Get on with repeal or ditch the constitution!

October 30, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Three cheers to Roland Stringfellow’s blog on Unite the Fight’s web site.

Here we are a year later and where do we find ourselves in the fight for marriage equality in California? Two major camps debating on whether to return to the ballot in 2010 or 2012 and we have to ask ourselves the question, “Have we learned from our mistakes?” Are egos and attitudes being altered in order for power to be shared and different voices heard? Has a clear strategy been created and presented? And what about our motivation – are we still angry and humiliated from our loss a year ago that we are planning to return to the polls with revenge? (”I’ll show you who is a second class citizen.”)

Stringfellow writes on behalf of the faith communities in California who are organizing to overturn Proposition 8.

There are many wonderful, hard working individuals who are putting their hearts on the line as they strive to make our world a more accepting and loving place for LGBTQI people and to make marriage equality a reality for us all. If our goal is to repair the divisions that exist in our society as we work for equality, we must examine and ask ourselves, “Do divisions exist within our movement for equality”?I agree with his view that we ought not to be divided over the 2010 vs. 2012 issue. It is an absurd dissipation of energies, and the supposed merits of each idea (get on the next ballot at all costs, or get on the presidential ballot when more liberals turn out) are probably stirred with personality issues that bubble over behind closed doors–even in the LGBT communities.Unfortunately, well-intended internal battles are part of human nature. You may have read or heard that another proposal is out there to completely revamp or replace the California Constitution, which would of course blow away the Proposition 8 language now enshrined by amendment.But even in this, there is division. Repair California is interested in “incremental change”, and filed ballot language yesterday for a measure that would call a limited Constitutional Convention (see press release; ballot language; fact sheet). Meanwhile, California Forward (www.caforward.org) has a different agenda: “fundamental change.” The two groups talk to one another, which is hopeful that there won’t be unnecessary intra-agenda fighting. But what worries me is that Repair California says it won’t touch our issue. What does that mean?

Mark Carlson in the Lutheran Office of Public Policy in Sacramento stated in an e-mail yesterday, “Jim Wunderman, the leader of Repair California, emphasized that the convention would not deal with marriage, abortion, gun control, or prayer in the schools” [italics added]. But the lunatic cesspools of power and money which seek to control those very things have to be drained of their toxic influence. But California Forward, so far, only addresses “fundamental change” in the area of money and budget, not civil rights.

It is all too clear that California is still ruled by several lunatic fringes. Yes, I know, the Religious Reich characterizes us that same way, but we know the truth. And we demonstrate our sanity every time one more of us comes out and tells the truth about our authentic selves, our lives, and our family relationships. Coming out remains the single most powerful tool we have for defeating conservative extremism. It is they who are on the lunatic fringes, because in addition to barrels of cash, they rely on lies, stereotypes fear and paranoia to push their anti-LGBT agenda.

Hopefully, we in the LGBT communities will be energized by what happens at next week’s polls. If marriage equality is set back further by the vote on Question 1 in Maine, for example, it may kick us into taking the reactionary lunatics far more seriously. It has, after all, come to light that the same money bags which financed Proposition 8 are pouring more of their cash into the Main steal-our-rights campaign. On the other hand, if the move to repeal Maine’s marriage rights law fails, it may energize us to claim our self-respect and go back at reversing the damage done by Proposition 8.

—Pastor Dan Hooper

Also see: Equality Events; includes Rachel Maddow coverage of Question 1 and interview’s Maine’s Catholic Pro-Marriage Governor (9 minutes).

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