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Loading ...Protests mark gay marriage rollback
11.06.2008 9:27am EST
(Los Angeles, California) Actor George Takei and longtime partner Brad Altman were the first to receive a marriage license in West Hollywood when a court cleared the way for gay marriage earlier this year.
Best known for his role as Mr. Sulu on “Star Trek,” Takei on Wednesday was disappointed but philosophical about California voters’ decision to yank that right by passing a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to heterosexual couples.“There are going to be heartbreaks, setbacks and sacrifices to be made,” he said, “but we will soldier on.”
The passage of Proposition 8 stirred anger, protests, lawsuits and a deep sense of loss among gays in California. At least three legal challenges were filed by Wednesday night and others were being prepared, ban opponents said.
More than 1,000 people took to the streets against the ban in Los Angeles and West Hollywood, blocking traffic. Police said at least four people were detained.
Hundreds also gathered on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall. Some held candles and carried signs that read, “We all deserve the freedom to marry.”
It was unclear what would happen to the estimated 18,000 gay and lesbian couples, many from other states, who married after same-sex marriage was legalized in California in June.
On the other side of the issue, supporters of the ban hailed the outcome of the vote.
“Government did not create marriage, and neither politicians nor legislators have the right to redefine its basic meaning,” said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage California.
“Common sense, and concern for the common good, trumped ideology, bigotry and power politics here in California,” he said in a statement.
Andrew Pugno, attorney for the coalition of religious and social conservative groups that sponsored the proposition, said they planned to defend the measure, saying the legal action is “an insult to California voters and an attack on the initiative process itself.”
Among those voting for the ban was Denise Fernandez, 57, of Sacramento. “I believe a Christian is held accountable, and we have to make a difference.”
Many gay marriage supporters had hoped that a strong Democratic turnout for presidential winner Barack Obama would cement the right to marry extended by the state Supreme Court in May.
But the success of Obama, who does not support same-sex marriage but had opposed the gay marriage ban, did not translate into a win for gay marriage. Amendments to ban gay marriage also were approved in Arizona and Florida.
With 99 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday night, 52 percent of those voting in California favored the ban versus 48 percent against.
In the Castro, San Francisco’s gay neighborhood, the marriage ban’s success squelched what had been a boisterous celebration Tuesday night.
A crowd swarmed from the neighborhood’s many bars into the streets immediately after Obama was declared the presidential winner. Police cordoned off a block in the heart of the district as disco music coursed through giant speakers.
But the party was over a few hours later.
“It’s very disappointing,” Michael Walker said outside the Moby Dick bar, resigned that the measure was going to win. “It’s discrimination.”
In downtown San Francisco, a city where a majority of residents voted against the ban, residents were disappointed by its success.
“I feel sad,” said Venkaf Mannava, 30, a computer programmer who is married with three children. “It’s a personal decision and we should not say how other people should live their lives. They should be free to love and marry who they want.”
Despite intense disappointment, some newlyweds took comfort in the fact that millions of Californians had voted to validate their relationships.
“I’m really OK,” said Diana Correia, of Berkeley, who married her partner of 18 years, Cynthia Correia, on Sunday in front of the couple’s two children and 80 relatives and friends. “I hope the marriage holds, but we are already married in our hearts, so nobody can take that away.”
In Los Angeles, Altman said having the state recognize his marriage to Takei was “extremely meaningful to me, but our relationship will continue and we will live long and prosper no matter what happens on the legal front.”
We cannot ignore the fact that 70% of African Americans voted for Prop 8 – the black church is one of the most powerful forces spreading homophobia in the United States. For me it dims the shinning light for Obama – how can you stand up for rights for one group and not another.
