One of the biggest fears with regards to this election for many here on DailyKos in recent weeks hasn't been that Obama will lose or that the Democrats will not get a solid mandate in the House and Senate, but rather that those things will come to pass, but that progressives will take a big punch to the gut at the end of the night if Proposition 8 passes in California.
For those that don't know or haven't been paying attention, Prop 8 seeks to nullify the California Supreme Court ruling from May that upheld the right to marry, including for same sex couples. According to my RSS aggregator, since Oct 19 there have been 61 DKos diaries with the tag "Gay Marriage" and numerous more with tags of Prop 8. Prop 8 hasn't just been the most discussed ballot initiative here, the election over Prop 8 has generated attention far and wide across the country. The only race this cycle which has eclipsed it in spending is the Presidential race.
As a candidate for President, Sen. Obama has repeatedly claimed to support "full equality" for same sex couples, but Obama's notion of "full equality" is in reality nothing more than a half-baked rekindling of some good 'ole Jim Crow segregation. When confronted at the LOGO Presidential Forum that his "full equality" position "comes across as sounding separate, but equal," constitutional scholar Barack Obama attempted to dodge the segregationist label continuing with his internally contradicting rhetoric saying
Well, look, when my parents got married in 1960 or '61, it would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the South. So obviously, this is something that I understand intimately. It's something that I care about.
So he understands and cares enough about segregationist laws that he wants to dredge them back up and apply them to another group of minorities?
Obama has gone on to use right wing language to talk about marriage, saying marriage is "also a sacred union" where "God's in the mix" in front of Rick Warren's Saddleback Church. Instead of trying to make clear that civil marriage and religious marriage are two totally separate, independent institutions, he repeatedly has reenforced the conflation of the two to the extent that I refused to vote for him. I otherwise had some measure of respect for him and his positions, though I certainly believe he's been far too conservative on many issues. Alas, no candidate is perfect, but after his MTV interview broadcast this morning where he purports to oppose Prop 8, I have lost all respect for the man. My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw the clip. Obama's statement was as follows
I think it's unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them.
Excuse me? "Who cares about another person?" As if using the right wing IBMIBAMAAW isn't insulting enough, the relationship shared by those in same sex relationships has been demoted to the level of "car[ing] about another person!!!!!" Senator Obama, that is an insult of the highest order. Apparently you can't even describe relationships between people of the same sex with respect or acknowledge what those couples feel for each other. The word you should have used, Senator Obama, the word that properly describes the emotion that those couples have for each other, Senator Obama, is simple: LOVE.
Being a same sex couple isn't easy anywhere in this country, even California. Society has long stacked the deck against same sex couples. They have been harassed, persecuted, vilified, intimidated and denigrated. They've had to endure laws designed to keep them apart, to prevent any form of legal recognition. They have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for durable and medical powers of attorney, wills, contracts and other legal documents that are all conveyed with a marriage license, which costs less than a tenth of the price. They have to deal with enormous complex tax issues, especially if their employers do the moral thing and extend benefits to their partners. They have to deal with homophobes that denigrate what they have together, saying their relationships are built on sex, calling them evil, sinners, degenerates. They have to deal with people calling them and their relationship vile, disgusting, immoral, unnatural.
And you think they do it because they "care[] about each other?"
It is love.
THIS IS LOVE:
THIS IS LOVE:
