I am sorry I have to write this. I hate to tell people they have to put their lives on hold for the greater good. I know a lot of you will hate me for saying it, but I have to say it. The grief over Prop 8 has gone too far.
everyone, gay or straight, please! for the first time in a long time we have a strong left-of-center coalition which would allow us to provide health care for everyone, fix education, stop the war on science, bring peace to the middle east, and so much, so much more...
each of us has issues they deeply care about personally: for starters I would like reproductive rights to be written into the constitution, but i realize that cannot be right now. obama can either do all the things i enumerated above, or waste all his capital on writing a pro-choice constitutional amendment. so the amendment has to wait, once more.
the same is true for gay marriage. the public is not ready. we have come so far - civil unions are now a consensus. use civil unions! the more of them there are, the less afraid homophobes will become, when they see the sky isn't falling, and they aren't smitten by God's lightening, and their children still end up growing mostly straight, or whatever the f_ck else they are scared of. Then they will accept gay marriage, and in the mean time - let's stop the war and provide health care to everyone, so that they can marry or civil-unionize before getting ill or killed.
PS. i am very disappointed at the hateful language of some comments. it's as if i voted for prop 8. if you hate that much the people who are sympathetic to you, how will you ever win over your enemies. to not compromise often means to lose. i just want to say that my right to marry was never as important to me as my right to see a doctor. i'd gladly trade my marriage for a civil union if i am guaranteed health care for life. i just think people can love each other, married or not, as long as they are alive and healthy. also they can hate each other while married. marriage is mostly a religious scam anyway.
and after everyone is done throwing eggs: you will never win with this with-us-or-against-us logic, by alienating your friends because they are not friends enough, or by constantly seeing the perfect as the enemy of the good. i mean, good luck, but this attitude will get you nowhere. you will scream at each other how much you agree at each other, but no one else will ever hear you. how sad.
UPDATED with some responses to comments:
a number of you seem to interpret my diary as if i have told you to "shut up". i am not telling anyone to shut up. i am only saying - stop threatening to sabotage everything else Obama does. don't lose sight of the other issues. i am and will be a vocal proponent of full equality by changing minds but without blackmail or threats.
Some of you say they don't need no friend like me. but no, you can't do w/o my support, neither will i withdraw it even after the beating i have taken here. i know it's a difficult time for you guys right now and sometimes when people are hurt they lash out at the wrong person. those you truly hate read the drudgereport.