Court overturns Prop. 8
This afternoon, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California overturned Prop. 8 on due process and equal protection grounds (PDF of the decision). At last, thank goodness, we have a step forward–but really, it’s a step that brings us right back to where we were in May 2008, when the state supreme court overturned the previous ballot initative-passed ban on same-sex marriage. It’s not so much an unequivocal step forward as it is a halt to the backsliding and the Court hauling the state out of the pit half of the population hurled it into. Still, to the couples who married in the brief summer of 2008, to the couples who wanted to get married after that cold night when Prop. 8 passed, and to everyone who cares about civil rights and equality for all, this ruling is wonderful. It’s a sign that the court can protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority and that even when bigotry holds sway, we can win. Eventually, we will win.
Back when CA Supreme Court was ruling on the procedural legality of Prop. 8, I wrote,
This decision will be a ruling once more on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings. Yes, the ruling is about marriage rights, but it’s apparent from looking at the ads and rhetoric of the anti-marriage equality side that the issue at hand is much broader. Are GLBTQI people indeed people, or are we monsters? By virtue of our nature, do we deserve to be shoved into the closet and hidden away so that we don’t corrupt the minds of (assumed to be straight) little children with our existence? Are our lives political footballs to be punted around for points until the election’s over and we’re told to just wait a little longer, our expectations are unreasonable and our demands unimportant? …I love this city and I love this state, but if the government decides once again that I do not have the rights to equality that are inherent to me by virtue of my humanity, if it decides once again to codify my second-class status into law, not content to leave it unspoken, assumed, and societally enforced, what place will there be for me here? [May 2009]
The court has ruled, and it stripped all the “concern for the children” and “sanctity of marriage” horseshit away from Prop. 8 and exposed its truth, that it was a bigoted attempt to legally classify queer people as inferior to straight people. In the conclusion to his ruling, Judge Walker wrote,
Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that oppositesex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.
This decision was a ruling on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings, and it affirmed that we are indeed people, who have the right to live and love in public. For once, we weren’t told that we had to wait a little longer–the importance of our demands was acknowledged and they were treated as a serious question of law.
I honestly didn’t think this day would come until the Supreme Court took up the case–and I wasn’t confident that they’d rule in support of equality. The composition of the Court is too close. I was still going to try, of course, and was briefly involved in an effort to put a repeal of Prop. 8 on the ballot for 2010, and would have supported it in 2012. This decision, though, circumvents all of the time, money, and labor that another ballot initiative would have required, and it’s an affirmation that the court system can work as it ought to. Thank god.
There’s a rally this evening at Castro, and a march from there to City Hall. I recall the last time I marched down Market Street for GLBTQI rights, a few nights after the 2008 election. What a relief and what a joy it’ll be to march in celebration tonight.
Marriage Equality…
…pass it on. To echo Keori, the terrifying face of marriage equality: John Lewis and Stuart Gaffney (the link is to a PDF of their plaintiff statement in Woo v. Lockyer).
SF PRIDE banner in a MUNI station (the ad is also up on bus stops all over SF). Gee, the happiness and love on their faces is just terrifying, innit?
Prop. 8 Case
[I wrote most of this on Wednesday and hadn't finished it by the time the Court announced that it would be ruling on Prop. 8 on Tuesday, May 26 (PDF).]
So, head down in cooking, dance class, going out, and figuring out things with the +1, I’ve mostly put thoughts of Prop. 8 out of my head. The CA Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments back in March and had 90 days from that date to issue their ruling. Since all the protests last fall and winter, I’ve dropped out of the local activist scene entirely. When the oral hearings began, I marked down the 90th day out in my planner and then avoided thinking about it.
June 4: dinner for three at Maverick. June 5: Court ruling? Schubert's Great at the SF Symphony
June was tucked safely away behind many, many pages in my planner, but now, it’s nearly here. The Court normally publishes opinions on Mondays and Thursdays, with announcements of forthcoming opinion filings going up the Friday or Wednesday before. Next Monday is Memorial Day and so any opinion that would have been published on Monday will be published on Tuesday, with an announcement going up on the website on Friday. According to Day of Decision, the Court will rule by June 3, which leaves three possible dates for the ruling: Tuesday (5/26), Thursday (5/28), and Tuesday (6/2). God, we’re so close.
This decision will be a ruling once more on our humanity, on our dignity and our worth as equal human beings. Yes, the ruling is about marriage rights, but it’s apparent from looking at the ads and rhetoric of the anti-marriage equality side that the issue at hand is much broader. Are GLBTQI people indeed people, or are we monsters? By virtue of our nature, do we deserve to be shoved into the closet and hidden away so that we don’t corrupt the minds of (assumed to be straight) little children with our existence? Are our lives political footballs to be punted around for points until the election’s over and we’re told to just wait a little longer, our expectations are unreasonable and our demands unimportant?
I’m not married and never plan to be unless it’s fully legal everywhere in the country. At the moment, I’m going out with a straight man. And still, this ruling matters to me, because it’s a judgment on my very worth and dignity as a human being. I know that eventually, Prop. 8 will be repealed, if not in the next two weeks then in the next decade or so. That is cold comfort, though, and the legal justifications for upholding Prop. 8 are equally cold comfort. No matter how much I cherish rationality, logic, and the rule of law over emotions, there comes a time when the law is wrong and people of principle must not acquiesce to it.
I love this city and I love this state, but if the government decides once again that I do not have the rights to equality that are inherent to me by virtue of my humanity, if it decides once again to codify my second-class status into law, not content to leave it unspoken, assumed, and societally enforced, what place will there be for me here?
Yesterday was the thirtieth anniversary of the White Night Riots (h/t Faith). This summer will see the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Activism and change are not always peaceful, are not always conducted within the stately halls of the legislature by calm, soft-spoken people who are expected to sigh, shrug philosophically, and accept it when their humanity is decried and they are accused of being perverts, child molesters, unnatural, disgusting, sick, sinners, and abominations that will destroy society. Homophobes unleash hatred and vitriol and attack GLBTQI people and batter and kill them. And yet, it is we who are admonished not to raise a fuss, not to defend ourselves, not to overreact, not to say a word about our lived experience of homophobia.
But how can you overreact to the persistent harassment and persecution? The admonishments to behave lest there be a backlash and the demands to go quietly into the good night, those are demands to keep heterosexism in place. Those are demands to not disturb the status quo and not disturb the illusion that things are OK and that queers will get our rights some day, if we only wait long enough and quietly enough, closeted enough. Those are demands to not make people uncomfortable with the fact that homophobia is a constant, active presence for most people who aren’t straight. Those are demands to hide our dead and our wounded.
