Why Yes Won

We had legal gay marriage in California.  We should have kept it.  But Proposition 8 was specifically written to take it away from us.  Why did Proposition 8 pass?

There has been as much analysis of why our side lost the Proposition 8 fight as analysis of why John McCain lost the Presidency.  Some answers are obvious, and painful.  Others are more elusive.  And then there are lots and lots of opinions.

Bigotry, homophobia, the “ick factor,” ~ too little personal support from the LGBT community, ~ voters lied to pollsters, ~ not enough money, ~ lack of one-on-one dialogue with the people most likely to vote for it, ~ those Christians. . . Everybody has a theory.  Most of all the LGBT community wants to blame the Christians. I have my own theory as to why so many of them "bought into" Proposition 8.  But we can also look at ourselves, and the factors in our own community that led to a less-than-effective campaign to protect our rights.

Everybody has a theory.  Most of all, the community wants to blame the Christians.  I have my own theory as to why so many of them "bought into" Proposition 8.  But we can also look at ourselves, and the factors in our own community that led to a less-than-effective campaign to protect our own rights.

Complacency kept millions of LGBT people quiet.We didn't do enough — and there’s little doubt that the LGBT community itself could have tried much harder.  As Michael Liberatore admitted in his recent Frontiers article, “If we hadn’t been so busy relaxing with Will & Grace for the past decade—actually believing that America regarded us as full equals rather than a charming diversion—perhaps we’d have seen this coming.”

Although “Will & Grace” is a convenient emblem of our complacency (and isn’t he the poster boy for gay niceness?), there are more ominous signs that the current LGBT generation weren’t interested in being activists until November 5.  Tens of thousands of us are still lost in a crystal meth haze, and may never be found. Addictions, circuit parties and carnal pleasures suck all the energy, free time and extra cash out of us.

Considering our numbers in California, we could have generated a lot more cash and a lot more volunteer hours. But as we’re finding, the organized No on 8 campaign was too narrowly focused on its strategies. Monday-morning quarterbacking now says we should have done mor by doing different things to fight Prop. 8.

More effective than phone banks are one-to-one conversations, actually talking to people who thought they were saving marriage or protecting children.  Realistically, taking on an opponent— whether it’s a guy shouting at you from the safety of his pick-up truck, or a grandmother in a market line wagging her finger in your face—is not easy. Many of us are not confrontational, and we shrink from actually arguing with people who are homophobic, uber-religious or just plain mean.  If we do get brave enough to confront our opponents, we aren’t necessarily effective when own feelings, tempers and insecurities well up.

Yet if we’re going to win this battle, either in the Supreme Courts of this nation, or by tipping public opinion until it reverses bad law and stops gathering signatures to hurt us, we have to simply come out, take the time, invest the truth and integrity of our lives where it will make a difference.

The media campaign was “sanitized.”  Some of us are still bewildered and frustrated that the No on 8 strategy for advertising actually hid real gay and lesbian people form view.  Their media experts, who assured us that they’d never lost a campaign, believed that showing us and telling our stories is not persuasive and could actually turn voters against us.  Do the political and media people still have deeply-buried homophobia in themselves, that made them instinctively conclude that we should hide in our closets until the battle was over? Hey, it’s my marriage rights, not the rights of some heterosexual bride trying to overcome obstacles to get to the altar!

Besides this, we probably relied too much on the power of television advertising to make our case, when we have to do it ourselves.

The Marriage Issue was not "gay enough" for many gay people.  Although this is unfortunately, let’s face the truth. Many gay and lesbian people are in fact single, either by choice or circumstance.  They are not in love with anybody at the moment, same or opposite gender.  Like millions of heterosexuals, divorcees, etc., they may have given up on the possibility of true love and laugh at the idea of tying the knot for good.  Too many just play around, hook up, or cruise the web, exchanging the closet of the 20th century for the chat room.  The number of couples even taking advantage of California’s Domestic Partnership law, after 7 years, is hardly overwhelming. And so for too many of our community, "who needs marriage?"

Although it is a different issue with far different implications and scope, I admit that the battle to serve in the U.S. armed forces and President Clinton’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy were “not my issue.”  Privately I wondered who would want to serve in the military anyway, and publicly I didn’t lift my voice.  Between these two issues, we have learned a hard but important lesson. We have learned that, standing shoulder to shoulder, all civil rights need to be fought for, even if individuals don't anticipate using a specific right.

Even more to the point, legal marriage is not the fundamental issue in Proposition 8 or in our struggle for LGBT rights. The fundamental issue is our dignity in society and our equality before the law.  We need to go back to May 15 and re-read the California Supreme Court’s Majority Opinion to remind ourselves that they “got it” even when we don’t. Clearly, the right to marry is a right worth fighting for, but the larger fight is the fight for respect and equality. There can be no LGBT people sitting on the sidelines in that game.  Every one of us needs to claim, live, work and struggle until the whole war is won.

We will always be in the minority.  Sexual minorities do not recruit and our percentages in society are not growing, no matter what the Religious Reich claims.  We lost a huge proportion of the previous generation to AIDS, and we’re still losing too many young people to crystal meth.  Those who are left to fight the right are not ever going to be in the majority (and the percentage of partnered lesbian and gay people seems to be a minority within the minority), unless we seriously engage and increase the numbers of straight allies.

