If, like me, you're saddened by the California Supreme Court decision not to overturn Prop 8 yesterday, here's a great article by Mark Morford in the SF Chronicle. The subtitle of the piece is "Sorry, enemies of gay marriage. Prop 8 or no, you've already lost", and here's the nut:
"Head on down to your local high school -- hell, make it a junior
high or even an elementary -- and take yourself an informal survey. Ask
the various wary, bepimpled youth of Generation Tweet what they think
about those scary gay people getting married...
...Please note the response. Please observe how the kids merely
look at you as though you're more than a little bit deranged and
prehistoric, so out of touch you might as well be Dick Cheney talking
up the diesel-powered rectal thermometers he so loved back in World War
I.
Watch carefully as they sigh and roll their eyes, then whip out
their Nokias to text their friends about how this creepy elder just
tried to convince them that the harmless, yawningly commonplace
homosexuality currently saturating the popular culture all around them,
from fashion to Facebook, movies to "American Idol," is not only wrong,
but so wrong that the law should ban it forever because... well, no one
really seems to know exactly why.
Did you see it? That big, sighing shrug of what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you, combined with lots of who-the-hell-cares? Because that's the reaction to note most of all.
Here is what it tells you: Gay marriage is a foregone
conclusion. It's a done deal. It's just a matter of time. For the next
generation in particular, equal rights for gays is not even a question
or a serious issue, much less a sinful hysterical conundrum that can
only be answered by terrified Mormons and confused old people and inane
referendums funded by same. It's just obvious, inevitable, a given"
(Don't miss the link in the middle of the quote - it's priceless!)
As sad as it is to see what should be a fundamental right fail to be upheld by a court, it may also lead to a more decisive resolution of the matter in the form of another ballot initiative that decisively repudiates the bigotry enshrined in Prop. 8.
After all, we've had decades of culture wars fueled by the anger over the decision in Roe v. Wade, which solved a political problem by judicial means. Polling shows that most Americans favor women's right to choose what happens to their own bodies, and if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it seems likely that it should spur a whole series of political actions that would codify that preference in new law. The same thing seems likely to happen in this case, and if it galvanizes a progressive political community to action, that's a pretty happy side-benefit of such a change.
Update: Here's an article byt Aaron Zelinsky of the Yale Law Journal that makes the same point.
Update II: Here's a link to the Courage Campaign, which is beginning the activism that will be needed to overturn Prop 8 and return marriage to an equal footing in California. Go. Sign the petition (you don't have to be from CA to do it). Donate if you can.