Every time I go home to my parents’ house and see their old church friends, I get asked if I have a boyfriend. They assume I’m straight. They all voted yes on Prop. 8. I want to tell them that no, I don’t have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and thus challenge their default assumption of straightness by making it clear that loving a girlfriend is an option for me. I have to weigh that against my parents’ reaction, though, because if I so much as mention Prop. 8, homophobia, queer rights, or anything queer-related, let alone suggest that I’m not straight, my mother will pitch a screaming fit. She’ll ask me why I have to be so “outspoken,” why I have to talk about “those people,” why I can’t just “get along,” why I have to make everything “political,” why I can’t just be “quiet.” She’ll sulk the rest of the weekend and potentially for weeks afterward. She’ll never acknowledge that by demanding that I not disturb the social peace, she’s demanding that I lie about myself and hide. She’ll never acknowledge that she’s flaunting her heterosexuality every time she goes somewhere with her husband, calls him “honey,” and invites people over to the home that they’ve made together, where there are pictures of our smiling family all around the house: female parent, male parent, and two kids. She’ll say that her old friends have “the right to have their own opinions,” not realizing or not caring that those opinions are hatred for her daughter. Sure, our family friends think queers are sick and perverted sinners, but in my mom’s mind, saving face and preserving the gay atmosphere of a dinner party is more important than how I feel about breaking bread and quietly sitting at a table with people that say that people like me are subhuman, enjoined to say nothing in my own defense. The church friends don’t know they’re talking about me when they say that gay couples will destroy marriage, but I’m not allowed to tell them they are talking about me. I’m out of the closet everywhere but at my parents’ house, even though I’ve come out to my immediate family. For the sake of the fragile peace with my mother, I’m a hypocrite.
I believe in the importance of being out and used to speak about it as the most important component of changing the hearts and minds of Prop. 8 supporters. They assumed they didn’t know anyone who was queer and so they voted for Prop. 8. If they knew that their daughters, parents, children, friends, colleagues, and neighbors were queer, that would do more to change their minds about GLBTQI equality than anything else. That is what I said. For the sake of family, though, I’m not living what I believe: I’m out to my friends, out to my family, and have no problem talking with homophobes, but the stress of parental relationships makes me a hypocrite at heart. I’d rather keep the peace with my mother than live according to my principles and correct their friends when they assume I’m straight or go on about Prop. 8. I dread going to my parents’ house if I know that their church friends will be around. And it’s all my fault, of course, for having the temerity to think that I deserve equal rights and for thinking that I should be unashamed of who I am, rather than hiding in the closet.
I think P#1 knows I’m queer, given that I’ve mentioned working with Marriage Equality and local activists on Prop. 8 protests. There are also pictures of me wearing an “IN love with my girlfriend” t-shirt floating around on Facebook. If I were in his shoes, I would assume queerness, but I tend not to assume that someone’s straight unless ze explicitly says as much. Whatever way the ruling goes, it’ll open up a chance for conversation–either way, I’ll call him up for drinks, whether it’s, “CELEBRATORY DRINKS W00T!!” or, “I need to cry on someone’s shoulder.” I hope he understands.
The mess that is my mother’s uncomfortable relationship with my non-straight sexual orientation is a major part of why I haven’t told them about P#1 and don’t plan to either, in the foreseeable future. My mother would be relieved that I’m seeing a straight man and would assume that it’d mean that GLBTQI rights don’t matter to me anymore and would assume that it makes me not-queer enough to not care about GLBTQI equality. As much as she yells at me now for so much as mentioning Prop. 8 in casual conversation with family friends, it would be even worse if I told her about P#1, because she’d think that, since I’m seeing a man, Prop. 8 and homophobia have no relevance to my life.
I can’t deal with this. The Court is ruling on Tuesday.
I’m still bitter that when I organized a protest against Prop. 8, not only did my mother try to convince me that I shouldn’t and couldn’t do it, neither of my parents bothered to show up or even wish me good luck. I think that that action, right there, said everything I needed to know about how they feel about me, despite all my mother’s pretty words about how it’s okay that I’m queer. When I came out to her and my father, she said that, and then she yelled at me because she thought I was having a hard time with the conversation–”Is it so hard to talk to us about this? Are you so scared?” Yes, mother, I was scared, because your words say one thing and your actions say something completely different. You lie.
If I can’t feel safe and comfortable in my own skin with my parents, what else is left? We’ve never been close, but I guess I just need to get used to having this icy patch between us: we’ll skirt around it but never broach the topic directly, because it just won’t be productive.
Tax Time
I just did my taxes today. Usually, when I think of taxes, I think of schools, public transit, Medicare/Medicaid, and all the other happy benefits that serve the common good. I also think of wars, nuclear stockpiles, torture, surveillance, and tax cuts that favor the wealthiest in this country. This year, I thought of Stuart and John (PDF) and John’s speech at the anti-DOMA rally in January, where he held up a 1040 (the primary federal income tax filing document in the U.S.) and talked about how the federal government forces him and every other married same-sex couple to commit perjury when they file as Single.
John Lewis, holding a 1040 form, and his husband, Stuart Gaffney, at the January 10, 2009, anti-DOMA protest in San Francisco.
Due to the Defense of Marriage Act, married same-sex couples in MA and CT need to do an extra set of tax forms. State tax forms rely on the federal 1040, and although same-sex couples can file state taxes as Married Filing Jointly, they have to file their federal taxes as Single, because the federal government does not recognize their marriages. Therefore, they have to fill out federal 1040s as Single, redo a dummy 1040 as Married Filing Jointly, and use the second 1040 to fill out their state taxes. The humiliating reminder that same-sex marriages are considered fake, invalid outside of MA, CT and NY, and inferior to opposite-sex marriages is further aggravated by the fact that this routine is required by government institutions. Being discriminated against by private individuals is bad enough; tax season brings constant reminders of marriage inequality and government-perpetuated discrimination in the form of every casual conversation and complaint that people make about taxes. Having to pay higher federal taxes than you would if you could file jointly, and having your nose rubbed in that fact by the dummy 1040s that you have to fill out, are just the cherry on top of the insult-ridden sundae.
As for couples in California…I don’t even know what to say. They have to go through the same extra 1040 routine that couples in MA and CT do, but looming over it all is the fear that the state Supreme Court might invalidate their marriages. Originally, I wasn’t sure if couples that were married between June 15, 2008, and November 5, 2008, could even file as Married Filing Jointly in California, since same-sex couples are no longer allowed to marry in this state, but I think they can, since the court hasn’t yet ruled on the validity of same-sex marriages (obviously, if you’re in this boat, talk to an accountant and ignore my speculations!).
Tax time is just another reminder that queers are not equal in the eyes of the law, one in a string of constant reminders.
Note: If any idiotic tax protest spammers comment, I’m deleting and banning them.
Frivolity
I’ve been busy ever since … since sometime before the election. Actually, it became more intense after the election, because I’ve been volunteering with some of the GLBTQI rights efforts that have been going on since Prop. 8 passed. So, since off- and on- line stuff is eating up my life and upping my stress levels and blood pressure, I’m going to mostly be posting amusing and lighthearted stuff here. For nuanced, informed social commentary, I suggest you look elsewhere.
