Equality is equality: A reaction to Proposition 8.

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What a crazy ass week this has been. We elected our first African-American president. We voted in record numbers. We knew election results within hours of the polls closing. We redeened ourselves in the eyes of our international brothers and sisters. We opened a new door to our future. So many joys to celebrate!

Then, of course, there was the news regarding Proposition 8 in California. Most of the headlines I’ve read about its passing used the word “disappointing” to characterize this triumph of bigotry. Such a benign characterization insults not only the moveent for equality in which millions of gay and straight Americans are engaged, but also the very raw emotions felt by and devastating outcomes dealt to same-sex couples in California. To all the editors and columnists out there who wish to capture accurately what Prop 8 really means to the pro-equality community, try words like crushing, oppressive, heartbreaking, exclusionary, hateful, unconstitutional, cruel, and wrong.

Sadly, I was not surprised by the passing of gay marriage bans in Florida and Arizona, nor was I jarred by the banning of gay and unmarried couples from adopting and fostering kids in Arkansas. California, though — California is supposed to be different.

How did this happen? Was it really the millions of dollars pumped in by the Mormons? Was it really people being afraid that their children would be converted to gayness in the classrooms? What shocked me most about the passing of Prop 8 was that 70% of African-American voters (who, I assume, turned out to vote for Obama), voted yes on Prop 8. Seventy percent — 7 out of 10 –  African-American voters in California decided to ban gay marriage, to strip their neighbors of their civil rights, to rape families of their economic and legal protections, and to denounce the very message of equality that their newly elected president espouses.

All week, I’ve been thinking about my 8th grade self. My English teacher that year was the teacher that most influenced my thinking and shaped my worldview. She brought humanitarian issues into our classroom. She helped us talk about things like race, slavery, and genocide. She introduced us to the Civil Rights Movement like none of our other teachers had. She opened my heart.

She was my only African-American teacher until I reached graduate school.

I spent that year reading books like Native Son by Richard Wright and Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. I listended to Martin Luther King talk about his dream so many times that I had the whole speech memorized before summer vacation. I never, ever questioned whether or not African-Americans had been brutally excluded from the basic tenets of our Constitution. I never, ever faltered in my belief that African-Americans deserved full equality within these borders. Truthfully, I probably went too far in my support for Civil Rights. By 9th grade, I wore my Africa necklace daily and had subscriptions to Ebony and Jet. Even when a few of my African-American classmates bullied me for wearing a T-shirt that said ‘Before there was any history, there was black history’, I didn’t change my views. Had I lived in the 1960s, I would’ve marched against the firehoses, no question, because it was the right thing to do.

I am saddened by this strange juxtaposition of facts — that I, a gay white woman, have shouted for the full and equal inclusion of African-Americans in our institutions, laws, and values and that I, a gay white woman, have been silenced yet again by a hateful, constitutional ban, this one in particular having been supported by 7 out of 10 African-Americans.

I don’t know — to me, equality is equality. The day I vote to deny anyone rights is the day I deserve none.

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Filed under Election, LGBT, Politics, Proposition 8, civil rights, equality, gay, reflection