough support to win an "all or nothing" fight but press for it anyway, should it really be a surprise when you get nothing?