Some thoughts
Nov. 7th, 2008 07:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rymenhildYou all know I'm unhappy, and even angry, that California's Proposition 8 passed. Most of you probably know that I'm a lesbian California voter who believes in marriage as an institution and would like to get married, to a woman, at some point in my future. I'm watching the legal challenges to Prop 8 and looking for anything I can do to help return marriage equality to California and to other parts of the United States.
That said, I want to say something else. I am seriously uncomfortable with the rising anti-Mormonism I'm seeing among supporters of same-sex marriage. Whatever Mormon church leadership did or didn't do to support the marriage ban, we who care about GLBT rights should not be scapegoating religious (or ethnic or racial - I've seen that too) groups for the success of Prop 8.
Casting blame is not going to help us. Making enemies of religious people isn't going to get us anywhere. Making friends with people who've never knowingly met non-heterosexuals before, on the other hand, is a proven way to change people's votes. Look at the difference between the 61.4% vote for a same-sex marriage ban in 2000 and the 52.5% vote in 2008. These numbers changed because voters met the male couples who lived in their neighborhoods, or learned that their cousins were bisexual, or saw Ellen deGeneres and George Takei Altman on TV. The numbers aren't good enough yet, I know, but picking fights with those people (whoever those people may happen to be) is not going to improve them.
If you disagree with me, feel free to say so -- but please do so politely. Thank you.
That said, I want to say something else. I am seriously uncomfortable with the rising anti-Mormonism I'm seeing among supporters of same-sex marriage. Whatever Mormon church leadership did or didn't do to support the marriage ban, we who care about GLBT rights should not be scapegoating religious (or ethnic or racial - I've seen that too) groups for the success of Prop 8.
Casting blame is not going to help us. Making enemies of religious people isn't going to get us anywhere. Making friends with people who've never knowingly met non-heterosexuals before, on the other hand, is a proven way to change people's votes. Look at the difference between the 61.4% vote for a same-sex marriage ban in 2000 and the 52.5% vote in 2008. These numbers changed because voters met the male couples who lived in their neighborhoods, or learned that their cousins were bisexual, or saw Ellen deGeneres and George Takei Altman on TV. The numbers aren't good enough yet, I know, but picking fights with those people (whoever those people may happen to be) is not going to improve them.
If you disagree with me, feel free to say so -- but please do so politely. Thank you.
