Redress of grievances

California General Election: Proposition 8
ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California. Provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

OK, here’s the thing: A “yes” vote on Prop 8 is a vote FOR discrimination against an entire class of people, permanently casting them as second-class citizens and denying them the rights and responsibilities accorded to the majority. Full fucking stop.

Thinking people, people of conscience, people who consider themselves egalitarian, humanitarian, progressive, fair-minded AT ALL, cannot possibly vote Yes on Prop 8.

True conservatives can’t, either – just exactly how much do you want the government involved in people’s private lives?

And you asinine “defense of marriage” knuckleheads: How the fuck does this affect YOUR marriage? You tell me one real, true thing that would change because two dudes or two chicks got married. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Seriously, what’s your fucking problem? I say this as a person who was raised to believe in “one man, one woman,” a person who once thought “it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” was a pretty clever riposte, a person who, as a sophomore in high school, for a GRADE in an ENGLISH CLASS, once wrote an “issues” essay full of ignorant ramblings recycled from youth group teachings and the general cultural milieu, which essay ended with the papazow zinger “There are no gay rights – only gay wrongs.” *

But see, then I went to college. I went out in the world outside my hometown. I met people, I learned things, I gained some goddamn perspective and got the fuck OVER MYSELF, which is proof that anyone else can do it too. So do it already.

Don’t be an asshole – vote no on 8.

-------------------------

*This is, seriously, one of the Great Shames of my life. I got an A on the paper – as I did all papers, not just the ignorant, bigoted ones – and was in fact invited to read it to the class, and to other sections of the class. Shatner knows how many people I hurt with that fucking thing (nobody, but NOBODY was “out” in my HS at the time; everybody assumed that being gay was so Other that of course there weren’t any of “them” among us), and why the teachers got so excited about it, I cannot imagine. And that should be a Great Shame of their lives – it’s like teaching a little kid a racist joke that they don’t even remotely comprehend, and having them tell it, stand-up style, to a captive audience at a dinner party. (Thanks, Gramps.)