Thoughts on the passing of proposition 8

According to Andrew Sullivan earlier today, white voters voted no 55 to 45 percent, and Latinos--surprisingly to me--were evenly split. Blacks voted 69 to 31 percent to pass a constitutional ban against gay marriage.

Which leads me to something I tried with my father, and that I told my students today: regardless of how one feels about gay marriage, here's the deal. Voters passed prop 22, which banned gay marriage. The ban went to the supreme court of California, which found it unconstitutional, since California's constitution says we should treat everyone equally.

In other words, we just voted to change the constitution in order to say that everyone should not be treated equally.

That is a big. Fucking. Deal.

Now, that point didn't win over my dad. Nor did it win over the various folks who I've heard, anecdotally, felt "bad" about voting yes but feared they'd go to hell if they didn't (my response: maybe they'll go to hell because they did), or who support gay marriage but were afraid that the law would require teachers to teach kids about gay marriage (??), or who are okay with gay marriage but were terrified that their priests would be in trouble if they refused to marry gay people (?? again). If any of them actually thought about it in constitutional terms, that is.

And for all I know it didn't win over those of my students who supported Prop 8 (and there were a few). But I did notice some of them looking kind of sobered when I pointed it out. That, and the fact that, again according to Sullivan, "the under-30s voted for marriage equality by 67 to 31 percent," gives me hope that okay, this is some shitty shit. (And Arkansas' ban on gay adoption is worse). But maybe the kids who were in the last years of trick-or-treating, who were excited by our No on 8 sign, maybe they'll change it back again.

And there's an upside to the stories that it was fear of priests being arrested, or teachers "having" to teach kids about gay marriage, rather than gay marriage *itself* that made this thing pass. It suggests that gay marriage as such isn't that scary to most Californians. Oh, they're still a little squeamish about telling the kids about it (which is hilarious, given that the kids apparently already know and largely support it). And they don't want their priests to get in trouble. (I know. Don't say it.) But having to marshal these silly scare tactics to get people to "define marriage as between a man and a woman" suggests that the actual definition, as such, doesn't actually matter that much to people.

Equality under the law is a winnable issue. It fucking sucks that it didn't win this time. But it will. People are scared of new ideas, but they also do have a sense of fair play. As their fears subside, that sense of decency will express itself.

I hope.


Update: I swear I wrote this before learning that this is pretty much the same tack some folks are hoping will convince the courts to overturn 8

"The magnitude here is that you are effectively rendering equal protection a nullity if a simple majority can so easily carve an exception into it," she said. "Equal protection is supposed to prevent the targeting and subjugation of a minority group by a simple majority vote."