One of his posts point out that today is Right To Marry Day, where bloggers are to write in support of marriage equality for same-sex couples and against Proposition 8 in California. The high courts in California had ruled that same sex couples were allowed to get married, and as a result, those that oppose it got Prop 8 on the ballots to get it overturned. I've never dealt too much with things like that on our ballots in Indiana, but I've heard comedians and other people talk about how clumsily worded with the double/triple/quadruple/ad infinitum negatives that people don't know how to vote what they think. Fortunately, Prop 8 isn't like that, and voting no to keep it from taking effect will suffice. The first I heard of it was from Mark Evanier's blog where he expressed confidence that it wouldn't pass. Unfortunately, it was gathered more ground that he and others thought, and there is a possibility that it would pass.
Where do I start about what I've said about this sort of thing in the past...? Back when the marriage amendment was being bandied about as having to be added to the Constitution, I had pointed out that as The Daily Show and others have said, the Constitution works when it grants rights, not take them away. The last time it was tried was Prohibition and we know how well that turned out. I have maintained that those opposed to same sex marriage got a copy of the arguments against interracial marriage and crossed out "interracial" with their crayon and wrote "gay" above it. It's the same arguments: what's next, people will want to marry animals? Children? There hasn't been an outbreak (or any case) I heard of of people wanting to do that because interracial marriage was allowed. Ivy McCloud wrote a great entry about refuting those arguments. And it wasn't just interracial marriage where the majority was against it and therefore it is wrong. Women voting was like that, as well. The 19th Amendment (an amendment that granted rights, I may add) to allow women to vote passed in 1920, less than 100 years ago. Arlene Franks wrote a post about the struggle on that. It wasn't all picket signs. And there was this post I wrote about going to see Margaret Cho in Muncie, where opening act Bruce Daniels pointed out that he pays taxes, but he's denied equal rights.
A lot of regular readers here might wonder how it goes with being married to a fundamentalist Christian. Well, we disagree. But the way I see it, if Governator Arnold and Maria Shriver can still make it work... But there are instances where Kathy isn't repelled by the idea. We was watching the syndicated Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and they had a female contestant from California who was playing to get a better house for her wife who had MS. Caring for someone and wanting to get a house were two things she's very interested in. And she liked the picture from Peter David's blog when they went to George Takei's wedding. But she was put off by Julie Brown's song "The Ex-Beauty Queen's Got A Gun" with it's in your face style. I've wrote about the song before, and thought it was great she was able to release it via the web and be the main beneficiary of her music, but the style was in your face, as my friend Kenny once said about the original Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" with the last 2 of a race fighting because each is black on one side, but white on the other but the opposite of the other, where they take the topic and beat you over the head with it. One thing that I think would help a lot of people in the discussions on the matter would be to get to the heart of the matter, maybe not be so confrontational. One post that caught my eye was by John Rogers called Learn to say "ain't". It started with advice he was given when he was toiling in the field of standup, but he says the advice can be applied to real world matters, such as political discussions. It is a concept that takes a bit to grasp, and he does a follow up post to clarify it. Basically, it's not a fancy trick or way to fool people, "about boiling your idea down to what really matters. This is not about lying -- this is about telling the truth in a more effective manner." That's one reason why I like to quote the part of Sen. Obama's nomination acceptance speech about how we can all agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters should be able to visit each other in the hospital, and live a life free from fear and discrimination. I think most everybody can get behind that.
There is going to be a struggle until it is accepted. Eventually it'll be like interracial marriage and women voting, where it'll be accepted and people will be amazed when they learned it wasn't and there was a fight to get those rights. Like in Santa Claus Is Coming To Town where history swept away the Burgermeister Meisterberger and his law banning toys in the town.
Final Note: I had actually started writing this around noon, but had to go out to do grocery shopping and take care of some business. And then about the time I finished writing this, I realized that today is the 30th, not the 29th. I still think this is something worth writing about, and even though the date has passed, hopefully some of you will talk about it as well. And if you live in California, vote no on Prop 8. And in the other states with similar initiatives, either this election day or in the future, please vote no on those as well. The United States of America is about granting freedoms, not taking them away. And although my wife and I disagree on this issue, and have discussed it in the past, it hasn't done anything to damage our marriage. Maybe everyone elses' has a chance.
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