Civil Rights

So the 2008 election season has come and gone without me writing about it.

I'll say this, I spent election night dancing at Atomic Ballroom and trying not to follow things too closely once I realize that Barak Obama had won Ohio and Pennsylvania in early ballot counting.  Then heard that Prop 8 was passing in California and started paying attention again.

The people of California voted to amend the state constitution to disallow marriage for same-sex couples.  That's shocking and horrifying to me.  To a certain degree, I've been viewing this idea through the lens of my friends' experiences as liberal Mormons or ex-Mormons.  So it's been a lot about the pain of people grappling with their church's position instead of the pain of people who are being targeted for bigotry.

Yeah, bigotry.  I remember being horrified at the racism bubbling to the surface of the country during the West Virginia primary:



I laughed.  Laughed that this kind of bigotry still exists in this country.  And that people feel comfortable enough with it to expose themselves as such on camera.  And cried a little inside.

And now, as we've seemingly faced down our history of racism, we've made it clear that we haven't overcome anti-gay bigotry by a long shot.

Californians will look at themselves in the mirror years from now and have to justify this vote.  Or just be honest.  "I was a bigot."