This is what my schedule looks like:
week one: volunteer volunteer volunteer
week two: collapse into burned out state, retreat from online world, and read food books as escapist pseudo-vacation
week three: volunteer volunteer volunteer
week four: contemplate giving up the volunteer thing in state of burnout and wonder, “I put grad school off for this?”
etc. Also add “neglect friends, family, letters, cooking, laundry, regular showering, blogosphere, flist, and renewing library books” to weeks where I volunteer rather than hide in my flat with the French Laundry cookbooks and Ruhlman’s entire oeuvre.
Of the good: I’m going to see Lang Lang with the symphony tomorrow night, and the Adler Fellow Gala Concert on Saturday.
Of the bad: No one is coming to the Adler concert with me. Someone was supposed to come and bailed for Tahoe. >:O
Of the worse: Having increasingly difficult time not telling some other volunteers to boil their heads with root vegetables and fuck off with their “I think someone should do XYZ” comments, which are inevitably followed up with someone else saying, “That’s a great idea, can you organize that?” and the original speaker staring at their shoes, being silent, and then saying, “Well, it’s very difficult and so I think someone [else] should do XYZ.”
So, just in case y’all have been wondering where I’ve been, I’ve been buried in either activist work or in reading The French Laundry Cookbook concurrently with The French Laundry At Home.
Protesting
One of the things I like about SF is its active activist (ha!) culture…in other words, don’t forget about the marriage equality rally this Saturday at SF City Hall. Looks like stuff is going on all over the Bay Area, nationwide, and INTERNATIONALLY O_o, actually!
I’ll be at the rally this Saturday, hope to see you there, although I doubt we’ll be able to find each other in the crowd. :/
Protest8SF: Prop. 8 Protest 11/15, 10:30 A.M. City Hall
JoinTheImpact (their servers have been overloaded, so the site might be down) is organizing a national day of GLBTQI rights protests: Saturday, Nov. 15, 10:30 A.M. Pacific / 1:30 P.M. Eastern at your city hall. There’s quite a long list of protests at the site and lots of people are stepping up to organize protests in various cities and states across the nation. Check it out – there might already be a protest in your city and if there’s not, you can start one! I think this could be really powerful. The anger and energy coming out of the GLBTQI + allies community is astounding and although it’s in immediate reaction to the anti-marriage equality bans, we can make it much bigger than that: marriage equality, a fully inclusive ENDA, a GLBTQI hate crimes act (that absolutely must include transpeople, since they are so often the victims of vicious violence that is ignored or turned into joke fodder), the repeal of DADT, insert your hopes and dreams here. This movement is our movement: yours and mine and everyone else’s. This is a big grassroots movement and grassroots movements are led by ordinary citizens-turned-activists that grab megaphones and take a step forward, leading everyone else with them.
As Redstar points out, one of the side effects of the Obama campaign and, indeed, the many political campaigns that just concluded is that there are now thousands, if not millions of people that are trained in grassroots organizing. There are people that know what a campaign needs, people that know how to organize people, people that know how to organize events, people that know how to organize publicity, people that know how to phonebank and distribute fliers and spread publicity online and go door to door and fundraise. All of these people can take their skills and turn them to social justice and civil rights causes. I got my training from recruiting volunteers in person and phonebanking for the No on 4 and No on 8 campaigns and seeing how they organized their statewide and local strategy. The Yes on K campaign did an amazing job of building coalitions with local political parties, clubs, social justice causes, reaching out to minority communities, and getting their message out in local, national, and alternative media. Years ago, I managed online and offline publicity for a nonprofit cause. I can use these tools and experiences and so can the many people that got their first tastes of activism in this election cycle. The question is how to harness their energy, knowledge, and experience for social justice causes? Personally, I’d like to get more involved in the immigrant rights movement and I’ll have to look into that. But I digress.
In my own fabulous city of SF, on Friday night there was a great, spontaneous, grassroots & netroots march from Hallidie Plaza through the Castro to Dolores Park and then back to the steps of City Hall, where drag queen Pollo Del Mar spoke and charged everyone present to go back into their communities and spread the word. I have lots of great pictures from the march and I’ll put them up sooner or later. Probably later and probably on Picasa or flickr – uploading a lot of photos to WordPress is both timeconsuming and annoying.
Upcoming protests: I mentioned JoinTheImpact at the beginning of this post, and I’ll end with them. There is a JTI protest scheduled for 11/15, 10:30 A.M. at San Francisco City Hall (google map address). The folks at Protest8SF.wordpress.com are working on organizing it: they have a preliminary to do list, fliers for publicity, and a googlegroups list serv that anyone can join to help with the organizing. If you’re in SF, check out the website to see if you can help and definitely come to the rally! If you’re not in SF, please pass the links along and spread the word.
Web organizing techniques + community organizing techniques + campaign techniques = much easier to organize social justice movements? Y/N? I’ll have to think about this.
ETA: thatonegaykid says that there is a JoinTheImpact protest 11/15 in Orange County, 1 P.M. at Irvine City Hall. Please get in touch with her (thatonegaykid.wordpress.com)to find out more!
Prop. 8 Protests
The Equality California calendar has protest events listed:
Today, Friday:
Costa Mesa
9 p.m. | South Coast Plaza
Bristol Street & Town Center DriveLong Beach
6:45 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Broadway and RedondoMerced
6 p.m. | Veterans Park, M Street
Contact: Leslie or Eileen, PLFLAG Merced 209.725.1140Mission Viejo
4 to 7 p.m. | 200 Civic CenterPalm Springs
5 p.m. | Palm Springs City HallSanta Barbara
5 p.m. to 6 p.m. | De La Guerra Plaza Street
700-756 De La Guerra PlazaSan Diego.
9 p.m. | Laurel and Sixth Avenue
March to City Hall (202 C)San Francisco
5:30 p.m. | Civic Center
Market and 7th to Dolores Park
Saturday
Beverly Hills
6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. | LDS Temple
10777 Santa Monica BoulevardHuntington Beach
2 p.m. Huntington Beach PierLaguna Beach – Faith has more information
5:30 p.m. | City Hall
505 Forest Avenue
Marching to Main BeachLos Angeles
6 p.m. | Sunset Junction
Silver LakeRancho Cucamonga
11 a.m. | Heritage Park
5546 Beryl Street
Please bring a chair with you! You may also bring a dish or desserts, drinks, cups, paper plates, etc. if you want.
RSVP: patrickmilliner@yahoo.comSacramento
7 p.m. | Capitol Building (west steps)
Bring Signs, Wear Protest Shirts. People from SF will be showing up at the West Steps to show support with us.San Diego
12 Noon | Hillcrest
1st & University
Marching to 30th in North Park.
Sunday
Rancho Santa Margarita
5 p.m. to 8 p.m. | Lake Santa Margarita
Santa Margarita Pkwy
Please bring candles.
Contact: teenageanthem@gmail.comVilsalia
5 p.m. | College of the Sequoias
915 S. Mooney Boulevard
March down Mooney Boulevard to Caldwell Avenue and back.
