I am (surprise!) really exhausted and overworked, but I wanted to say something more about Prop. 8 and the ongoing legal and PR battle over gay marriage in California.
The thing that offends me the most, absolutely the most, about the reaction to legal challenges to the validity of Proposition 8, is the reaction I heard from one member of the “Protect Marriage” group.
She argued on the news that the voters have spoken, and that the gays should respect “the will of the people.”
I just wanted to reach through the screen and give this woman a long lecture about the Tyranny of the Majority. And the Federalist papers. And the desire so clearly expressed by the founders of this country to bequeath to the generations a system that prevented a simple majority from abusing its power against a minority.
I wish I were rational enough about this to give an eloquent argument like that.
But all I truly want to say to her, reaching through the screen, is fuck you. FUCK. YOU. if you think just because a majority of people wish to strip me of my rights, I’m going to stop fighting for them. Fuck you if you think that’s what this country is about.
I’ll admit, I’ve never been sure that marriage is the most pressing right on the ever-vilified “Gay Agenda” for my people to hang their hat on at this very moment, particularly given that in many states you can still be fired or kicked out of housing for being gay, with absolutely no legal repercussions.
But to see a right, any right, stripped away is a nauseating, deeply angering feeling. To shake me out of my deeply ingrained aversion to and ambivalence towards politics that grew from 18 years of watching the same old shit get shoveled around in D.C., you really, truly have to piss me off.
And lady, you and your complete ignorance of the spirit of the American system have REALLY fucking pissed me off.
Update, Tuesday Noon: The LA Times has an article up on exactly the sort of folks like woman who made me so angry, although it does contain one truly awesome quote from somone who supports the No-On-8 protesters:
“To be honest, I don’t really understand the issue. If you’re a man and don’t believe in gay marriage, you shouldn’t marry a man.”
Right on.