After all these years, I’m still only three-fourths a person.
After all of the sermons, the marches and the lost lives, I still don’t have the equality that my grandparents’ generation fought for.
On Tuesday, Nov. 4, I was completely in awe of how far my country had come by electing its first black president.
By noon the next day, however, I received a sobering slap in the face after being informed that California, Florida and Arizona all voted against gay marriage.
My first reaction was to wonder how this happened. How did a country that voted for a progressive, black candidate pass a measure that denies many Americans their right to marriage?
In my mind, California was a gay Mecca — where gay people from all over the country came to get married after the state Supreme Court made it legal.
California was supposed to be a leader, showing the rest of the country that equal rights for gay people do not encroach upon any one else’s rights. One of the biggest talking points for conservative leaders was the breakdown of the family.
Approximately 18,000 couples have already been married in the short time it was legal, many of whom have adopted or had children. Now that gay marriage is illegal, what about those families?
California attorney general, Jerry Brown, said those marriages will remain valid, yet it is possible that there could be challenges to them. The thought of a challenge to the thousands of gay marriages is sickening.
These people, who are so marginalized, got married for love. They got married because they wanted to declare their love for their respective partner, not because they were drunk in Las Vegas and thought it would be cool, or because they wanted to live off of future alimony payments from their spouse.
These are the reasons for some “traditional marriages.” The proposition allows the government to entwine themselves into the love life of thousands of people. Now there are protestors all over the state.
People are protesting on main streets, even holding demonstrations in front of Mormon churches. The Mormon Church has fallen under attack for distributing millions of dollars to help Proposal 8 ban gay marriage. People are losing their homes, unable to provide for their families and the Mormon Church throws $25 million at a campaign that strips people of their civic right to marry whomever they love.
This is the same church that has been persecuted since its very inception, that until recently was the object of scorn by many other churches. Shouldn’t the church be happy that people are in love and wish to remain faithful and monogamous for the rest of their lives?
You would think, but only as recently as 1978 was it possible for its black members to serve as priests, or any other position of power within the church, nor could they get married inside of the faith’s temples.
Perhaps it will take another hundred years to get a “divine message” stating that gays should be allowed to marry. I never have and perhaps never will understand how someone else’s marriage is going to affect another couple’s marriage.
Have any of the 18,000 married gay couples caused divorce rates (currently somewhere near 50%) to go up?
Comedian Wanda Sykes put it best when she said that the only true threat to marriage is divorce. I’ve watched the commercials for Prop. 8 and they are filled with lies presented as facts to scare people into voting for it.
The campaign wants people to believe things such as: gay marriage is being taught to young children in school or that churches would be forced to perform gay marriages.
First, no one would be forced to teach a “gay curriculum” and there have been no moves to teach kids about two women getting married. Furthermore, it does not force a church to marry a gay couple — most people wouldn’t want to get married in a church that doesn’t support them anyway.
People are angry, and for good reason, and the Mormon Church isn’t the only one falling under attack. According to exit polls done by the Associated Press, approximately 70 percent of black voters voted yes on Proposal 8 to ban gay marriage.
Meaning those people who got out to vote for Barack Obama voted in favor of banning gay marriage. The cause of this does not lie in only one party’s hands. The African-American community is deeply rooted in the church.
The civil rights movement was led by the church and the church remains the pillar to which many black people cling to. The movement for Proposition 8 reached out to black communities and appealed to their sensibilities, both in the church and outside of it.
The gay community did not reach out to the African American or Hispanic voter and is now feeling the burn because of this.
On Nov. 12, lawyers supporting gay rights filed a petition asking the state Supreme Court to nullify Proposition 8 on the grounds that voters did not have the authority to make such a dramatic change in the law. Maybe the courts will do the right thing and protect people who have fought hate crimes, AIDS and bigotry (to name a few) or perhaps gay people all over the
-You incorrectly assume that every black American voted for Obama - "approximately 70 percent of black voters voted yes on Proposal 8 to ban gay marriage...Meaning those people who got out to vote for Barack Obama voted in favor of banning gay marriage".
- "The gay community did not reach out to the African American or Hispanic voter and is now feeling the burn because of this." - There are gay African Americans and Hispanics. You make it sound as though only white gays are being affected by this decision.
-Commercials run during any political campaigns are often misleading, not just the ones about Prop 8.
-The Old Testament explicitly states being gay as a sin, this is why the Christian,Mormon and Jewish faiths do not support gay marriage. So any sexual relationship between people of the same sex is considered sinful, even if they are in love and monogamous. You obviously do not agree with the gay marriage ban, and you are of course entitled to your opinion. But this article is random (more of a rant than a well thought out opinion), not structured, and really weakens your argument. I am surprised that this article was even allowed to be printed as it is.