Spirit Blooms » Politics

Prop 8 Statistics

Barbara — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:16:19 +0000

Ballotpedia.org has an informative page regarding California Proposition 8.

What struck me, when I examined the statistics, is the small difference between Yes and No vote counts. According to the final count shown at the State website (PDF), the difference was only 599,602 votes out of 13.4 million That’s less than 5 in 100 people. The vote could so easily have swung the other way, if a few hundred people in each precinct either voted differently, failed to vote, or more voted who stayed home on November 4 — if more people thought a little harder and longer about the impact of this proposition on people’s lives. I wonder if anyone now regrets their vote, or regrets not voting.

In the time between the prior State Supreme Court ruling and the election (June 15 to November 4, 2008), less than 5 months, approximately 20,000 couples, or 40,000 people, entered into same sex marriages in California. Some of these couples had been together and waiting to marry for decades. Would that every opposite sex marriage lasted so long. That’s about 15 dividing votes for each newlywed. The difference is so close that I can see this as a tragic slip through the cracks of voter opinions and action, and basic rights. I also wonder, if each of those voters had known one of the newlyweds personally, would they have wanted to take away their right to marry? Is this just a law that made it through the ballot initiative process because some voters couldn’t imagine themselves in another’s place, or thought of those people whose rights they were limiting as just some imaginary people “out there” and of no consequence to them because they didn’t know them? It’s easy to think impersonally when voting. But our rights aren’t impersonal to us. What if this had been a ballot initiative to take away the marriage rights of people over thirty, or people with blue eyes? What if it affected your personal rights or those of someone you care about? Would that have changed your vote?

What bothers me most is the source and size of some donations for the Prop 8 campaign, which is in my opinion shameful. Why do we allow such large single source donations for a ballot proposition that changes the state constitution, when we don’t allow them for candidates who serve only a few years? Why do organizations that claim to be pro-marriage and pro-family take it on themselves to keep people from marrying, and in the process divide families?

This is an anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-love amendment. No matter what the California Supreme Court decides about this Proposition, I think it must be repealed — if not by the court then by another election, hopefully with more voters thinking this through and thinking for themselves rather than letting their churches or their knee-jerk reactions think for them. Mistakes have been made before with constitutional amendments, at the state and federal level. Some of the worst have been corrected by shifting public opinion as we see their negative or unintended impacts. I hope this will be one of them. I don’t want to see my home state so divided on this. I do want to see equality in marriage rights.

Some other reading on this topic:

Democracy, Law and Proposition 8

Erasing Decades of Moral Progress with Proposition 8

Calif. high court weighs same-sex marriage ban

The faulty logic behind Proposition 8

No on 8 Angst (Chapter 472)

Including this excellent opinion piece by Byron Williams at The Huffington Post:

Prop.8 Ruling Means California Supreme Court must Rule on its own Relevance

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NOTE to Tarot visitors: I’ll get back to my Tarot posts soon — I’ve been occupied with other personal business. But I have not abandoned my Tarot study.

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Repeal Prop 8

Barbara — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:01:52 +0000

I just found a beautiful video urging repeal of this horribly wrong proposition. There is so much LOVE in these photos. How can anyone deny it’s place in our world?

Repeal Prop 8

It’s from Spiritcaat.

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Love deserves our support, in whatever form it takes

Barbara — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:16:09 +0000

I see most people’s negative reaction to same-sex marriage as steeped in their own fear, culture shock, and unconscious projections. I see people follow whatever their religion or culture has taught them instead of thinking this issue through for themselves.

Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry?

This isn’t a question to give a knee-jerk, “ooh, I feel funny about that” response to. It’s bigger than that. Look at the anti-miscegenation laws that kept mixed race couples from marrying in the past. I’m sure a lot of non-racist people back then felt “funny” about mixed race couples, because it was new and different. It threatened the status quo.

But the real question, the important question is, how many people — adults and children — suffered because of that small-minded text written into the law books? This is people’s lives we’re talking about! Just because you or I privately don’t understand the attraction or start visualizing what goes on in someone’s bed and is none of our business, or just because our pastor or priest tells us it’s a sin, doesn’t give us the right to negatively affect others’ lives to that extent by telling them they can’t marry the person they love, when their love harms no one else. In fact, it’s really none of our business.

Would you want anyone telling you that you can’t marry the person you love? That’s the only question we need to ask ourselves in order to come to the right answer. “Do unto others …” The Golden Rule applies here, and I don’t understand when religious people can’t see that.

I’m a romantic, and I’ve seen friends and family members who wanted to find the right partner or struggled in relationships.

When two people find each other and make a relationship work, that’s something to be celebrated, not stymied. If we’re pro-family, why can we not be for every family? Every marriage.

We need to rise above our base emotions and our fears about this, and be more giving, more thoughtful, less judgmental, and ensure above all that we do no harm. In my heart I know it’s the right thing to do.

I urge every straight person who can begin to understand why a same-sex couple wants a lasting relationship to become an activist on their behalf. They are a minority, and that means they can’t get there alone. It takes votes, and writing to representatives. It takes changing people’s minds.

Love deserves our support, in whatever form it takes.

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California’s Prop 8 — Religious extremism hard at work

Barbara — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:24:30 +0000

I’m a straight woman, married for 25 years now, and I’m shocked and disgusted by the religious fervor ripping across my home state in favor of Proposition 8, which would pass a state constitutional amendment eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry.

I don’t understand why anyone considers it any of their business whether two other consenting adults decide to marry. I consider marriage a basic right, something we all take for granted from the time we’re small children — that when we grow up we can find someone to love who loves us, and we can marry that person.

I’m not anti-religion, but this stuff is scary! The scariest thing is that it’s happening in my home town:

The Call, California (video link found at: http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/content/thecall)

I don’t know of any gay person who would deny religious people the right to practice their religions as they see fit. Yet these religious people are attempting to tell others who they can marry, as well as, it’s clear to me, telling the rest of us in California what our religious as well as political views about marriage should be. I find that presumption offensive.

A same-sex couple marrying in no way threatens the sanctity of my, or anyone else’s, marriage.

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Statesman or prophet?

Barbara — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 23:46:15 +0000

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

- Thomas Jefferson

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