Friday, November 07, 2008

Prop 8 Protests in California

Andrew Sullivan thinks gays should "chill" about Prop 8.

God bless 'em, he's wrong again.

The peaceful protests are making headlines. This is good. People needs to viscerally understand this is a civil rights struggle. Would have been better having this before the vote, wouldn't it? Would have perhaps made more impact if we'd gotten out on the streets then? I think it would.

But better late than never. And you can bet, the judges who'll decide the lawsuit -- and politicians who will decide about repealing DOMA -- are watching this too.

Let's just make clear, however, that scapegoating other minorities for this is just lazy and shameful, as well as, vastly unhelpful. I wonder how many people who felt that way were out there knocking on doors and distributing leaflets before the vote? (Though really, the Mormons - not to mention other churches lobbying for either McCain or Obama - ought to be stripped of their tax exempt status. They're perfectly entitled to their opinions. But if they want to campaign on issues like Prop 8, let them pay taxes like the rest of us).

It seems that what gay people might need, just at this moment, is a kind of gay Martin Luther King. (Sorry, Andrew Sullivan, Joe Solmonese, or Barney Frank - that doesn't mean you. I'm thinking more of someone like Eric Alva.) But it'd be nice to have someone who could start to corral the feelings right now, bring that together with our straight allies, and create a giant movement that brings this issue to Washington.

History has a way of creating an interesting kind of poetic justice. The gay civil rights struggle may come to a head on the doorsteps of the first black President.

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