One good thing that may come out of this is that it will galvanize forces in the gay community to fight for equality from every angle. We need to take a multi-faceted approach, fighting for our rights but also fighting against and trying to educate those who would take away our rights. We’ve seen clearly that the Catholic and Mormon churches are not our friends, and we must organize legal challenges to have their tax exempt status revoked. Any church that can afford to spend millions to defeat the civil rights of a minority population should not enjoy tax exempt status at our expense. We pay taxes, and our taxes support their tax exempt status. As for the overwhelming percentage of black Americans who voted overwhelmingly to deny us our rights based on their “religious” beliefs, we must educate the black community to the truth of their “religious” beliefs and educate them on the role that the bible and christianity has played in their slavery and oppression. And finally, we must speak with our wallets, and not buy products from gay-unfriendly companies, and not visit and spend our tourist dollars in gay-unfriendly states like California.
the black community has taken the Oval Office and the mantle of hate. they’ve become the bigots and the oppressors they fought all these years. congratulations! hope you’re proud of yourselves.
and to all of you black gays living on ‘the down-low’– your cowardice over coming out helped bring this about.
i have a sinking feeling when Obama said in his victory speech ‘we might not get there in one term’ that he was speaking to the gay community. time will tell if he throws us under the bus until a hypothetical 2nd term with a hypothetical majority in all branches of power to do us any good.
the warm fuzzies for Obama are fading fast. he’s certainly the best we could hope for right now, just hoping he doesn’t let us down like so many others before.
What Brian Brown said was a good point. The government should not be able to define marriage. That is why the government should refer to all unions, straight or gay, as civil unions. The word marriage is loaded word that has both social and religious implications. The government should not be the organization that determines what this means to the individual. Let people’s separate communities and religious communities decide for themselves and not the government. Maybe someone can purpose that proposition.
What lessons the Obama Campaign learned from the past elections and organizing people was, I think, never used to fight this hateful proposition. Gays are more worried about who to have party with or what to wear than be concerned with what their neighbors gonna vote for. The community needs to face the fact that alot of people dont like the way we live but we need them to know they have to live with us and respect us. We need them to win this fight.
When Obama says that he opposes the ban, but opposes gay marriage he contradicted himself. When you stick a “but” in the middle of the sentence, you negate a portion of the sentence. All his supporters heard was “against gay marriage” which only reinforces what the black community hears regularly from their pastors…along with the white evangelicals. I am most disapointed in the black community though…I expected more tolerance from those who have lived with intolerance for much of their lives. I’m used to the white bigots. My biggest bottom line in this debate: I really don’t give a damn what my president’s religious beliefs are. I’m good with the don’t ask, don’t tell kind of relationship there, as were our founding fathers. Get the religious fervor out of MY White House please! W has had that general conversation with our country for far too long…let’s get back to treating all citizens equally as happened in the 60’s for the blacks, only now it’s our turn….and yes, that could include all you down-low dudes out there. Grow some and stand up!
Couldn’t agree with you guys more! You chickenshit “happilly” married to a woman closet cases and general On The “DL” really REALLY need to cut this bullshit!! Something else that burns my ass is this hangin’ out with the heteros BS!! Believe it or not folks our hetero “allies” are really anything BUT!!! Oil and water will NEVER mix because it CAN’T MIX!!! GET IT!!! We need to concentrate on fixing our OWN backyards and let the friggin’ breeders go off somewhere and do their thing! It was HETEROSEXUALS who sealed our fate tuesday evening and as far this FAGOT is concerned we need to keep our involvement with them to a strict MINIMUM!!! We owe those fuckers absolutely NOTHING!!! I expect absolutely NOTHING in return from them! Nor would I ever expect ANYTHING from them except a fuckin’ constant slap in the face!!! OUR COMMUNITY COMES FIRST!! It comes before the blacks, latinos, asians ect,ect,ect. OUR SEXUALITY COMES FIRST!! Everything else comes second!! Including our involvement with the dumbfuck heteros and their ignorant viewpoints!! Follow? Religion?!? Pfffft!! A convient skirt for idiot heteros and closet case homos to hide behind!! Nothing more NOTHING LESS!! PERIOD!! Please folks I implore you!! On bended knee I implore you all…PLEASE let’s just focus on OURSELVES for a change! At least until we know were we all stand with this Obama character. I’m not downing him as of right now but past experience in dealing with hetero beuracrats has shown us how easy it truly is to be fucked over by them!!! Vote for ANY AND ALL PROGRESSIVE GAY AND LESBIAN CANDIDATES when and wherever you can! Put OUR community FIRST AND FOREMOST!!!! After this bigoted fiasco of prop hate THIS IS THE WAKE UP CALL WE ALL NEEDED TO HEAR!!!! Homos FIRST, Heteros LAST!!