Park in Lot 3 off Meadow Lane.
Leave signs at home and bring a candle instead.
This is history in the making. This is civil rights. This is standing up and publicly showing support for GLBTQI people, marriage rights, fairness, and equality for all. Come and be present.
Yes on Prop. 8: The Aftermath
Yes on Prop. 8: the Aftermath
Yes: 5,387,939 / 52.5%
No: 4,883,460 / 47.5%
Difference: 504,479
Total: 10,271,399
I’ll put up county-specific data later.
Via Spectrum Blue, Protest 8, a blog organizing protests in SF. There’s one tonight at 5:30 at Market and 7th. Be there and bring your old window signs.
BBC Video of LAPD beating an anti-Prop. 8 protestor – via someone, I lost the link.
Faith is pulling together a list of Yes on Prop. 8 donor-run businesses to boycott. Before anyone gets all het up about freedom of speech, let me say this: I absolutely support peoples’ rights to vote yes on Prop. 8 and for any other Godforsaken, appalling initiative or campaign. I absolutely support their right to donate as much money as they like in accordance with their bigoted, disgusting beliefs. The corollary to that is that I have every right to boycott their establishments and remove my support from their businesses. This is not censorship. This is freedom of speech x 2 – their freedom of speech and my freedom of speech. There is nothing that requires me to give my money to people that turn around and give that money to causes I find reprehensible. A boycott is an act of free expression counteracting another act of free expression, and banning, censoring, or repressing boycotts is the true instance of repression and censorship.
Besides, a lot of you Yes on 8 voters are probably free market types. Boycotts in response to the political donations of businesspeople are a classic example of consumers freely exercising their abilities to choose where to take their business, after a particular establishment proves unsatisfactory. It’s the invisible hand at work! Wrap your head around that.
Pam on the Religious Right’s probable next steps. From the President of the Christian Coalition of America:
“It will be the goal of Christian Coalition to ensure that the other 20 states adopt similar amendments banning homosexual “marriages” including the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut which also had two judicial decisions, by one vote margins, legalizing these abominations.”
Robert @ Calitics: Pledge to Repeal Prop 8: Restore Marriage Equality
Via aaa, a press release from CAMPAIGN for Children and Families: they intend to make sure the initiative applies retroactively.
“Today, marriage licenses can only go to whom they were originally intended — a man and a woman, a bride and a groom. The people of California have successfully overruled the judges and politicians and restored marriage licenses to a man and a woman. Now the false marriages done this summer must be declared null and void. California law now says the only valid or recognized marriage ‘is’ between a man and a woman. The ballot arguments specify that the only marriages are between a man and a woman, ‘regardless of when or where performed.’ It is time for all Californians to respect the new marriage law, which has restored an age-old institution, whether they voted for or against Prop. 8.”
They are also pissed off about losing on Prop. 4. I will post my thoughts about Prop. 4 later.
Via Elena Perez, the CA NOW blog has two posts up on Prop. 8: Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 1: Dissecting History covers the legal arguments behind the SF, LA, Santa Clara County, Lambda Legal, and National Center for Lesbian Rights lawsuits.
“But, Meredith,” I hear you say, “this is a constitutional amendment — aren’t the Supreme Court’s hands tied?” Actually, due to the approach the plaintiffs are taking, the CA Supreme Court does have the ability to consider this. The legal reasoning behind the lawsuits is interesting, and if you live in California, it’s worth your time to understand it.
Prop 8 Postmortem, Part 2: Dissecting the Present: looking at the impact of Prop. 8 on married couples.
ACLU Press release on the lawsuits. Includes a link to request for a stay on Prop. 8.
ACLU Press Release: argues that Prop. 8 does not apply retroactively. Fortunately, State Attorney General Jerry Brown is on our side.
SFChron: Same-sex marriage issue back to state top court. More on the lawsuit. I hope to God that this doesn’t come up before the SCOTUS anytime soon and stays in the state courts. I do not trust Kennedy on this and it’s going to be a 5-4 vote at the best, with three strict constructionists and one follows-Scalia-ist on the court. Korematsu has been much on my mind of late – another civil rights case originating from California – and it stands as a stark reminder that the court is not infallible, it is not all-knowing, it is not always just, and it most certainly is not always liberal or non-partisan. If anything, Bush v. Gore should remind us all of that.
SFChron: 2,000 gather in SF for same-sex marriage vigil – article about the Wednesday protest.
Julia @ Calitics: Prop 8: Questions about what went wrong, so we can fix it for next time. I do have to say that during the campaign season, I thought the No on Prop. 4 campaign was much more organized than the No on Prop. 8 campaign, although it had much less money and much fewer volunteers (the biggest day of phonebanking for No on 4: 150 volunteers statewide. A regular No on 8 phonebanking night in October: 110 volunteers in the SF office alone.).
Blaming the Victims
SFChron: two articles blaming the victims, yet again. Two articles that attempt to lay the blame at the feet of “Newsom and his supporters.” Look, this is classic victim-blaming. Blaming the victims, the oppressed minority, for their attempts to get their rights recognized, is sheer assholery and if anyone is to blame, it is the people that voted yes, the people that supported Prop. 8, and the people that did nothing. I have problems with Mayor Gavin Newsom, but for his steadfast courage in advocating for GLBTQI people, he has my vote forever. It takes real integrity to stick to your principles even after an entire nation trashes you as a scapegoat for it, and to continue to do so for years afterward. I only wish Senator Feinstein had a modicum of his integrity and courage. And Senator Boxer–where the hell were you on Prop. 8? You’re the more progressive senator and the one that receives fewer irate calls from me, and you did virtually <em>nothing</em> from your position of authority.
Just for once, for once, I would like to see an article that recognizes how difficult it is to stand up for politically unpopular principles and that leaders that do so are passing rare and should be commended for showing leadership. How short is the historical memory? Do these people not realize that by positioning GLBTQI rights as a losing issue they’re perpetuating the “common wisdom” that GLBTQI rights are untouchable disasters that will sink politicians and impeding the progress of the civil rights movement? Do they not realize that every civil rights leader was thought of as an annoying loser at the time of the movement and they are playing the part of the reactionary status quo?
New rule around these parts: BLAME THE OPPRESSORS. NOT THE VICTIMS. This rule extends to marriage equality advocates, rape victims, social justice activists, and, hell, Nader voters and any other group.
Newsom was the primary target for the statewide campaign to ban same-sex marriages, featured prominently in radio and TV advertisements. He’s the one public figure most attached to the proposition, and he’s the politician most likely to lose face now that voters have approved it.
That could be bad news for his possible run for governor in 2010, political analysts said. It may be impossible for him to overcome his association with a losing cause. And perhaps more important, this election may have shown Newsom just how far away he is from winning support from key California voting blocs.
“The Latino and black voters really turned out in this election. They helped get Proposition 8 voted in, and that portends badly for Gavin Newsom if he’s intending to run for governor,” Boushey said. “He’s going to have to appeal to those voters. They’re socially moderate, and they don’t recognize Gavin Newsom as being socially moderate.”
