We Are Still Winning By a Mile!
I recall anticipating for weeks this year's November election across the country, in particular, Maine & Washington state. At 5:00 PM PST (8:00 PM EST) on election night I sat in front of my computer browsing several websites at a time trying to find exit polls or any kind of insider information that might give me a clue or two that could foretell both the Maine & Washington results. I grew extremely aexcited as I saw the first results come in heavily favoring the pro-gay marriage side. My hopes and enthusiasm were tempered as more results arrived evening out the score. My heart sank as the results went back and forth only to see the anti-gay marriage side pull ahead permanently and winning by a vote of 53%-47%.
I was deeply disappointed in Maine. I really believed gay marriage had a shot at surviving in a moderate New England state that eschews unbridled religious fundamentalism.
However, as I thought more deeply about I was reminded of a high school football game I watched in which our team was badly losing 45-7 in the middle of the 4th quarter. When we finally scored another touch down to make the score 45-14 there were quiet cheers and claps from fans in a stadium that started out at full capacity but by that time was half empty. We all knew that late touchdown really didn't matter because we were going to lose the game anyways. You see...the anti-gay rights forces have been steadily and surely been losing this fight for the last three decades.
From society's acceptance and understanding of gays, to the idolization of gays in popular culture, they clearly have been losing. From anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws being passed by states and municipalities to domestic partnerships, civil unions and YES...even gay marriage in a few states being passed...the anti-gay rights forces are losing badly. One opinion writer made a very salient when he stated that gay marriage is ONLY arena that the anti-gay rights forces have left where they can win. And how many times and how many statistics have we seen that suggest gay marriage support is strongest with the 18-30 crowd and weakest amongst the elderly. Time is clearly on our side and remember, we had other victories that night as well: gay man elected City Council President in Detroit, Anti-discrimination ordinance passes in Kalamazoo, MI and lesbian woman is the highest vote getter in the Houston mayoral race. What the loss in Maine obviously represents in my football analogy is a late but meaningless touchdown in a game that the anti-gay forces they have been losing badly throughout and are destined to lose.
Meanwhile, results started pouring in on the West Coast in Washington state in our favor. I was just as frustrated after Tuesday at the gross over-emphasis on loss in Maine and the complete overlooking of the significance of our victory in Washington. Washington's Referendum 71 gave voters the opportunity to give their stamp of approval on a law passed by the state legislature and signed into law by the governor expanding domestic partnerships same-sex couples and elderly couples and it appears to have passed. The ballot read as follows:
Ballot Title
The legislature passed Engrossed Second Substitute Senate Bill 5688 concerning rights and responsibilities of state-registered domestic partners and voters have filed a sufficient referendum petition on this bill. This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations accorded state-registered same-sex and senior domestic partners to be equivalent to those of married spouses, except that a domestic partnership is not a marriage. Should this bill be:
Approved _
Rejected _
During the bill's legislative enactment last spring, the local media had dubbed it the "Everything But Marriage Law." The name was bandied about further during the campaign. Gay rights opponents made the predictable charges that the bill is "marriage by another name." This law is clearly something beyond a simple domestic registration. Just read the below hysteria from the Protect Marriage Washington website:
SB 5688 is a 110 page document which includes the phrase "marriage shall apply equally to state registered domestic partnerships" 180 times.
SB 5688 was packaged and presented to the legislature as a Domestic Partnerships expansion of benefits. In truth, it will demolish the state's historical understanding and definition of marriage as that of uniting a man and a woman for life...
To be sure...gay rights opponents really do have something to worry about. A wikipedia search on the state's domestic partnership law gives just a small listing of the rights conferred by the Everything But Marriage" law:
- Hospital visitation, jail and prison visitations, health care decision-making, and information-access rights
- Inheritance rights and administration of the estate when the domestic partner dies without a will. A surviving partner would be considered the next of kin unless the deceased partner had a child or a will that had other stipulations.
- Rights regarding cemetery plots, disposition of remains, anatomical donations, and ordering of autopsies
- A surviving domestic partner may bring a wrongful death action based on the death of the other partner
- Testimonial privileges
- Community property rules apply
- Dissolution laws apply (with only a few exceptions)
- Domestic partners may sue on behalf of the community
- Domestic violence statutes apply
- Certain property transfers between partners are not taxed
- State veterans benefits apply
- Appointed and elected officials’ domestic partners are subject to the same laws and regulations that apply to officials’ spouses
- The right to use sick leave to care for a domestic partner
- The right to wages and benefits when a domestic partner is injured, and to unpaid wages upon the death of a domestic partner
- The right to unemployment and disability insurance benefits
- The right to workers’ compensation coverage
- Insurance rights, including rights under group policies, policy rights after the death of a domestic partner, conversion rights and continuing coverage rights
- Rights related to adoption, child custody and child support
- Business succession rights.
Newsweek writer Sarah Kliff made another excellent point:
While gay-rights activists mourn their loss in Maine, they should not discount the projected victory of Referendum 71 in Washington state. If the measure passes, the Evergreen State will be the first to approve gay equality by direct will of the people, rather than the court or legislature.
The voters of Washington state, being fully aware of what the "Everything But Marriage" law is (you can certainly bet that the anti-gay rights forces made them aware of it), went ahead and approved it 53%-47% (the opposite result of Maine). An entire state has voted in favor of our rights. Perhaps THIS is the floodgate that has opened up.
Hidden under the media hysteria of losing in Maine was a huge victory in Washington. In Maine he anti-gay rights forces scored a late touchdown that is too little too late and many in the media as well as some gay rights activist seemed to have forgotten that we're still winning this game by a mile.
So my suggestion to all of us is to celebrate this HUGE victory in Washington state and get back to work in Maine, California and elsewhere. We are in the drivers seat in this is our game to lose.