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D Day in California!

By Pat Racimora on May 24, 2009 at 6:30 PM in Civil Liberties & Rights, Current Affairs, Disenfranchisement, GLBT, Gay Rights

(Bumped up from Saturday evening.)

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California!. What a state! We are known for our whacky politics and all-around open-minded, fun-loving, Hollywood-inspired ways. Calling us “yogurt-loving, latte drinking, text-messaging, vegetarian neurotics” is taken as a compliment. If you have a pulse, you are a friend and deserve a big hug.

So you would think that we would welcome giving people who love and are committed to each other their due civil rights.

Well, we did, and then it got taken away by the proponents of Proposition 8. These sour people ran a slick, homophobic, and highly misleading ad-campaign that would have even made David Axelrod blush. They scared enough voters—those who don’t bother to look beyond the hype to learn the facts—into backtracking.

Now comes the critical test. Was Proposition 8 constitutional? May 26th is D (for DECISION) Day. The California Supreme Court will either negate it, recognizing equal protection under the law for all, or maintain discrimination and the taking away of fundamental civil rights from a minority.

So many friends’ lives are affected by this vote. One friend, who did get married during the window when gay marriage was legal here, has been with her now-wife for 30 years. That’s more than most heterosexual marriages last. And that is just one example of many who have experienced a lot of pain along the way and now pray that their marriages will hold up. Other couples are waiting for the word that they, too, can marry the person they love.

So let’s see what happens. In the meantime Iowa, of all places (among others), got it right. How embarrassing to us Californians who thought we were on the forefront of every right idea.