Election Reaction, Part Three

The last of my reactions to the events of November Fourth will involve California's Proposition Eight, a ballot initiative that served to restrict the definition of marriage in the Golden State to a "union between a man and a woman," as the parlance goes.

I cannot tell you just how disappointed I am with the Californian electorate. Amending a state constitution to actually restrict in perpetuity the rights of a minority group is a step that I would expect more of our backward neighbors, such as Wisconsin and the Dakotas, than of a supposedly cosmopolitan place such as California. (Though, truth be told, I find such an amendment to be distressing no matter where it might exist; state constitutions are far better-used limiting the powers of government than the rights of individuals.)

Ultimately, of course, this issue comes down to the desire of the Christian majority in our nation to force their ideas of propriety upon us all (and to whine mightily about "oppression" if they can, on the rare occasion, not so compel us). There is no recognition of the difference between, nor proper separation of, church and state -- for, in their estimation, church and state should be separate only when it is someone else's church that is in question, not theirs.

Never mind that the civil institution of marriage is something that is entirely discrete from similar ceremonies undertaken at houses of worship. Never mind that churches would not be required to perform, nor recognize, gay unions. No, because of the codification of primitive, ancient fears and prejudices, they feel that it is their holy right, their duty not merely to run their churches as they see fit, but to coerce all of society in the same direction. To tell us that our gay and lesbian neighbors, friends, and family members are something less than full citizens of our nation, that they are not really "people" in the same sense that we straight folk are, that it is in some twisted sense moral to treat them differently under the law.

Just in the same perverted way that persons who were Native American or African American were once treated as something less than fully human.

I take solace in the fact that, seemingly, there is a generational shift in attitudes under way -- Americans who are younger than I are far less likely to oppose gay civil rights than those who are older. Time, it would seem, is on the side of those of us who believe in equality.

Still, it gnaws at me. For, as Doctor King observed, an "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." While justice for gays and lesbians may be only a matter of time, it can not come soon enough.