chastening

[adularia]

Well, fuck.

Earlier I said to dymaxion that if CA Proposition 8 passed, it would, overall, not be as important as winning the presidency

Comments

[garpu]

Fuck, it passed? :(

[adularia]

It's too early to call it, but signs point to whatthegoddamnfuckinghelliswrongwithpeople.

[adularia]

By "win" I assume you mean "victory for sanity." Ok, that does make me feel a bit better. I guess San Francisco can't possibly have finished counting yet.

[vixyish]

I've seen one opinion (grahgh, I wish I could remember the source, but I can't) that it isn't actually swinging both left and right at the same time. That the rash of anti-gay-marriage acts is a last act of panic; that passing a state law against something that's *already* illegal == panicking in the face of the *overall country* inexorably moving toward tolerance of that thing.

The person I was reading claimed that similar things were seen around the civil rights movement in the 1960's.

I don't know if it's true, but it *seems* to make sense. When they knew that equality for gays could never happen, they didn't talk much about it. The sudden vocal vehemence is because they feel threatened; and how could they feel threatened unless there *is* change coming?

On a more concrete level for hope, it's entirely likely that CA's supreme court will strike the amendment down as unconstitutional/illegal (again).

[gement]

Yes, this.

The avalanche has started, and the pebbles are trying frantically to vote it back. They don't start screaming "destroying the social order" until there's a real groundswell toward it actually happening.

And by then it's already happening. Remember, the legality of the marriages already sanctioned in California is going to be decided by the same supreme court that decided they could happen in the first place.

[adularia]

I suspect that you and vixyish are right about it likely being a high-profile reaction to a deeper, less fickle social change. I don't think it's an eradication of all progress, as some people seem to. Thanks. :/

[ilmarinen]

Uh, since it was constitutional amendment, the courts couldn't find it to be unconstitutional, could they?

I did read some interesting speculation that it may be challenged as not being an amendment, but being a "revision" which would apparently also require 2/3 legislative approval. Apparently "revisions" have a higher threshold than "amendments."

I was shocked to realize (last election cycle, when so many of these amendments were passed) that so many state constitutions are so easily revised--by simple majority votes. Thankfully, the federal constitution is sturdier than that. Which, OTOH, means things like the ERA are very difficult to get into the federal constitution.

-B.

[adularia]

I'm telling myself something like that, and her, too - the vicissitudes of marriage law don't diminish my love or sense of commitment. (We are not actually married in any sense right now.) It's a huge setback for the political climate, and upsetting to realize that bigotry has that much popular support, but it can't erase everything.