Friday, November 07, 2008

Here's the thing about Prop 8 and other anti-gay discrimination

The ever-righteous ding has laid down the law over at Bitch Ph.D. today. Her post is called "Party Over: A Primer on Equality and Prop 8 - From a Brown Straight Girl!"

Some in the media and the blogosphere have laid the blame for Prop 8 passing squarely at the feet of black or Latino voters, especially the churchgoers among them. Au contraire, says ding:
Let's cut to the chase: it was straight people who tanked equal rights for gays in California.
Ding doesn't care what your objection to same-sex marriage derives from. It's a matter of that cornerstone of America, equal rights:
IF SOCIETY WORKS ONE WAY FOR ONE PARTICULAR GROUP OF PEOPLE, TO THEIR BENEFIT, THEN IT BETTER WORK THE EXACT SAME WAY FOR EVERYONE ELSE.
Go read the full post. It's a good one.

********

There's a rally in Chicago tomorrow, a rally against Prop 8 and the other anti-LGBT measures that voters passed this week in Florida, Arkansas, and Arizona:

THIS SATURDAY
NOVEMBER 8
5:30 TO 7:30 P.M.
AT THE CORNER OF 
WACKER & STATE

6 comments:

Mignon said...

I was just commenting on the same issue on a FB discussion board. I don't have a well-prepared argument, but I don't think ding's is either. I like her comment that "straight people tanked equal rights in CA," but she spent a good part of her post discussing why people (and specific people of color) should have voted against prop 8. She wanted to leave race out of it, but she couldn't.

It is a fact that the majority of Latinos and African Americans voted for prop 8, and while racially divisive arguments are unproductive, it is worth picking apart the voting trends so that those groups of people can be better-informed.

Ding did this in part by guessing that perhaps a segment of black voters believe "that gay thing is what white folks do." There are many more reasons why people of color (not sure about Asians) voted for prop 8, and we need to get to the root cause and educate voters in a way that's not accusatory or condescending. Educate to uplift.

Orange said...

Mignon, I think ding was just writing from her background—she's black, she goes to church, and her dad's a minister. Straight people in that setting need to do the same thing straight people in other settings need to do—speak out in favor of equality.

In California, the bulk of Yes votes on Prop 8 still came from white people, didn't they?

Mignon said...

You're right, and I think after looking at the demographics some more, the African-American vote wasn't the tipping factor - it was actually older voters (40+) who voted Yes in greater numbers. I saw some calculations (using some broad assumptions) showing that if black voters followed the same trend as white voters, it still could have passed, as they represented less than 7% of total voters.

And FWIW, white people voted 55-45 against it.

I should have been a demographic statistician. I love this stuff.

Anonymous said...

Yay Orange! Another eloquent post about Prop 8. And thanks for posting the info about the rally - we're planning on going!

Cheryl, Carrie, and Isaac

Anonymous said...

New to your blog... Have you seen this?

http://www.mormonsstoleourrights.com/

They're trying to take away Mormon's tax-exempt status. Apparently, "no organization, including a church, may qualify for IRC section 501(c)(3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying)."

It's fun to think about... I signed even though I don't think it'll happen.

xoxo
katrina

The Absent Minded Housewife said...

I am so angry that the people in the culture I come from gave so much to be so unloving, uncharitable, unchristlike. So much good could have been done in the world with their donations instead.

My husband ranted on this, on his blog, a few days back. http://utahpoet.blogspot.com/2008/11/mea-culpa.html

Now the line I've been hearing from the culture is that they are being persecuted for standing up for what they believe (from states outside of CA). They can't see that they want to force the tenets of their religion on others which is against their 11th article of faith...and that all of it has nothing to do with the rights of people in a civil society. They, in turn, petulently use the persecution line after spreading untruths about gay marriage in their lobbying and campaigning.

I'm just so disgusted.