Okay, so here's this. I really hope this is all I am going to say about this, since I prefer to keep this journal about fandom stuff and general happy-making things. It's not a diary - it's an indulgence.

Re: Prop 8.
To: Flist

Um. Yeah. I've seen several people screaming about how much California sucks and how much they hate "us" for passing this atrocity.

YOU ARE PREACHING TO THE CHOIR AND ALL THAT ACCOMPLISHES IS MAKING ME FEEL EVEN WORSE.

If you're on Livejournal and I am on your flist, that means you are gay-friendly. So screaming at your flist, who I have to assume is ALSO mostly gay-friendly, about how much they suck for something they were most likely not responsible for, seems childish and catty.

So - yeah. Thanks for making my "No" vote feel even more pointless. It's bad enough we live in a state that passes something like that and in Red Orange County, but let me at least be able to look at my flist as something to amuse me and not something to fear.
Tags:

From: [identity profile] surranndie.livejournal.com


*CLINGS* It wasn't you, honey. It was only one person and their post was very negative, targeted at Californians. *HUGS* I just don't feel comfortable naming names.

From: [identity profile] koslorollo.livejournal.com


twaaahahaha.... That's what my cake is good for! You don't want to eat it all at once, really... And flirting flattery will get you another piece.

*skips away to do more editing*

From: [identity profile] eleanor-ariail.livejournal.com


Ugh, not cool. I, for one, look up to California for getting this close, and while it's disappointing that it passed, I think it was close enough to give hope for the near future.

Your 'No' vote was so important, especially in a race that close. Mine sure didn't feel like much in 2006, when it was 78% to 22% here, but even that did some good to let people know that there are a few open-hearted people in the state.

From: [identity profile] surranndie.livejournal.com


*nodnod* Four years ago we went through this same thing in Oregon, where the ban on gay marriage passed. Yes, it's frustrating but I totally agree - at least it's out there, being discussed, dealt with, etc. The state governer (a Republican!) and Obama (PRESIDENT YAY!!) were both backing the "No" side of Prop 8, so that also gives us hope. :D

From: [identity profile] koslorollo.livejournal.com


Hope, indeed!

It might be over for now, but it's a long way from people ahead of us (can I say 'us', as a non-voter?) who crawled through the marsh so the rest of us can stand a little prouder today.

From: [identity profile] leftover-hobbit.livejournal.com


Well you know how I voted, as much as it helped the cause. I just keep staring at the 95% of the precincts reporting go up to 100 and it magically flips. Absentee ballots anyone? Pretty please make me feel better???

From: [identity profile] surranndie.livejournal.com


You didn't hiss loud enough at the signs.

And yes - PLEASE WITH THE MAGIC?!?!

From: [identity profile] cenobitetx.livejournal.com


My darling, take heart.

First, never think your vote is without value. Ever. Without it, we are chattel in society, not citizens. The women a hundred years ago who studied law and passed the bar when they would never be allowed to stand in a courtroom, sit on a jury, or be a judge - did that to prove to us that limits on them were the limits on all of us. That was damaging to them, to their minds, to their spirit was a poison in the 'accepted view' of how the world should be. Inez Mulholland, who died in California speaking out for votes for women. Her words were, "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" When you voted against Prop 8, you made your voice known, took a stand against a moral and legal wrong. You stood before the tank, and no amount of crowing by anyone else will change that. I'm in Texas with a 'Stop The Wolf Killer' sign that I had printed up standing right in my front lawn. I wore the matching tshirt pretty much everywhere. This did not make me popular with my not just my neighbors, but my own parents. You did the right thing, the just thing. Which reminds me again what an incredible person you are, and how lucky I am to know you.

What does this have to do with anything? A lot. Because it reminds us that a majority accepted injustice is still an injustice and what history tells us again and again, is that when American Citizens are denied what is only justly theirs as Citizens, there is only so long that will be allowed to last.

You were hit with a majority of people who refuse to see the world past their own nose and their own view of America and how it works. THEY ARE WRONG. The company that you are in is bitter, but by heaven it is sweet, too. It is the likes of Inez Mulholland, The Attorneys who argued Virginia vs. Loving, who marched in the South, who tore up their pay vouchers rather than share in unequal pay, who demanded fire escapes for immigrant workers in the sweat shops, who refused to support child labor, who lobbied the state department and treasury to visas for the Jews being murdered in Europe, all of whom saw that a country by the people and for the people is ALL the people - and making that exist means sacrifice, heartache and sitting next the jerk on the bus who crows and listening to the well meaning person wanting to paint all of the state with the same brush in of angry righteousness.