Paradoxically, the mayor is seen as too liberal for much of the state and too conservative compared to the city’s legislators.
Newsom said he hasn’t given any thought to what impact Tuesday’s losses will have on his long-term career.
“It’s trivial and irrelevant,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “It was never about me, it’s not about politicians. This is about people. This is about real human beings.” [emphasis mine]
Hell, I don’t care if he means it or not when he says, “It’s trivial and irrelevant.” The fact that he stood up and said that it’s not about short-term politics and his own career goals, it’s about equality and about “real human beings” means so much to me.
As for the rest–excuse me, “With a losing cause”? How about the right cause, how about justice and equality? As for repeating the assertion that Latin@ and black voters are responsible for the success of Proposition 8: stop with the goddamned racism. There are far more white voters than Latin@ and black voters combined, and yet, no one is blaming them for the success of Prop. 8. That sort of reprehensible racist analysis is easy but flawed. For one thing, it erases the existence of Latin@ and black GLBTQI people and for another, it reads as yet another instance of implying that white people are morally superior to those backward black and brown people. FUCK YOU. The biggest push behind Prop. 8 was THE MORMON CHURCH AND MANY “CHRISTIAN” CHURCHES, IN CASE YOU’VE FORGOTTEN, YOU INCREDIBLE FUCKHEADS. I am incredibly disgusted that people are forgetting that when the Mormon factor (no, not all Mormons supported Prop. 8, but the institution of the church threw immense volunteer power and money behind it and that’s what I’m referring to) was all over the news prior to the election.
Sacramento Bee, 08/10/13, “Mormons lead the way in financing Yes on Prop. 8 efforts”
NYT, 08/10/27, A Line in the Sand for Same-Sex Marriage Foes
“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.”
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.” …
“He is a symbol of what is ahead,” said the Rev. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Church in the San Diego area, a leading organizer of the “Yes” ranks.
“When you have laws that make homosexual marriage a protected class, then the government has a compelling interest to normalize that and must declare anything in opposition to that hate speech,” said Mr. Garlow, who hosted both the recent simulcast and regular conference calls with as many as 2,000 pastors, to motivate the ranks. …
National religious organizations including the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic fraternal group; Focus on the Family, a ministry based in Colorado Springs that is led by James C. Dobson; and the American Family Association, based in Mississippi and led by the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, have been major contributors to the “Yes on 8” campaign.
And in June, the top three leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter strongly urging members to donate time and money, and Mormons have responded with many millions.
Preachers from other parts of the country have dropped everything and moved to California in recent months. Lou Engle, who leads TheCall, a charismatic prayer ministry in Washington and Kansas City, Mo., with a large following among youth, moved with his seven children to California in September. He is holding large prayer rallies up and down the state, urging people to pray and fast for the 40 days leading up to the election. Some people are giving up solid foods; others are giving up clothes shopping or their favorite television shows.
“We believe there is a spiritual battle in an unseen realm, and that’s why I’ve called for united prayer for divine intervention,” Mr. Engle said. “It’s a defining moment for the definition of marriage in American history.”
LAT, 08/08/20, “Knights of Columbus tip the balance with big anti-gay marriage donation * UPDATED”
LAT, 08/10/26, “Proposition 8 supporters plead for more advertising funds”
“Through the grace of God, one of our most fervent supporters has agreed to make a sacrificial gift to match, dollar for dollar, whatever you and others can donate, up to a total of $1 million. That means that every dollar you give will buy two dollars in advertising time.
“Please help us buy more advertising time now. And if you can make a sacrificial gift yourself, we ask you to prayerfully consider doing so immediately. The institution of marriage which we so dearly love depends on what we do together over the next few days.”
LAT, 08/10/26, “Clergy on both sides of Proposition 8 speak out”
This last article makes it clear that not all religious people of any faith supported Prop. 8. However, many did, and many churches threw their institutional support behind the proposition of hatred, bigotry, and homophobia. The problem, as ever, is not with all religious people but with the homophobic religious people.
Dear Speaker Pelosi
What are you declaring off the table now? Progressivism? Liberalism? Reform? (SFChron)
“the new president must take the country down the middle”
In other words, women, GLBTQI, non-millionaires, vets, members of the military, and the environment: don’t bother trying to crawl out from underneath the bus. Pelosi intends to keep steering it right over our bodies.
A Democratic candidate just won the popular and electoral votes and the Democrats picked up seats in the House and the Senate, and you use your bully pulpit as a leading Democratic politician and Speaker of the House to essentially concede the strength and PR capital of those victories? Shame on you. Shame.
Sincerely,
PD
The results of CA Congressional District 8:
| Candidate | Votes | Percentage |
| Nancy Pelosi (D, Incumbent) | 126,073 | 71.6% |
| Dana Walsh (R) | 16,149 | 9.2% |
| Philip Z. Berg (Libertarian) | 4,024 | 2.2% |
| Cindy Sheehan (Green) | 29,951 | 17.0% |
Looking at those results, it appears that Cindy Sheehan got crushed in a landslide. Well, she did. However, Sheehan ran a grassroots campaign without the backing, guidance, and infrastructure of an established political party. She was a stranger to the political landscape of San Francisco, with its many political clubs, groups, and unions. She was almost completely ignored by the mainstream press, except when they wanted to paint her as unhinged, paranoid, and dare I say it, hysterical candidate on a vanity run, completely overlooking and hiding her policy goals and criticisms of mainstream Dems, Pelosi, and the media. And yet, despite all those obstacles, Sheehan received nearly twice as many votes as the Republican candidate and far more than the Republican and Libertarian candidates combined.
Cindy Sheehan received a mere 17.0% of the vote, but here’s the kicker: until yesterday, Nancy Pelosi had never received less than 76% of the vote in any general election race for Congress. Cindy Sheehan received 29,951 votes, which is more than any of the non-Dem/Repub candidates have ever garnered against Pelosi. It’s more than seven out of Pelosi’s 11 Republican challengers have ever received, including Dana Walsh. Jennifer DePalma received 31,074 votes, which was 12%, back in 2004, and in 1994, Elsa Cheung received 18%, with 30,528 votes.
It’s hard to say what will happen next and what this election means. Most likely, it means nothing as far as making Pelosi realize that a large number of her constituents are liberal and pissed as hell with her performance. As far as Sheehan is concerned, according to an email the CindyForCongress campaign sent out a few weeks ago, she’s renewed the lease on her office and is planning on continuing her antiwar advocacy work and running again in 2010. As far as I’m concerned, Sheehan’s candidacy is terribly inspirational. It’s a reminder that although this country was not founded on the ideal of participatory, equal democracy, where any citizen theoretically has the right to mount a campaign and take an active part in the governing of her society, it has evolved so far as to think that it was founded on that ideal. Sheehan reminds me of Senator Murray and former Governor Madeline Kunin, women who were just ordinary women–”just a mom in tennis shoes,” and a professor and mom that entered her first political race by accident–until they believed that they could do a better job of running their states than the people in power at the time, and went on to be great public servants and politicians.
