Comments | sapience: A bright spot with regard to Prop 8

sapience

A bright spot with regard to Prop 8

Nov 06, 2008 10:43

07 March 2000, California passed prop 22 (Limit on Marriage):
Yes 4,618,673 61.4%
No 2,909,370 38.6%
margin: 22.8%

As it stands right now, here are the figures for prop 8:
Yes 5,387,939 52.5%
No 4,883,460 47.5%
margin: 5.0%

Now I want you to think about all the reasons that have been posited about why prop 8 passed. And ( Read more... )

Comments 6

alsoname November 7 2008, 06:50:51 UTC

I might have already told this story before, but my grandmother was one of the people who voted for Prop 22 in 2000 and against Prop 8 in 2008 ( ... )

sapience November 8 2008, 20:08:33 UTC

I think I have read the story before, but it bears repeating, and I was glad to read it again.

I hope that as popular entertainment increases its representation of queer characters and same-sex couples living "normal" lives, rather than the current focus on sex, homophobia will decrease dramatically. I was reading recently that it used to be that, in the White House, a Black man was not allowed to be alone in a room with a White woman, for fear that he might not be able to control himself. That sounds beyond ridiculous to us now (and makes me quite angry), but that's the way it was back then. I am confident that the propositions that passed in CA, AZ, AK, and FL will seem just as ridiculous to the descendants of the people who voted in favor of them.

spoonless November 9 2008, 09:49:09 UTC

What exactly did Prop 22 do? Is it possible that more people voted against Prop 8 because it was a lot more crazy (ie, actually changing the California constitution to ensure marriage inequality?)

sapience November 9 2008, 19:04:13 UTC

Prop 22 changed the civil code, rather than the constitution. That's why same-sex marriages were illegal here until the state supreme court invalidated it because it was unconstitutional. The only recourse on a state level left to those who oppose same-sex marriage was therefore to amend the constitution. While it is, of course, possible that there are those who voted in favor of prop 22, but voted against prop 8 because it changed the constitution, I can't speculate whether it was an appreciable number.

spoonless November 9 2008, 19:15:00 UTC

Hmmm... well if the wording was pretty much identical, then I think you're right--not many people would have noticed or cared whether it was changing civil code or the constitution. So it does look like we are making progress. Part of it may be in mobilizing the gay rights activists more, and part of it may be in educating people who hadn't thought of it much (and having it be explicitly legal for a while may have helped with that part a lot).

Sadly, it seems like a hard thing to change now that it's actually a part of the constitution. But some day!

spoonless November 9 2008, 19:20:31 UTC

Sadly, it seems like a hard thing to change now that it's actually a part of the constitution. But some day!

Actually, you could probably calculate when it's going to happen by looking at the ages of the people who voted no vs yes. My suspicion is that it's the "over 50" vote that really made it pass--they grew up in a time where it was completely unacceptable to even talk about it.