If not, do. We need it.
Don't get me wrong - somewhere deep inside me, in a place I can't access at this moment, I am thrilled that Obama was elected. I know his presidency will be infinitely better for everything I care about - ending the war with Iraq, health care, workers' rights, immigrant rights, and leaving our kids a liveable world. I've spent my adult life working on these issues and I am so glad that we can start undoing the damage caused by Bush/Cheney and co.
But right now all I can think about is Prop. 8. About the impact on our community, and the hatred that found license for expression. You see, those behind Yes on 8 made a calculated choice to focus not on marriage but on queer people in general. If they could convince enough people that we were less than equal, they could win. Hence the ads warning that we would teach homosexuality in the schools. Hence their spurious claim that Obama was in favor of Prop. 8. Hence the Yes on 8 leader, in perhaps the campaign's most Orwellian moment, comparing us to the rise of Hitler.
So now here we are, two days post-election, still reeling. Whether or not Prop. 8 is overturned in the courts, as it should be, for now the impact is tremendous. As a woman on a lesbian email list posted, while in the grocery store on November 5 she kept thinking, "you, in front of me, did you vote to take my rights away? You, in back of me, did you?" There's nothing like being the target of hate to sharpen one's focus. And there's nothing like feeling threatened to make a person self-centered.
I've never felt this targeted in my life. Which just goes to show that while my political beliefs have always put me outside the mainstream, by virtue of my race and class (not to mention that I can "pass" as straight out there in the world), I've never truly felt personally discriminated against on a mass scale. Now I do.
And it also makes me realize how much I didn't understand previously about discrimination. Take Prop. 187, the 1994 California ballot measure to restrict immigrant rights. My friends and I were upset about it, for sure. We hung up signs and phonebanked. But when it was over, we moved on. We weren't the target, so we didn't have to question whether the person in front of us at the grocery store had voted to take away our rights.
To stay sane, I try to remember those who voted No on 8. My friends and family; my neighbors who put a No on 8 sticker on their truck unbidden. My (straight) sister, a diehard Obama supporter, who called me in tears on November 5. The woman who, while I held up a No on 8 sign on a street corner in Oakland, screeched her car to a halt right in front of me. "I'm a Mormon," she said, rolling down her car window, "and I'm appalled at what the Mormon church is doing. I truly, truly hope this proposition will lose." The Latino man outside the polling station with his kids, who looked me straight in the eye and said "it's just wrong - discrimination is just wrong. Always." The young African-American guy, pants practically around his ankles, who brushed off our polite attempts to hand him literature with a smile and a "Come on, it's a no-brainer! No on 8!" Each of these people will stay in my heart for a long time.
And I remember those who, from around the country, sent money so that we would have a fighting chance against the Mormon Church. My sister's husband's parents sent money and just now forwarded this quote from Winston Churchill: "you can depend upon America to do the right thing, but sometimes only after she has exhausted all other alternatives."
The morning after the election, one of my first thoughts was "maybe they'll leave us alone now." Like a battered spouse who gives up more and more in the hopes of not being hurt anymore. Maybe they'll leave us alone now. But this thought was fleeting. For one thing, I know the right wing forces have been emboldened and they won't stop here. But more importantly, I know the tide is turning. Just 8 years ago, another measure to restrict same-sex marriage passed in our state with 61% of the vote (and was later overturned). Prop. 8 got 52% and it's still being contested. Close to 5 million Californians voted in favor of equal rights, and a good number of them are as devastated today as I am.
In my high school history class, I learned the theory that great movements don't happen when people are at their most downtrodden; they happen when collective expectations have been raised and hope dashed. I'd say this is the biggest test case yet for the LGBT movement, and I'd like to prove that theory right.
One smart thing I did yesterday - I went to the gym and played music really loud on my ipod. While I sweated on the elliptical trainer, this song came on:
"I put my faith in the people
But the people let me down..."
Damn right, I thought.
But the song continued.
"So I turned the other way
And I carry on, anyhow
That's why I'm telling you
I just want to celebrate, yeah, yeah
I just want to celebrate, yeah, yeah
Another day of living,
I just want to celebrate another day of life"
And then, as if to drill the message into my head:
"Well, I can't be bothered with sorrow
And I can't be bothered with hate, no, no
I'm using up my time by feeling fine, every day
That's why I'm telling you I just want to celebrate...."
It's my daughter's 4th birthday party this weekend. I'll be listening to that song a lot in the next few days.