To me, Cindy Sheehan’s campaign represents faith in the people, in the democratic process, and in participatory democracy, and a burning desire to make the world a better place. Although she lost, she put her ideals into action through her campaign and that’s fully something I can understand and get behind.
Pictorial History
I saw both these pages today:
(Click through for legible images but beware, they’re full size screenshots. And no, that FB post is not mine, although I agree with its sentiments.)
The Facebook page has a No on Prop. 4 ad and a No on Prop. 8 ad in the sidebar. The YouTube page has a Yes on Prop. 8 ad, even though the Yes on 8 ads violate Google’s own advertising content policy.
Tomorrow night, one of those images will be obsolete.
When You Have Something To Lose / The Fragility of Hope
I’m nervous, excited, and sick to my stomach. I want to campaign all day and watch the results come in once the polls close. I want to go to sleep or hide under my desk until November 5, when the city and state results will have been confirmed. I’m afraid that we’ll lose on 4, 8, and K. I’m excited that we might, we just might win.
I was at Election Day training for No on Prop. 8 last night and the room was packed. There were easily over 100 volunteers there, many of them first time volunteers ready to learn how they could reach out to voters on Tuesday and get every vote possible. The organizers said that they had Election Day volunteers in every county in California and they were trying to fill 7,500 shifts. Each volunteer is expected to reach 100 voters per shift. 7,500 shifts x 100 voters/shift = 750,000 voters reached = “The biggest LGBT election event in history.” The energy and excitement in that room was palpable. Hundreds of people came together to learn what they could do to raise their voices and hands on Tuesday and take part in our participatory democracy.
Later
No on Prop. 4 had its biggest phonebank yet tonight, with 150 volunteers making calls statewide and 82 of us at the SF site. The goal was to reach 24,000 voters identified as No voters during previous phonebanks, and we did that by 8:15.
Tomorrow, I’m doing voter outreach with No on Prop. 4 and No on Prop. 8 and either squishing in Yes on K outreach during the afternoon or doing more phonebanking with No on 4.
This election is the first time I’ve been heavily involved, both as an observer and as a volunteer. It’s been an education and I finally hammered out a liberal, progressive, activist personal philosophy that’s been a year in developing. The influences of writers, bloggers, campaigns, my personal liberalism, and historical examples built on each other to bring me to who I am now.
The knowledge that poll lines close at 8 P.M. tomorrow looms as a relief and a deadline; I want it to come and yet, I dread it. Every moment between 7 A.M. and 8 P.M. tomorrow is a chance to talk to voters and persuade them and make a difference. It’s a chance to live my liberal ideals and my belief in the democratic process, and do what’s right. For everything comes down to those three words. Do what’s right. Why? Because I can. I have the ability to stand on a sidewalk and wear my No on Prop. 4 tshirt and hand out fliers and talk to voters during rush hour, and so I must. I have the opportunity to vote and convince other voters and so I must.
I have the chance to make a difference and make a better world and so I must.
There’s no other reason, in the end.
Prop. 8 and Prop. 4 are tight races; depending on which polls you look at, Prop. 8 and Prop. 4 are winning by small margins or losing by small margins. Every vote absolutely matters in the down ticket races, so if you can spare a few minutes for phonebanking, talking to anyone that hasn’t voted, or wearing your No on 4 and No on 8 paraphernalia, please, please, for the love of god and my civil rights and the health and safety of teenage girls, please do it.
I’m not aware of any objective, statistically valid polls for Prop. K, but the campaign made the New York Times in a favorable article! (It also made The Economist, but in an anti-slanted article.) Vote YES on Prop. K to support sex workers’ rights!
All these races are uncertain. They might lose. They might win. The fragile, timorous feeling beating away in my chest must be hope. We might win, but the margin is so thin going into Election Day that I’m scared that we’ll lose. I will do everything I can to make sure we win, but until the votes are counted and the results are certified, I won’t know if we succeeded. I have so much more to lose when I have hope. It’s a delicate, frail thing and it only sprouted because we’ve come so close to the end: tomorrow, we will know if we succeeded or failed.
The feeling of panic fluttering in the back of my mind urges me to do everything I can. I have hope and so now I have so much more to lose–and so much to win.
No on 4. No on 8. Yes on K.
Yes on Prop. K Town Hall!
Yes on Prop. K is holding an historic town hall and discussion panel today, 7 P.M. – 9 P.M., at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin St. (Franklin between Geary & O’Farrell).
Already support Prop. K? Come out and show your support! Meet the organizers and learn about easy ways to volunteer during the days of the campaign. Undecided about Prop. K? Come out and listen to sex worker activists, criminal attorneys, public health experts, local politicians, labor activists, and members of church, LGBTQI, and neighborhood communities speak for themselves about Prop. K. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions and get answers straight from the source, unfiltered by journalists (and bloggers, heh!).
For the last century, year after year, sex workers in SF have been hounded, arrested and jailed, evicted, raped and even murdered, their children taken away. Those of us who have least – often women of color – have received the brunt of this persecution. Why has our city famed for being open minded allowed this injustice to continue? Now we can make a change and win greater protection, well-being and safety for all. Join a cross section of communities who want to make this happen!
Speakers include: sex workers and sex worker organizations, criminal attorneys Nedra Ruiz, Stephanie Adraktas, Stuart Hanlon and David Bigeleisen, Conference of Delegates of California Bar Association, Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, SF Green Party, neighborhood residents, church representatives, candidates for board of supervisor and other politicians, the LGBT community, labor representatives, and others.
- Prop K was put on the ballot by more than 12,000 San Franciscans to ensure that basic human and civil rights are extended to sex workers. It follows the recommendations of the path breaking SF Task Force on Prostitution.
- Prop K calls on the police to prioritize sex workers’ safety by vigorously enforcing coercion, extortion, battery, rape and other violent crimes.
- Prop K will end the criminalization of sex workers, many of whom are mothers trying to support their families in increasingly hard times. Criminalization traps sex workers in prostitution, increases vulnerability to violence and sets sex workers apart from the rest of the community.
- Prop K is an anti-racist initiative. Women of color are disproportionately arrested under the prostitution laws and make up the majority of women in prison.
- Prop K will not stop the prosecution of traffickers but will protect immigrant women from being targeted for arrest. According to the Public Defender, not one trafficker has been prosecuted in SF. However, many sex workers of color have been rounded up and deported.
Hope to see you there!
Election Memories
I’ve been thinking about election memories. My earliest political memory is from 1992, when Clinton meant a different Clinton and Bush meant a different Bush. My mom bought me a Scholastic biography of William Jefferson Clinton, a thin book that had a picture of a smiling, white man in a dark suit, seated behind a desk, hands folded. I thought it was cool how he’d wanted to run for president all his life, how he’d gone to Yale and how he was a Rhodes Scholar. I didn’t realize how strange it was that the new president didn’t come from a rich family, that his dad had been a traveling salesman, his mom a nurse, and his step-dad an abusive alcoholic. But that’s not my earliest political memory.
