So it was an emotionally busy and exhausting week in the United States in general and in California in particular. My office was off in Cairo Egypt working on tweaking-the-Internet-meetings and our web team did a record amount of work on the website. That left me with little free time or energy. Between that and Election Day, which not only included the incredibly awesome election of Barak Obama for U.S. President (and I must say I supported Obama as a potential president back when I saw him speak at the DNC back in 2004. Not to brag but…) but the surprising passage of proposition 2 in California which ensures larger cages for farm animals and the heartbreaking constitutional challenge to gay unions.
The ironic combination of those three election results has not been lost on us here in California with the bitter commentary that we expanded the rights of chickens while stomping on the rights of our gay community. In defense of the chickens, I must say I know of no animal rights activist who did not support gay marriage. The problems for proposition 8 were, to my mind, as such:
- Misleading proposition language on the ballot: many folk believed a Yes vote meant they supported gay marriage, not that they supported a ban on gay marriage. This confusing language is usually intentional on the part of the proposition’s proponents. They try to trick you into voting for stuff: get educated before you vote, people.
- Allegedly large amounts of money spent from the Mormon Church in support of the ban on gay unions. If this is true, it's a bit ironic considering other Christian challengers to gay marriage always claim a slippery slope which would lead to a Mormon-style bigamy. Gay haters (or Gayters as I like to call them) make strange bedfellows.
- Other homophobia in various communities.
And although this sucks royally, we have to keep supporting our community with each next step. This is no time to give up. This morning on the Stephanie Miller Show, the commentary-duo Frangela was on the air discussing the alleged lack of support in this proposition from the African-American community, calling on African-American civil rights leaders such as Al Sharpton to speak out against the proposition. Angela V. Shelton (one half of Franglea) has long been an advocate for gay rights and stated unequivocally that “No one is free until we’re all free.”
In other news this week:
