No on 8 – The Sequel
I don’t have the right to legally marry my partner and, honestly, I don’t really notice it most days. I don’t wake up in the morning and think, “Huh…I think I might like Luisa better if we were legally married”. I don’t have a cup of coffee and think, “Gee…this would taste sweeter if I could get hitched”. The fact that I can’t get married does not have any impact on my love for my partner or my children. It does not affect our day to day lives. We get up every morning and get our kids ready for school. We argue with them about wardrobe choices and brushing their teeth. We take them to school and kiss them goodbye, wishing them each a good day. We go to work and try to help people in the only ways we know how. When the day is done, we pick up our kids, make them dinner, play some Candyland read to them and put them to bed. Legally married or not – this is the life that we live every day. Still, legal recognition does matter and I spent today trying to sort out why it matters so very much. Then, while my children flailed about in their respective swimming classes , I read the opening lines of The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell in which she writes:
The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don’t mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed.
This is the bigger picture. This fight against proposition 8 is not just about marriage. It is about the belief held by many in this country that some lives are worth more than others…the belief that some people are more deserving of respect and dignity…the belief that those who are different from you are a threat to you. The fact is that people in this country are killed simply for being gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered. We can’t make laws that force people to be open-minded but, if proposition 8 passes, we are sending a message to people that their bigotry is justified. We are living in a tumultuous time and now, more than ever, we need to rise above the politics of fear. It’s time for each one of us to take a stand against hate. Donate money to No on 8. Vote No on 8. Talk to your friends and family about this proposition and ask them to stand with you. And, when this election is over, please….keep talking.
*Just a reminder…if you donate to No on 8, please send me an e-mail at vikki@uppoppedafox.com and I will enter you in the drawing to win The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. You can check out the original post here.
Posted: October 28th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
Comments
Comment from Susan
Time October 29, 2008 at 5:46 am
It was the Religious Right who turned “gay marriage” into a political campaign back in the mid-90s, I believe. It’s not a political fight we picked, we being queer folks, but it is one that we constantly have to react against. No on 8 being a perfect example – how much money, time and energy has gone into reacting against a bill that, as Vikki says so well, is about a belief, it isn’t about anything that we can literally wrestle with. And so as queers, we once again have to put our political energy and thinking into reacting against a marriage ballot, a concept which continually privileges a strange kind of heteronormativity (yes, I did use that word) by privileging monogamous coupledom as the way relationships and public supports need to happen. Everytime another marriage bill gets foisted upon us and we have to gather our resources to fight against it, I am deeply sad. Not so much about the discrimination, that’s there whether or not there’s a marriage bill, but about the narrowness of how we have to fight. I don’t want to have legal and fiscal protections given to me through the once-religious now-courtbased concept of marriage. I want a broad based social support network including universal health care and death support to be given BECAUSE I am here, Susan, not because I am partnered to Rocki. I love the work that was done around Beyond Marriage (http://www.beyondmarriage.org/) to help us think, literally, beyond marriage as the concept that will ground us, protect us, legitimize us. But of course, when the Right gathers its forces and crops up another anti-gay-marriage bill, all as a way to fundraise and organize against a perceived common enemy, we have to respond. And I am weary of having to respond to their agenda. I think that’s why I have a hard time getting it up for anti-gay-marriage bills. I just want to yell- forget it! who cares about marriage!! separate legal and social protections from cultural relationship traditions. health care for all! And at the same time, if we don’t respond, then the ground we have to take back just grows larger. So thank you for posting and acting around No on 8, Vikki. Those silly silly fundies, they are so tiresome.
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Time October 29, 2008 at 7:28 am
[...] No on 8 – The Sequel [...]
Comment from Chris
Time October 29, 2008 at 9:08 am
Thanks for that. Very well said.
I am both looking forward to Nov 4 – all the BS will be over, plus it’s my and CJ’s birthday – and dreading it – hoping everything falls our way. I might have to take the 5th off just to recover.
Comment from Meghan
Time October 29, 2008 at 10:02 am
Vikki, I admire your passion and feel so sorry that you have to deal with this. I hope you get what you are fighting for.
