What do to about H8.

I meant to post this yesterday, but it was a busy day!

As you are all aware, the California Supreme Court ruled to uphold Proposition 8, the measure passed by California voters last November by a slim majority...the one that wrote into the California Constitution "Only marriages between one man and one woman will be recognized by the state of California." It passed by a slim 52% margin, thanks to efforts by religious groups and right wing groups, and money from the Mormon churches in Utah.

Let me say this now: I don't think the Supreme Court made the right decision. They could have said that equality is more important than majority rule. They could have put California on the forefront of the marriage fight and they could have made us once again a state people look towards for guidance. But they didn't. I don't agree with their choice at all.

But after reading most of their argument, I understand why they came to the decision they did.

The job of the Supreme Court is to uphold the law, not choose what is morally right. We want judges that will look at situations objectively and apply the law as it exists to those situations. It is not the judicial branch's role to make law - that is what the legislature is for, or in the case of California, the people.

The case presented to the court was whether the Proposition was an amendment or a revision to the constitution. A revision requires a much more thorough process involving the legislature (and based on how California's government is being run lately, we all know a revision wouldn't happen). An amendment is simply added to the constitution as long as it falls in line with the rest of the document.

Though the logic might be flawed and the cases cited in the opinion not the best examples, they were very specific that this proposition dealt with one thing: the word "marriage." They were very clear to point out that all rights that gays and lesbians have right now are not affected, they simply are not able to use the word "marriage" to describe their unions, and that Prop 8 did not fundamentally alter the constitution.

However they let 18,000 gay marriages stand, allowing a hollow victory for the GLBT community. So if you got married, congratulations, you're still married! If you didn't, sucks to be you.

The court was in a difficult position. They could either choose to say equal rights above all, or that Californians votes don't matter. A choice of the latter would have set a potentially harmful precedent for future court cases, something that they had to keep in mind. This is not Iowa and our constitution is different and works differently than theirs, so it is not necessarily fair to compare the two.

However we cannot blame the court for their decision. Nor can we say the court is against us. The fact is, the court already gave us the right to marry last year. We celebrated. We rejoiced. We hailed it as a victory. And then WE lost it. The campaign was weak. The opponents were strong. Gays and lesbians were content with the thought that California would never vote for such a discriminatory proposition, so many didn't do anything to act. And look where that got us.

So the question is what now? Where do we go from here? There are already plans to put another proposition to repeal Prop 8 on the ballot in 2010 or 2012, and a federal case has been filed. Are these the right things to do? The only way to undo a voter initiative is with another initiative. Is 2010 or 2012 better? Personally I think 2012 is better. It gives us more time to do what we need to do - talk to and educate people. Show them who we are. Give them our side of the story. Explain to them it's not religion that we are against, it's using religion to influence public policy that we are against.

My main worry about putting "Proposition X - Repeal Ban on Gay Marriage" on the 2010 ballot is the fact that voter turnout will not be as high as in 2012 when we have a presidential election. In 2010 the main race will be for Governor - the problem with that is that if someone like Gavin Newsom (who I'm a fan of, by the way) is running, you can be sure that the right wing will come out in force to defeat him - and us. Again. We'll have to work twice as hard and three times as fast to change people's minds and make sure make sure those who support us get out and vote. I'm not convinced we can do that in 17 months.

The energy at the protest the other night was different than it was in November. Back then it was rage and anger and frustration. Tuesday night it was subdued anger and disappointment and shock, but people were there to show their support for the cause and show that it's not over.

Marching through the streets is not something I think is productive anymore. What we need at these rallies are not just celebrities and mayors telling us that they are supportive and will fight with us, but for people to actually get the crowd involved. Out of the thousands of people who were at the rally that night, 95% of them will go back to their daily lives and not get involved with anything else. There has to be a way to harness that population to get more of them involved (I openly admit I'm generally one of those 95%, but I'm trying to be better).

We can be mad at the Mormons, mad at religions, mad at intolerant people, and all the other people who have wronged us in the past year, but the fact is we need to stop looking back. Proposition 8 is done. It's law. The battle is over and we lost.

It's time to look forward and let the real fight for equality begin.