My earliest political memory is from 1992, when Clinton meant a different Clinton and Bush meant a different Bush, and my second grade class held a mock election. Chris Murphy said, “Don’t vote for Clinton. My dad says he’s a fag.”
The other election that stands out in my mind is 2004, when Kerry and Edwards were running against Bush and Cheney. My roommate and I were going to watch the election results come in, damning the fact that we were on the East Coast and had three more hours of nailbiting than the West Coasters did. Her girlfriend invited her over to her room and I ended up watching the election with a bottle of Ketel One. I was up until four or five in the morning, steadily becoming more and more drunk and more and more distraught, hoping against hope that somehow, the disputed votes would be counted and Kerry would win. That was all that I had left to hope for, since the same-sex marriage bans on eleven state ballots had all passed, and had passed with significantly more than a bare majority. Voters in Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah voted for measures that defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. Some states went further and refused to recognize civil unions, while others went even further and banned civil unions outright.
Last week, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released the latest edition of the Statewide Survey: Californians and Their Government. They found that the gap between the pro- and anti- marriage equality voters had decreased from September’s 41% yes, 55% no to 44% yes, 52% no. While the decrease in support is worrisome, what is more alarming is the importance the poll subjects attached to the outcome of Prop. 8, an indication of how likely they were to turn out and vote on the measure:
The proportion saying the outcome of the vote is very important has increased over time (48% August, 54% September, 57% today); however, this has occurred more among “yes” voters (57% August, 62% September, 69% today) than among “no” voters (44% August, 51% September, 49% today). – Full report, PDF
Furthermore, polls are mixed. A SurveyUSA poll from Oct. 17 showed Yes on 8 ahead, 48% to 45%, and a poll done by Marist College for the Knights of Columbus showed support for Prop. 8 at 52% and the opposition at 43%.
Polls are an inexact science and it’s anyone’s guess as to how the increased voter turnout for the presidential election will affect Prop. 8. What stands out to me the most is not that various partisan and nonpartisan polls are showing conflicting results, but that the PPIC poll shows that the opposition has decreased and the support for Prop. 8 has become more fervent.
I cannot overemphasize how important Prop. 8 is. It’s not merely another anti-marriage equality ban, it’s an amendment to the state constitution. It’s not merely another state constitutional amendment, but the first attempt to take away marriage equality in a state that already recognizes and performs same-sex marriages. That’s why Prop. 8 is different. In all the other states that passed anti-marriage equality bans, rights were denied and discrimination was written into state law, but the rights had never been recognized to begin with. Here, the California Supreme Court recognized that the 2000 ban on same-sex marriages was unconstitutional and granted an affirmative right to marry. If we lose on Prop. 8, we’re not losing theoretical rights. We’re losing real rights that have been recognized by civil authorities, and that’s why Prop. 8 would be a huge, unique setback to the GLBTQI rights movement.
There are six days until the election. Both sides are flooding the airwaves with advertisements, jamming the phone lines with voter calls, and hitting the pavement with canvassers and demonstrators. Supporters of Prop. 8 are donating their life savings (SacBee) to Yes on Prop. 8 because they see it as a cause worth fighting for.
Pam and Rick Patterson have always followed teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and tried to live within their means.
He drives a 10-year-old Honda Civic to his job at Intel. She is a stay-at home mom who makes most of the family meals and bakes her own bread. The couple, who have five sons between the ages of 3 and 12, live in a comfortable but modest three-bedroom home in Folsom.
It’s a traditional lifestyle they believe is now at risk. That’s why the Pattersons recently made a huge financial sacrifice – they withdrew $50,000 from their savings and donated it to the Yes on Proposition 8 campaign, the ballot measure that seeks to ban same-sex marriage. …
“The No. 1 reason members are donating and working toward this cause is the preservation of the traditional family,” she said.
That’s why Auburn resident David Nielson, 55, is giving. He said the church has not pressured him to contribute.
“Absolutely not,” said Nielson, a retired insurance executive. He and his wife, Susan, live on a budget. The couple donated $35,000, he said, “because some things are worth fighting for.”
The couple will forgo a vacation for the next two years and make other sacrifices to pay for their donation, he said.
“If it doesn’t pass, then at least I can tell my grandchildren I gave everything I could,” Nielson said.
The Pattersons, who have been married 14 years, say there were thinking about their children’s future when they decided to tap into their savings to contribute. And they also said no one pressured them into giving. [emphasis mine]
When November 2 comes and the polls have closed and the votes have been counted, will you be able to say that you did everything you could? That you stood up for what you believed in?
I’ve been getting emails from complete strangers about Prop. 8, people that rushed their weddings and had civil ceremonies just in case Prop. 8 should pass and ban new marriages but allow already married couples to stay married. I’ve been thinking of the lives at stake and how much a few short months can matter, let alone the years it would take to repeal Prop. 8.
According to No on 8, when undecided voters view both Yes on 8 and No on 8 ads, they’re more likely no. This means that getting our ads out is essential, which means buying ad time. According to Drs. Green and Gerber, Poli Sci profs at Yale, volunteer efforts are extremely persuasive (Slate):
Political scientists have run dozens of such studies during the past few years, and the work has led to what you might call the central tenet of voter mobilization: Personal appeals work better than impersonal ones. Having campaign volunteers visit voters door-to-door is the “gold standard” of voter mobilization efforts, Green and Gerber write. On average, the tactic produces one vote for every 14 people contacted. The next-most-effective way to reach voters is to have live, human volunteers call them on the phone to chat: This tactic produces one new vote for every 38 people contacted.
This means that talking to your friends, family members, and coworkers is essential. I’ve done phonebanking for No on 8 and by freak luck I haven’t talked to anyone that was undecided or voting yes. However, during phonebanking for No on 4, I’ve talked with undecided voters that changed their minds and decided to vote no after a short conversation, so I can easily believe that phonebanking works.
The election is six days away. Make sure to vote (absentee voters, mail in your ballots before Tuesday, because they have to arrive by the time polls close, or make sure to drop your ballot off at a polling location). Donate what you can ($5 minimum at the No on 8 site). The Nielsons and the Pattersons are sacrificing their savings and cutting vacations out of their budgets in order to support Prop. 8. What are we willing to give up to support marriage equality, anti-homophobia, and civil rights?
Phone bank at a No on 8 office or from your home. Conversations are short, easy, and effective.
Volunteer on Election Day and show your support for NO on Prop. 8. Take the day off work or do a shift in the morning or evening and show a real, human face to the voters.
My earliest political memory is of Chris Murphy, an eight-year old classmate, repeating his father’s hate speech. “My dad says Clinton’s a fag.” My 2004 presidential election memory is of watching anti-GLBTQI, anti-civil rights, pro-homophobia measures get voted in with overwhelming majorities. I want 2008 to be different. Help me make that possible.