Couldn’t agree with you guys more! You chickenshit “happilly” married to a woman closet cases and general On The “DL” really REALLY need to cut this bullshit!! Something else that burns my ass is this hangin’ out with the heteros BS!! Believe it or not folks our hetero “allies” are really anything BUT!!! Oil and water will NEVER mix because it CAN’T MIX!!! GET IT!!! We need to concentrate on fixing our OWN backyards and let the friggin’ breeders go off somewhere and do their thing! It was HETEROSEXUALS who sealed our fate tuesday evening and as far this FAGOT is concerned we need to keep our involvement with them to a strict MINIMUM!!! We owe those fuckers absolutely NOTHING!!! I expect absolutely NOTHING in return from them! Nor would I ever expect ANYTHING from them except a fuckin’ constant slap in the face!!! OUR COMMUNITY COMES FIRST!! It comes before the blacks, latinos, asians ect,ect,ect. OUR SEXUALITY COMES FIRST!! Everything else comes second!! Including our involvement with the dumbfuck heteros and their ignorant viewpoints!! Follow? Religion?!? Pfffft!! A convient skirt for idiot heteros and closet case homos to hide behind!! Nothing more NOTHING LESS!! PERIOD!! Please folks I implore you!! On bended knee I implore you all…PLEASE let’s just focus on OURSELVES for a change! At least until we know were we all stand with this Obama character. I’m not downing him as of right now but past experience in dealing with hetero beuracrats has shown us how easy it truly is to be fucked over by them!!! Vote for ANY AND ALL PROGRESSIVE GAY AND LESBIAN CANDIDATES when and wherever you can! Put OUR community FIRST AND FOREMOST!!!! After this bigoted fiasco of prop hate THIS IS THE WAKE UP CALL WE ALL NEEDED TO HEAR!!!! Homos FIRST, Heteros LAST!!
The argument that governments didn’t create marriage, that God did… blah blah is of course debatable and maybe even a bit silly, but let’s just leave that premise be. Just ignore it. I say: To each his/her, or his/his, or her/her their own.
Instead let’s argue on the merits of what we DO KNOW to be a fact: that governments created a process of civil laws in order to join two parties together: these could be people, governments, even law offices, you name it. These laws codified and legally bound three parties (at a minimum) together: the happy “couple” and the government. This process served everyone well by further extending legal control over its citizenry and their business, and in turn giving the other party the legal protections it needed. Sort of like a ménage-á-trois when you really stop to think about it.
God, sad as it might seem, really had little, if anything at all to do with this process. Think of kings and queens of old: did they marry for love? Hardly. Their unions were simply a means for forging treaties and alliances. Of course they used religion to make a grand statement full of pomp, (and honestly speaking, who doesn’t love a spectacle?). But, I repeat, sadly, God played virtually no role. OK yes, His most heavenly majesty was invoked, but beyond that, He was, well, sort of a bit player at best.
Anyway, back to the issue: the obvious solution to the debate over the word “marriage” is simply to remove that word from the legal lexicon. The law should only recognize unions that bind for legal reasons – i.e.: civil unions. Civil unions, not religious ones, otherwise known by the common, if not legal, vernacular: marriage. Let religion have its word. Who needs it? Instead, civil unions would from now on be the only legally accepted term applied to all couples.
Furthermore, might I suggest a referendum to change the California constitution outlawing all those existing “marriages” performed by anyone other than a civil judge? And of course, not to appear mean-spirited, the law would NOT be made retroactive IF those couples were “married” before, say Jan 1, 1900. Anyone after that date would need to reapply, pay the license fee, and go before the judge. Only then would the law accept these unions as valid ones. Seems fair to me.
Many countries take their separation of Church and State a bit more seriously that we do. Mexico is just one example. Want legal rights as a couple? See the judge. Want a marriage? See the preacher, but, you don’t get any rights. For those, go back and see the judge, THEN go to the preacher if you want, so that God can do whatever it is He does to make your “marriage” sanctious (is that a word?). Sweet and simple, everyone wins, not the least of which would be the so-called “marriage” industry.