Comment from leigh
Time October 29, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I think it’s a cheap way to feel morally superior and a great way to control people – fear (invoking god none the less) and intimidation….maybe i am simple but it all seems so unAmerican and unchristian like? Below a letter from Kate Kendall – the director of NCLR – the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
***************************************
“Armageddon”
“More important than the presidential election”
That’s what evangelical leader Charles W. Colson and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said about Prop 8, calling it the “decisive last stand” in this morning’s New York Times:
“California, they say, sets cultural trends for the rest of the country and even the world. If same-sex marriage is allowed to become entrenched there, they warn, there will be no going back.”
So, they’ll stop at nothing to provoke a final tidal wave of attention and money before the election.
Last week, they tried it with an ad that reaches a new low.
Their new, horrible, abusive ad uses unauthorized images of children without their parents’ knowledge or consent. And they’re proud of it. From their website:
“Our new ad gives us great hope.”
“As strong as this new ad is, however, it won’t be able to reverse our downward trend in the polls if voters only see it once for every two times that they see ads from our opponents. The future of traditional marriage remains in grave, grave danger. If we aren’t successful in raising a minimum of $2 million more to supplement our advertising buy for next week, we will lose. The more we can raise above $2 million, the better our chances of prevailing will be. It is as simple as that.”
By contrast, we are staying true to our core values and message: Prop 8 is wrong and unfair.
We cannot be lulled into thinking that voters will see through their transparent, dirty tactics. To defeat Prop 8, we need to give more and do more.
Their goal is to raise $2 million dollars in the next few days.
They have a $1 million match on their site right now. We have every reason to believe they’ll raise $2 million today alone.
We need to match them dollar for dollar in this crucial final stretch. Donate today.
In solidarity,
Comment from Emily
Time October 29, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Hi Vikki, thanks for your comment over on my blog. Glad to “help” in whatever way I can – it just really floors me that we even have to have this discussion! Loved your post, you really got to the root of the argument. Fingers crossed for Nov. 5!
Comment from sarah g
Time October 30, 2008 at 9:56 am
thanks vikki. thanks for putting this into words. these words want me to keep talking about it too.
Comment from Robin Reagler
Time October 30, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Thanks for a great post, Vikki. On an entirely different note and much lighter note, Dana and I will be giving away 20 DVD sets of The L Word Season 5 starting tomorrow. We have staggered our schedules as follows:
Friday 5 copies given away at Mombian
Monday 5 copies given away at The Other Mother
Tuesday 5 copies given away at Mombian
Wednesday 5 copies given away at The Other Mother
It’s a great distraction from politics, yes? If you could let people know, that would be cool. Thanks!
Comment from Butch Boo
Time October 31, 2008 at 5:51 am
Whole thing saddens me intensely.
Sending you all positive vibes across the pond
BB
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Pingback from A Family | 280 Main Street
Time November 3, 2008 at 7:58 am
[...] would hope that I could find the eloquence and energy to mobilize and inspire like Lesbian Dad and Vicki at Up Popped the Fox. I’m not sure I [...]
Pingback from 280 Main St. · A Family
Time June 22, 2009 at 10:43 am
[...] would hope that I could find the eloquence and energy to mobilize and inspire like Lesbian Dad and Vikki at Up Popped the Fox in the face of such bigotry. I’m not sure I [...]
Comment from Ali B.
Time October 28, 2008 at 10:23 pm
I did donate. It confuses me, though, this whole thing. Why is it necessary, this battle over prop 8? What I mean is why IS there a prop 8? Honestly, I don’t understand, for the life of me. I try, I genuinely try to imagine myself in the shoes of people who are fighting so hard against gay marriage, figure out where they’re coming from. I WANT to understand where they’re coming from, actually. I just can’t do it. I don’t understand the threat. Why would you and Luisa getting legally married be any threat to my own marriage? Why, in our efforts to “protect” marriage — marriages like mine, I suppose they mean — are we eliminating it for large numbers of people? What am I missing?
I genuinely wish someone could explain it to me. I go to church. I have studied the Bible. I just can’t imagine Jesus telling you and Luisa that there’s something wrong with you, or condoning the anti-gay messages. Yeah, I know it’s not for me to say what Jesus would or would not do. But still, I try to imagine this, Jesus judging you any more than he would the rest of us, or his being gladdened by the anti-gay movement. I can’t picture it.
Honestly, the whole thing just leaves me scratching my head. I know you can’t explain it either. I just…I dunno. I just don’t get it. I don’t.