We're (still) here because we're queer

One of the very, very few bright spots in this dumpster fire of an election was the approval by about 62% of California voters of a ballot proposition to legalize the right of everyone to marry the person of their choice, thus rescinding Proposition 8.   Prop 8, passed in 2008, amended the California constitution to make same-sex marriage illegal.  It was made moot by later state and federal court decisions, and the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples, finally made marriage equality the law of the land.  After Trump was elected in 2016, I talked to several activists about the need to rescind Prop 8, but at that time very few people seemed to think there was any real threat.  Now, of course, things are different, so earlier this year the California legislature voted to re-amend the state constitution, which requires a vote, placing Proposition 3 on the ballot.

In 2008, we donated thousands of dollars, made hundreds of phone calls, and pounded the pavement, with our daughter in her stroller, trying to get people to vote against Prop 8.  Despite our efforts, which included a cute little 20-month-old handing people flyers while saying “no eight,” Prop 8 passed with 52% of the vote.  Sixteen years later, with barely a notice, very little opposition, and no campaigning at all, Prop 8 is gone. 

In sixteen years, we’ve gone from a battle for a basic civil right to something that has been so normalized that people barely notice it, at least in California.  (I mentioned that Proposition 3 had won to a gay male friend of mine yesterday, and he didn’t even remember that it was on the ballot.)  This is something to celebrate, even when not much else is.