We fight an uphill battle, those of us who can see farther than our own nose and our own comfort. We suffer a lot because we can see that the Chimps are driving the bus. It's exasperating, exhausting and painful at times. But never let them forget that you are there. They've won the battle. We'll win the war.

Otherwise America is not the country that it has show me again and again that it is.

From: [identity profile] puffballzeri.livejournal.com


I do take heart that it passed by an incredibly narrow margin, thanks to people like you. :)

Still, I think what is truly disgusting is that California was voting to take the right away. To me, nothing is more unAmerican than revoking someone's right. I think Rachel Maddow summed it up best, "People have been living in California with gay marraiges for months and the sky hasn't fallen yet, what makes them think it's going to start?" (Or something along that line.) Other states simply banned it outright, but California had to the choice to take it away.

I think that the slim margin speaks volumes that attitudes are continuing to change. So, thank you. People like you give me hope and let me know that I'm not a jabbering lunatic.

From: [identity profile] surranndie.livejournal.com


:D I am happy about the narrow margin, considering what a massive state California is and how much of it is still so backwards-thinking. Considering my drive to and from work every day was filled with "YES ON 8" signs, outside of the elementary schools where I work. Which just sickens me, knowing that all those people are teaching their children bigotry and hatred.

So, yes - just like everyone everywhere else, we'll just have to keep trying to get our rights back. *HUGS*

From: [identity profile] puffballzeri.livejournal.com


You know, this morning when I woke up to the news of all three marraige bans and the adoption ban, I was so angry and worried. I keep feeling like if it doesn't fly in California, it won't in any state.

But you're right. We can't just give up when things have come so far. We can't let the visual language of hate carry on. I realize all this ranting sounds cheesy and silly, but thank you so much for making me feel hopeful again, even a little.


::taps chin an realizes that she doesn't have any appropriate icons for srs bznz::

From: [identity profile] annehiro.livejournal.com


You'd think they'd be yelling at MY state. We've gone and double banned it!

From: [identity profile] surranndie.livejournal.com


OhOh! Next time, let's just go full-out and ban ALL marriage! That'll cover everyone's personal beliefs, right? :D

From: [identity profile] cenobitetx.livejournal.com


Actually that isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. The view that the 'marriage advocates' are maintaining is the definition of marriage is legally and culturally the same - but by then advocating 'civil union' which is 'the rights of marriage but not the name of marriage' is attempting to re-instate a separate but equal legal precedent.

The problem is that marriage is a legal contract, otherwise it would be a simple religious ceremony - it determines how your estate is determined, your property is held, your social security is kept. To maintain a separate state that can be and is challenged by blood heirs, is denying equal protection under law. So, there are two logical solutions: permit marriage to gays, or deny it in name to all, and make all legal partnerships of this kind, gay or straight, civil unions and allow marriage to be defined in solely a religious context - which the definition can vary from faith to faith.

From: [identity profile] cenobitetx.livejournal.com


We can if you'd like!

How about a joke instead?

Kid: Superman, however can we thank you?

Superman: Why you can set aside your Christian God and worship only me!

From: [identity profile] annehiro.livejournal.com


Oh, please do. Florida doesn't get nearly as much mocking as it deserves.

As a matter o' fact, just airlift Disney, Universal, and St. Augustine out and let the rest sink into the ocean. The world would be a much better place.

From: [identity profile] cenobitetx.livejournal.com


Have a bit of hope, it did flip blue for the first time in forty years.

Of course it does need a big sign on the border that says, "Sunny Florida, Cocaine Capital of the United States!" Other than that...

From: [identity profile] amedia.livejournal.com


YOU ARE PREACHING TO THE CHOIR AND ALL THAT ACCOMPLISHES IS MAKING ME FEEL EVEN WORSE.

I sorta felt that way about a thinly-disguised election-day political rant disguised as slash that I got suckered into reading under the impression that it was, you know, a story ...

But whereas that was a generic irritation for me, what you're describing sounds painful for you! Please accept my sympathies and hugs and half-naked embracing soccer boys (points to icon). *hugs*

From: [identity profile] surranndie.livejournal.com


Ooh, that's tasty...*stares at the pretty while watching cartoons and offers boys having clothed humping up against a car*

Also, I hope you found some real fic to read to make up for that! *HUGS*

From: [identity profile] erynn999.livejournal.com


The margins for passage of crap like that are getting thinner, and each one of us that votes against it makes it more possible that change will finally come. You done good in voting against it and I'm proud of you. Challenges are already being filed and it will continue to be fought. I have hopes we'll see equality in our lifetimes.

*hug*

From: [identity profile] surranndie.livejournal.com


*nodnod* I saw the first lawsuits are already in the works. Yay!!

*HUG*
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