Fight for equality. Fight for love.
“I Want You To Be Nice To Sex Workers”
Last September, sex worker, pleasure activist, and artist Sadie Lune (NSFW) took first place at Tony Labat’s I Want You project at SFMOMA. As part of the contest, the five winners had their images and slogans turned into posters. I’d actually forgotten about that, but I can’t wait to see them go up all over the city. For one thing, it’s great, free publicity for Yes on Prop. K. For another, Sadie Lune’s poster looks fabulous and combines the personal, the political, and the artistic into a provocative political request:
I love that line, “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me.” I think a lot of the prejudice in society comes from a lack of imagination and an inability or an unwillingness to empathize with other people. That ignorance and lack of understanding results in fear of the unknown and then hostility, trying to keep the unknown as far away as possible. When it comes to sex work, that hostility manifests as criminalization, which drives sex workers underground and tries to lock them into jails, where they’re kept out of sight and thus out of mind. It’s the attitude of, “I can’t imagine being a sex worker and so I’ll punish them for making me think about it and feel uncomfortable–I’ll push them away so I don’t have to think about them–I don’t want to think about the issues and so I’ll just vote no on K to preserve the status quo.” “I want you to stop punishing me because you can’t imagine being me” looks that attitude of hostility, fear, ignorance, or just plain apathy in the face and says, “Stop. Think.” The combination of the image and the slogan says, “Stop. Think. I’m a real person, and your decisions affect me.”
“I want you to be nice to sex workers” is another powerful line, because it raises the question of what exactly it means to be nice to sex workers. How does one go about it? Does it mean being a good customer, respecting a sex worker’s rules and paying them well? Does it mean not harassing them? Does it mean not making dead hooker jokes? Does it mean supporting programs that help sex workers transition out, if they want to? Does it mean giving a damn when someone murders, rapes, or robs a sex worker and gets off with a slap on the wrist? Does it mean advocating for sex workers’ rights? Does it mean realizing that sex workers are no more a monolith than any other group of people? Does it mean not privileging the voices of non-sex workers over the voices of sex workers?
Does it mean listening to sex workers when they say what they want?
Questions, questions. The poster challenges the viewer and raises lots of questions. I love that.
Sadie Lune’s “I Want You,” video by activist, artist, and sex worker Scarlot Harlot (video NSFW):
Transcript:
[Organ grinder music]
[Applause]
I want you. I want you to listen to me, even if you think you’ve heard it before or don’t think I know how to speak for myself. I want you so bad, so bad right now–to respect me, and pay me, and understand that I do not sell myself, because I’m still here, and I’ve always been here.
I want you to know that I have your money. And your coworker’s money, and your father’s money has fed my family, and my rent, and my studies, and my habit, and my poverty, and my extravagance. And you might think that you don’t know me, but it’s more likely you just don’t know that you do.
I might want this job or hate it, but your condemnation and your ignorance and your accusations and your locking me down for my living, and your turning your back on my rape, and your knocking me off because you think no one cares, and your using me as the inhuman butt of your jokes–I want you to stop.
I want you to stop punishing me just because you may not be able to imagine being me.
I want you to be nice to sex workers. I want you, I really do. Please vote yes on Prop. K.
[applause]
———————————
I’m not a sex worker, and so although I can write about Prop. K, I’m trying to navigate the boundaries of privilege such that I don’t appropriate the sex worker activist movement or claim to speak for it. On the one hand, I’m writing about Prop. K the way I would write about any other ballot initiative–opining, navel-gazing, and analyzing–but I realize that in our anti-sex work society, my voice is privileged over the voices of actual sex workers. That’s wrong and I’m trying not to replicate that same power structure when I write, so if I fuck up and put my foot in it, please call me on it and I’ll fix it (I realize that asking for that guidance is in itself an act of privilege, but I’m not sure how else to say that I will inevitably fuck up, despite trying not to, and I welcome being told how I’ve fucked up. Perhaps the writer’s tag, “constructive criticism always welcome” would work?)
Out and About: More Signage
More photos of political signage.
“YOUR VOICE VOTE REGISTER AND VOTE” advertisement on the side of a bus stop in the Mission, with the deadline for registration prominently advertised. The Mission is a rapidly gentrifying but still lower-income and predominantly Hispanic neighborhood–people that typically are very affected by politics–so I’m happy to see the SF Department of Elections making an effort to reach out to the inhabitants.
Marriage Equality: CA, AZ, FL…
Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry and define marriage as being between a woman and a man, is the anti-marriage equality proposition that’s received the most press and the most donations in this election. Unfortunately, the race is still close and the outcome is uncertain (LA Times).
However, there are also anti-marriage equality initiatives on the ballots in other states. Arizona’s Proposition 102 would amend the AZ state constitution to state, “Marriage – Only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.” A state law already defines marriage as being between one woman and one man, but that’s not enough for the anti-marriage equality people. Arizona voters defeated an anti-marriage equality amendment in 2006, but the zombie of homophobia reared its head again. Equality Arizona is fundraising, running phonebanks, and canvassing neighborhoods against Prop. 102. If you can donate some money or time, please do. A group of bloggers at No on 102 are fighting back against the plethora of Yes on 102 signs by gathering No on 102 pictures. Take a picture and post it to their flickr or email it to noon102 at gmail.
In Florida, Amendment 2 reads,
Inasmuch as a marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.
Amendment 2 will ban recognition and benefits for all unmarried couples, blocking civil unions and domestic partnerships. The VoteNoon2.org website says,
The amendment would have an especially harsh impact on Florida”s large senior population, many of whom form domestic partnerships rather than remarry after they are widowed in order not to risk losing essential benefits. Same-sex couples, who are already denied the right to marry by law, would now be denied the right to any kind of meaningful legal protection. The vague language in the amendment, “the substantial equivalent thereof”, will plunge Florida into lawsuits, much as has happened in other states. In every instance around the country, those behind these amendments immediately seek to have it interpreted in the most restrictive way possible for all unmarried people.
Florida law already defines marriage as being between a woman and a man, prohibits same-sex marriages, and has a Defense of Marriage Law (DOMA) on the books. Amendment 2 shows that anti-marriage equality people aren’t content with anything less than enshrining anti-GLBTQI discrimination in their state constitution.
For more information on what you can do to help defeat Amendment 2, visit VoteNoOn2.com. Floridian Brian has been blogging about Amendment 2 over at Incertus.
If there are other anti-marriage equality propositions up for the vote in this election, please let me know.
Out and About: Political Signs
A cafe window at Market and Castro.
Yes on Prop. K fliers on a pole on Market, near Embarcadero
Ferry Building Farmers Market: complete with McCain and Palin cutouts!
Ferry Building Farmers Market: opposite the McCain-Palin table, Obama-Biden (sadly, no cutouts).
Cindy Sheehan for Congress sign in an apartment window on Carl and Hilway.
I wanted photos of signs and political materials from around the city, but since I haven’t seen any No on Prop. 4 signage anywhere, here’s my window.
