Shame on You California

Protesting the passage of Proposition 8. AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian

Shame on you Californians.

With the passing of Proposition 8, you have relegated me and my queer brothers and sisters (and everything in between) to the margins of society while reaping all the benefits we bestow upon you.

In one fell swoop you told us that we are not fit in your eyes as deserving the same rights as you. Even though we wouldn’t have gotten the same Federal rights thanks to Clinton’s signing of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, you could have allowed us to take one step closer to that ever elusive goal of equality.

The campaign supporting Proposition 8 bemoaned the sanctity of marriage. How is marriage sacred anymore with divorce rates being what they are? It’s pretty unnerving that it is you heterosexuals who have made a mockery of marriage jumping in and out of it like last year’s cashmere sweater set. And now you are claiming that we will destroy the institution of marriage?

And the children. Oh God THE CHILDREN! Well never mind the Catholic Church has done more to harm children what with their priests and all. And the Mormons? Well just ask those teenage brides.

Do you really believe that children learning about gay people will convert them into card-carrying depraved homosexuals? If that were true all of my cousins would be gay. Hell, all of my neighbor’s kids would be gay.

In the end you chose to impose your beliefs on me. You think it’s wrong that I have relationships with other men, so you chose to exclude me. But to keep up appearances you let us have “domestic partnerships” that sound more like a maid’s union more than anything else.

We’re not asking for all that much. All we’re asking for is the right to be able to have the same rights when we decide to share our lives with that special person. We’re not demanding the Catholic church, the Mormon church, the Synagogues, the local preacher to marry us. We just want equal rights, not that other water fountain.

So as happy as I was Tuesday night that America has voted in the first black man as President, part of me is very disappointed that us queers are still not afforded the same rights as everyone else as proscribed by the Constitution.