Equality's Winding Path: Setbacks and Protests

The NYT published this editorial yesterday on the setbacks to gay rights:

Amid the soaring oratory about the presidential election, it was Barack Obama who put it best late Tuesday night. “That’s the genius of America, that America can change,” he said. “Our union can be perfected.”

But as Mr. Obama’s victory showed, the path to change is arduous. Even as the nation shattered one barrier of intolerance, we were disappointed that voters in four states chose to reinforce another. Ballot measures were approved in Arkansas, Arizona, Florida and California that discriminate against couples of the same sex. . . .

We wish that Tuesday’s vote of 52 percent to 48 percent had gone the other way. But when those numbers are compared with the 61 percent to 39 percent result in 2000, when Californians approved the law that was overturned by their Supreme Court, it is evident that voters have grown more comfortable with arriage equality.

Progress is evident, too, in the fact that since 2000, the California Legislature has twice passed a measure to let gay couples marry — only to be vetoed by the Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. To his credit, he opposed Proposition 8. We suspect that if California holds another referendum on the issue down the road, it will yield a different result.

Oh yeah, you betcha it will. If we do the hard work of educating, informing, and campaigning for it. You gotta work for what you want; good things never come without effort.

Joe.My.God. suggests another March on Washington as a good way to channel the energy and enthusiasm of the younger generation of LGBT folks. Sounds great to me.

And Mike Signorile makes these suggestions:

After Karen Ocamb's report, people called in from across the country and several decided they were going to go to their local Mormon temple or headquarters and protest. I think it is a terrific idea. We should launch protests wherever there are temples, and also in smaller areas, go to their meeting places, otherwise known as "stakes."

It's all here on this web site. There's also an online initiative to send a letter to the Mormon's, but really we need to [get] out into the streets and in front of them, shaming them for what they've done.

From all I've read, it wasn't the black churches, it wasn't even the homophobic evangelical or Roman Catholic churches who made the big showing in the Prop 8 election; it was the Mormon Church who went all-out to defeat it. As witness this statement from the NYT editorial excerpted above:

The most notable defeat for fairness was in California, where right-wing forces led by the Mormon Church poured tens of millions of dollars into the campaign for Proposition 8 — a measure to enshrine bigotry in the state’s Constitution by preventing people of the same sex from marrying. The measure was designed to overturn May’s State Supreme Court decision, which made California the second
state to end that exclusion of same-sex couples. Massachusetts did so in 2004.

Like Mike says, responding to a Mormon caller on his radio show:

. . . the Mormon church leaders urged members to pour millions of dollars into taking away the rights of other people. That makes it a legitimate target now and certainly defines them it as a political organization. Rosayln, stop giving your money to the church until they stop funding hate and telling members to fund hate, and get others to do the same.

As long as it's all done peaceably and nonviolently, I say let's do it. Church or no church, you fuck with my civil rights, you fuck with my family, hell yeah you're gonna get protested. We haven't taken a damn thing away from you; but you've taken a hell of a big thing away from us, and we're not gonna let you get away with it quietly.

If, like me, you live in a homophobic town in the middle of nowhere in a state with ZERO antidiscrimination laws, and can't afford to lose your job by taking to the streets, you can get involved in the protests online at places like http://www.mormonsstoleourrights.com/ and http://www.invalidateprop8.org/.

Individuals shouldn't be harassed. People can believe what they like, it's a free country. But religion is no excuse for denying equality and civil rights to anyone. It's a free country, not a theocracy.

Oh and let's not forget the infamous words of the Mormon bishop of California yesterday, and his curt advice to gays and lesbians upset over the passage of H8: "Just suck it up." I saw him on a news video yesterday, but today, strangely enough, I can't turn up any video with that clip. Any Truckers out there who can find it, please pass it on so I can post it here in the Blue Truck.

I'll close with the "Home Invasion" ad that ran in California before the election. I think it's right on the money: