Bans on marriage

[stormkeeper_lovedoris]

The brilliant juliaserano said it best:

eliminating people's rights...

As of today, I refuse to acknowledge 52% of Californian's rights! I will do so randomly, at my choosing. I have deemed myself the ultimate arbiter of rights! After all, as a California voter, I have a God given right to decide who is entitled to "rights" and who is not.

Thus, by the powers vested in me as a California voter, I declare that:

1) Freedom of religion has been eliminated for all of the Mormons and Catholic who funded the "yes on 8" ads

2) Freedom of speech has been eliminated for anyone who voted for prop 8.

3) And if you fall into class "1" or class "2", then too bad, because I am eliminating your right to marry too. Ha!



I suppose in my own words I should add that I'm pissed as hell about all the states with anti-marriage amendments. The only silver lining to this is that young voters are more likely to support marriage equality. But this is still outrageous. I wonder if maybe the LGBT movement has played it too safe and too "nice"...we've spent the last 10-20 years telling the world that we're just like them and asking them to please tolerate us. Maybe we need to get angry and get more active, like maybe we need to protest outside of hospitals that forbid us to visit our partners (the hospital in Florida last year that forbade the partner of a dying woman to see her before she died comes to mind). Maybe we need to talk more about the hardships in our lives due to not being able to marry.

Comments

[yubsie]

Can I kick the Catholics in group 1 out? They make my religion look stupid. (For the love of God, people, the fact that you can get married without it taking place in a church should be clue enough that marriage the sacrament and marriage the set of legal rights are separate things and the church only has business deciding about the first one.)

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

*Hugs*

[yubsie]

It's kinda baffling, because everywhere I've lived, the Catholics have been a generally LIBERAL denomination. (Possibly because they noticed that Jesus was totally a hippie :p)

[jade-lightning.livejournal.com]

We need to fight back, this 'nice' shit clearly isn't working that well.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I'm about angry enough that I'm ready to fight back.

Though I guess there's an eternal debate as to whether anger and radicalism (a la Malcom X) ever works or if gently but insistently getting people to see the light and changing their minds (such as Dr King) works better. I wonder if a combination of both approaches is ideal. Hmm.

[jade-lightning.livejournal.com]

A combination is the perfect way. Going all crazy and violent makes you look dangerous so then you're bad, being all quiet and talking doesn't get your voice heard.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. Gloria Steinem once said that we need a mix of radical women in the strets and educated thoughtful women lobbying for change.

[jade-lightning.livejournal.com]

I gotta agree with that.

[nytshd3.livejournal.com]

the first thing i did when i got up on wednesday morning was get online and see what happened with prop 8. i was worried that it would pass, but i really did have hope that it would be defeated. i really felt like it was possible that california as a state would be progressive enough to defeat it.

i really don't know what the answer is. i find it so disheartening when people say/think that gay marriage will destroy the moral fabric of the country and undermine marriage as an institution, blah blah blah. i mean, how do you get around that? how do you get through to people who don't care about any other issues as long as gay marriage is banned?

it's so frustrating.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I, too, wish I knew what the answer was. It seems that every time this issue is on the ballot, the bigots win. I don't know what that means or where to go from there. How do you change people's minds?

[schizoauthoress.livejournal.com]

I'm fine with just breaking faces.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I've been really wanting to. It's so frustrating.

(And thank you also for your post on the topic too).

[mad-wiccan.livejournal.com]

pretty much me and my friends over here in the UK want to join in on the face breaking.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Let's form a line.

[schizoauthoress.livejournal.com]

I was so fucking mad at the red-text woman I posted about...I nearly missed green-text woman. But I'm glad that green-text posted what she did.

*hugs*

[jade-lightning.livejournal.com]

Do it, I'll help.

[invisibleshrew.livejournal.com]

It's so dispiriting. Obama being elected was a moving and joyful event, and then Prop 8 passing felt like a huge crash back to bitter reality. All the anti-marriage amendments were a bitter pill, but California removed an existing right, and that seems so much worse.

I read a generous and wise post (http://penknife.livejournal.com/374549.html) which tries to sort out the reasoning of the people who vote against equal marriage rights - and it helped me understand a little. But I still can't really understand.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

You said it.

[stormer1-1.livejournal.com]

I don't think a lot of folks in California were clear on what Prop 8 really meant; thus, a lot of folks voted for the measure when they were really against it. The wording was too cleverly thick that way. *sigh*

It would be a lot worse if McCain had gotten it, though, and all this foolery still went through. We could be a lot worse off, and I don't think this issue is over yet.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

Movements for change always take time and I agree that the war's not over yet. But we sure lost a major battle.

[carynsilver.livejournal.com]

I really, really hope the articles I read about Prop. 8 being declared unconstitutional work out. I am so angry about this... just as angry as I was when Texas passed something similar. :-( Though, it was expected to pass in Texas, as sadly conservative as this state can be.

Strangely enough, my sister and I were talking yesterday about how we should deny basic rights to everyone who voted yes on these amendments.

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I do hope that it might be declared unconstitutional. I hear you on Texas. You know, having to fight for marriage state by state is a really exhausting strategy, and even in the few states where same-sex couples can get married, they don't enjoy most of the legal benefits of marriage which are federal (not state). It's definitely going to be a long struggle on this issue.