The No on 8 battle was probably the most effective such engagement yet, but it clearly was not sufficient. In the aftermath, I have been amazed by the number of squarely, solidly heterosexual people around me who are outraged and upset over the victory of Prop. 8.  On a night when I couldn’t be involved, a young straight mother I know marched with other moms in the streets of Silverlake with signs that I made for her.  The post-election outrage may finally be the energy jolt we need to build stronger relationships with our allies.  And, speaking of relationships, ...

We have never developed a strong relationship with African-American churches, and the welcoming/reconciling movement has made few inroads there.  This is a huge aspect of why Proposition 8 passed, in an election which brought our African-American sisters and brothers to the polls in record numbers to guarantee Mr. Obama’s strong victory.

The LGBT community, meanwhile, has deserted, ignored or despised religion in general, and derided the Falwells, Phelps and Robertsons for their mean-spirited and ignorant homophobia.  But we should have been building stronger ties with African-American religious leaders than we have.  Has everybody forgotten that the “rainbow” image we still use began with the presidential campaign “rainbow coalition” of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who stood with us in the cold rain at the steps of the capitol building in Sacramento in 1988 when we marched there to claim our rights?  Yes, I was there personally, holding a banner and an umbrella, for hours, to hear him tell us that he valued our partnership, and I have the T-shirt to prove it.

I have my own opinions why African-American church leaders stood with “traditional” marriage, and told us that our struggle is not a civil rights movement.  But the bottom line is, we weren’t sufficiently engaged with them to persuade them otherwise.  Even Jackson himself now doesn’t seem to understand that the fight for same-gender, marriage is a civil rights issue. But whom among us has the traction in the African-American community to help him understand?

The Christian Church is not a monolith.  Unknown to many LGBT people who aren’t religious (or who used to be but were burned), the Christian churches are all over the spectrum on the issues regarding human sexuality. We see the headlines that one or another denomination is engaged in a big fight over gay ministers or gay marriage, etc.  What we may not realize is that the struggles within churches means that churches are not uniformly hateful and rejecting.

For more than 30 years, many denominations have been actively working in Christian coalitions and congregations.  What began as closeted support groups for lesbians and gay men who were deeply conflicted over being homosexual has grown into a movement to identify, educate, advocate and link thousands of congregations who are opening their doors, their arms and their minds to sexual minorities.

Among Lutherans, the Reconciling in Christ movement dates back to the 1970s.  Over four hundred Lutheran congregations have adopted an “Affirmation of Welcome” to explicitly and publicly say that LGBT people are entirely welcome.  They have been joined by entire Synods and institutions of the national church.  Our national Conference of Bishops and Church Council have said the same.  There are churches in most major cities which have not only invited us inside but have stood with us in the streets.  Bishops have been arrested for demonstrating against their own church bodies’ negative policies, and it is only a matter of time before those policies are junked once and for all.

Religion is still a powerful force in America, but unfortunately it is the conservative, or “fundagelical” church which seems to be growing. Right-wing leaders are only too happy to tell the media and the public that they speak for all Christians. Hogwash! It is time for LGBT people of faith to stand with the open, welcoming, affirming or reconciling churches to strengthen their witness to all Christians.  There is nothing inherently anti-sexual or anti-homosexual in the teachings of Christ, and all open and loving Christians need to keep preaching that message.

The Proposition 8 fight illustrated this all too well.  Conservative churches openly lobbied their own members for Yes votes and threw their money generously in favor of homophobia and bigotry.  Liberal churches, with few exceptions, still weren’t so sure they could legally speak out at all.  Conservatives spread the blatant lies that churches could lose their tax exempt status and be forced to marry homosexuals, against their own beliefs. Liberal churches did almost nothing. If this brutal campaign accomplishes nothing else, it has to jar liberal and open Christian churches to become involved in public policy issues, speak out on pending legislation, and encourage individual believers to put their money where their faith is.  African American churches pushed the first civil rights agenda effectively, and the “moral majority” exploited conservative churches for their agenda. When are the rest of us going to wake up?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Also see:  Frontiers Newsmagazine November 20 story "Fighting Back Against Prop. 8: Why We Lost, Who's to Blame, What's Next" -- download PDF online edition, where Michael Liberatore writes, "Tempers are flaring, and our indignation is justified.  We have been lied about, scapegoated and cheated by religious organizations that gleefully accept tax-exempt status while blatantly abusing that privilege.  We have been abandoned by the very businesses we've suported: those who chose to contribute to the hate-mongering Yes on 8 campaign.  And we feel divided from other oppressed minorities, those whose battles we have joined selflessly, and those who now choose to tell us we should now be treated as second-class citizens.  So what do we do?  We take to the streets of course."  [highlighting added.]

Also see:  www.Prop8Films.org Current Projects: Proposition 8: The Heart of the Matter: A quest to uncover the truth behind the passage of proposition 8 durng the November 2008 electon. This documentary will explore the complexity and depth of the issues surrounding the passage of Proposition 8 and follow select cases filed in the California Supreme Court. We will document the process as the Court discusses, reviews and ultimately decides the fate of Proposition 8 and thousands of same-sex couples.