And the sky hasn’t fallen, not here, not there, not then, not anywhere, not anytime. Of course, in the long run we all know we will prevail, the only question being: how soon? For THAT answer I make my supplication to God.
Amen.
To truthsayer – I appreciate and fully understand your anger. I am angry. However, I do have to say that I fully disagree with you on our straight friends and allies. You cannot lump everyone together and turn on them just because we were dealt a huge blow. Just as we cannot lump all our black brothers and sisters together and start “hating” them back because of their overwhelming support for passing the amendment. We need to fight back for our rights and we need to be vocal but we should not become the thing that we dispise. We are a group that relishes diversity – we are the poster children for that and I LOVE our community for that. I was surprised by just how much the decision in CA impacted me here in CO – the anger, resentment, pain…I wanted to lash out against the black and the religious…but ultimately that will not help us win this battle, nor is it the right thing to do. On the flip side, just read these blogs – in rejecting us on Tuesday, they have stirred up a hornets nest and hopefully this decision will inspire enough anger for our community to actually start coming together and being MORE vocal, taking MORE action, not just ask for our rights but INSIST that we be treated equally. Maybe its time that we start taking to the streets again like in the 70’s and showing that we are not a group that will just lie down and go away but THAT WE ARE HERE, WE ARE QUEER and that we DEMAND EQUALITY!!!!!!!!
I’m French and gay, I sympathize with gay Californians. Keep hope. I write to the supreme court of California to ask for the maintain of same-sex marriage.
For those fed up, I expect to see a new type of USA emigration. The constitutional refugee. That would be defined as minority citizens whose basic human rights have been constitutionally stripped by the majority and who decide to immigrate to a country or state that recognizes the rights of all of its citizens (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Canada and New Zealand.)
I am always struck by the “religious wrong” (they truly are, you know) The main argument they use against us it from Leviticus, which, if you read the 16th english translation (known as the King James Version) you get a sense that we are indeed to be villified. HOWEVER, if you read the original text, in the original LANGUAGE, it comes out very differently: “Thou shalt not lie down with another man in a woman’s bed, it is an abomination” This was all about keeping things seperate, which was very important in that time period. Basically what is being said there is “It is HER bed, go find one of your own!”
I have used this argument countles times, and I always get the same blank-faced blinking look from the Heterosexual I am arguing with. (Seems many breeders have few brains for self thought)
On top of THAT, King James was a FLAMING queen, the Church was using THIS argument to get what they wanted out of him (essentially holding his feet to the fire…..LITERALLY)
I have VERY little use for organized “religion”…… even less NOW>
For the past few days I’ve been trolling through many comments for an against the passing of Prop 8. What has overwhelmed me is the biggotry and hatred on both sides.
While I agree that it is distressing that 70% of the African American community voted to take away our civil rights, and that many in that community continue to refer to us as “perverts”, I don’t think the way to gain acceptance or to heal the division in our society is through more hatred. How would Harvey Milk deal with this situation? How would Dr. King?
Emotions may run high. I know I’ve been personally wounded by this decision, and at first I was angry, but anger and more hatred will no fix this problem. Hating straight people will not fix this problem. Only by living our lives in the open, not being afraid to speak the truth, and pressing on in our fight for rights will we overcome the deep split in our country and in the world.
Not all black men and women hate gays. Not all straight people hate gays. Not all religous folks hate gays. To aim our own discontent at any of those groups is to make ourselves just as bad as the groups trying to opress us.
We will win this fight, and many others. At least we have another queer in congress now, am I right?
There is no denying that the African-American vote was against us here. I’m so heartbroken by this, words are difficult to come by. If the South had had the right to amend their constitutions to enshrine slavery, Jim Crow and the three fifths rule because they felt that God gave them moral ground to do so, there would be no Obama. No Martin Luther King.
We stand together as free people with full rights or none of us have those rights. It wasn’t only white faces marching in the 60’s – it was gay and lesbian faces.
There is no celebrating in our house for the Obama victory. The life of my wife and I are in a legal limbo nightmare, and we know, because he said so quite clearly, that Obama is fine with that.
How sad.