Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice

First the rain. There are tears in my eyes and I write this. The joy of an Obama victory is tempered by the sadness of a likely passage of California Proposition 8, a ballot initiative designed to take away legal recognition of my marriage to J and tens of thousands like it.

Here's what I said this morning in reaction to this devastating news.

There are a Defense of Marriage Ballot Initiative in California in 2000. A mere 8 years ago, that proposition passed by a 65-35 margin. Eight years later 48% of our state supports the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. As every poll shows that young people overwhelmingly support legal recognition for same sex marriage, I think it will take another 8 years to win back marriage rights. In the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans faced another 100 years of Jim Crow.

We share this sadness with our brothers and sisters in Florida and Arizona who saw similar measures upheld. We are up against a right wing infrastructure that requires its members to tithe 10% of their income to the church. This is a right wing infrastructure that tells its members how to vote from the pulpit. We were up against a right wing infrastructure that was pretty comfortable lying about teaching gay marriage in schools. That's a lot to be up against.

We LGBT folks haven't done our work as well. African Americans voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8. I ask, why should they not? Have LGBT leaders spoken up against drug penalties, police profiling, affordable housing, and unequal distribution of education resources? Have we marched for immigrant rights? Supported unionization efforts?

Was our ground game the best it could be? My experience volunteering for the No On 8 campaign had me, J and West Coast Rebecca stand in a BART station for "visibility." There were 50 other volunteers directed to do the same that we encountered. I think an overwhelmed campaign didn't have the resources to have us phone bank, door knock, and canvass. In contrast to the No on Prop 4 campaign that was focused strictly on phone banking, No on 8 seemed to expend a lot of volunteer resources on "visibility." Hindsight is 20/20 but let's do this better because there will be a next time.

Finally, the sunshine. We elected a mixed-race African American president with families members who are white, immigrant, Asian, and working class. We expanded our majorities in the House and Senate. We defeated ballot initiatives in California, South Dakota and Colorado which would have severely restricted reproductive rights. We lived through 8 years of a Bush administration to come out on the other side with a Democratic President and Democratic majorities.

I can only quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights leader and COMMUNITY ORGANIZER: "Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice."

I will not shut up about this until tomorrow night

One more thing about Prop 8 and the whole anti-same-sex marriage kerfluffle. For those who are all worried about changing the definition of marriage, it's been changed. For the better. Multiple times. If you are such a big ol' Bible reader, you should know that the definition of marriage in the Old Testament was a man and a woman and another woman and another woman and another one. Also, the old definition of marriage essentially required that the husband pay the bride's father for the right to marry her. You are all worried about the slippery slope argument about allowing incestuous marriages and multiple spouse marriages. It has been changed to the one man one woman definition. It's been changed for people of different races to be married. What makes you this THIS change is the bad one?