Via Pink News

The next President of the United States has published a comprehensive list of action he will take on gay rights.

In a statement published on the Presidential transition website, Barack Obama and the Vice President-elect, Joe Biden, committed themselves to strengthening federal hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act.

The President-elect also committed to support civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples.

"Barack Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples," the statement read.

Read all of Obama's promises on his website Change.gov.

Bil Browning over at Bilerico has written a post called "Three Things That Made Me Cry Today." Number One on his list is this:

Mexican Is The New Gay

. . . I was flirting with a guy online; he's latino. I asked him where he was from and he said, "I'm from Mexico. I hope that's okay." Okay? Okay!?

Apparently, if gay is the new black, Mexican is the new gay. Does this damned merry-go-round ever stop? Why would it not be okay what country he was from? France, Japan, Mexico or East Timor? I just can't imagine what it must be like to follow it up with, "I hope that's okay."

Maybe it's just seeing the whole "Blame The Blacks" meme whip through the queer community recently, but I'm feeling really sick about some of the overt racism that's floated through my world lately.

Mexican has been the new black for quite some time now. I honestly cannot tell you how many times I have heard nasty comments about Mexicans, directed at me, in the past year. Here are a few that come to mind:

"You better watch out, or you're going to look Mexican!"
"You know how those Mexicans breed."
"I went to California, and everywhere you looked it was fucking Mexicans, Mexicans, Mexicans!"
"You're Mexican? No, no, you mean you're Spanish."

And every time I hear one of these little gems, the first thing I think is, "What would my mother think of me if I didn't say something right now?" One of my friends said I was an angry half-Mexican. And you know what? He's right. It pisses me off that people who know better feel safe spouting bigotry to me, in front of me. Replace "Mexican" in the comments above with any other minority of your choice to see how violent it feels. "You better watch out or you're going to look black!" Or "You know how those Jews breed." Or "You're black? No, no, you mean you're white." I went to California and everywhere I looked it was faggots, faggots, faggots!" Yeah. It makes me feel queasy, too.

I went to breakfast on Sunday with a friend. While we were eating, a little Mexican boy and a little Mexican girl around 9 and 10, probably the children of the adults working there, kept refilling our coffee cups and water glasses. They were so cute, and they reminded me of two of my nephews and nieces. Each time they came back to our table, I kept wondering if they both dreamed of being President. You know what? I hope they do, but I doubt it. They hear from every conceivable arena that Mexicans are less than everyone else, that Mexicans are part of the American servant class.

I've written about this before, but with so much discussion surrounding gays and racism, I feel obligated to say something about this. How many times did I hear people on Fire Island make gagging sounds when the idea of sleeping with an Asian man came up in conversation? Or how about that Pines council member who told me, on a weekend that Kevin Aviance was performing, that it was "getting to be too . . . urban" and something had to be done?And then all this anti-Mormon talk. By gay people! It is a merry-go-round, and we do keep going round and round, but I can't help but think it's because we love the ride.

After the successes (and failures) of the past few weeks of Proposition 8, everyone is asking "What's next?" From Join The Impact, the group of dedicated people who coordinated the National Protest Day - The Day Without A Gay:

The worldwide media attention surrounding our massive grassweb efforts for gay rights has been tremendous. Join the Impact was a HUGE success and will continue to thrive because of our efforts.

We've reacted to anti-gay ballot initiatives in Californaia, Arizona Florida, and Arkansas with anger, with resolve, and with courage. NOW, it's time to show America and the world how we love.

Gay people and our allies are compassionate, sensitive, caring, mobilized, and programmed for success. A day without gays would be tragic because it would be a day without love.

On December 10, 2008 the gay community will take a historic stance against hatred by donating love to a variety of different causes.

On December 10, you are encouraged not to call in sick to work. You are encouraged to call in "gay"--and donate your time to service!

I won't be calling in sick, though! I'll be right here.

This picture, which I took at the New York City National Day of Protest in front of City Hall, is far and away my favorite picture from that day and it visually sums up exactly what I felt that day.

In the foreground is my friend, actor Paul Stovall, an African-American man. He is standing in front of a sign that reads "Separate Is Not Equal." The sign is being held by a white woman. A white woman using the same language today that a black woman would have used fifty years ago. Who would have thought then that a white person today would have reason to use the exact same language to call for her own equal rights? It's stunning. Beautiful. This should be a powerful image of unity for all people who have struggled to obtain civil rights - black people, female people, brown people, gay people. People who have struggled separately finally coming together to fight for the larger, truer principle -- equality for all. That should be what this image represents. But it's not.

Instead, this picture is bizarre. Bizarre because, during the protest, Paul turned to me and said, "Someone forgot to invite the black people." The crowd was overwhelmingly white. 90 percent white. There were a few black people and a few brown people scattered through the crowd. In New York City. I overheard someone next to me say, "This looks like a circuit party." Bizarre because, there we all were, demanding to be treated equal, demanding to be included, demanding our civil rights, using the language of other minorities who have fought the same fight before us while those people were nowhere in sight! Bizarre because something is very wrong when we demonstrate that we know we have all gone through the same struggle but then don't fight together.

Only one person of color gave a speech. The other speechmakers said the people of color who were scheduled to speak couldn't make it. Separate is not equal, and separate is not united. And separate won't win this fight.

The protest in NYC last Wednesday and the national protests on Saturday were exactly the same. Something is wrong here. I have one question: Why is this fight for civil rights, this fight in particular, such a white fight?

Everywhere I turn I find evidence that we have no real leader. Tammy Lynn Michaels is our voice? Jasmyne Cannick is our civil rights spokesmodel? The HRC has, as Andrew Sullivan pointed out, has been almost entirely absent these past few weeks:

You will notice that the website of the biggest gay rights group in the country has one single mention - it's a blog about a celebrity, of course - of the massive protests that occurred for marriage equality across the country yesterday. (A letter from Joe Solmonese tells us to be nice.) You will also notice that a handful of young non-professionals were able to organize in a few days what HRC has been incapable of doing in months or years. You will know from brutal experience that in the two decades of serious struggle for marriage equality, the Human Rights Campaign has been mostly absent, and when present, often passive or reactive. Here's a simple statistic that might help shake us out of complacency: HRC claims to have spent $3.4 million on No On 8. The Mormon church was able to spend over $20 million, by appealing to its members. Why are non-gay Mormons more capable of organizing and fund-raising on a gay rights measure than the biggest national gay rights group? I mean: they claim (absurdly, but bear with me) 725,000 supporters and members. In the summer, the major problem for No On 8 was insufficient early funding. If HRC had led, they could have thrown their money weight behind it. If every supporter had given $20 - chump change for the biggest ever battle yet for civil rights - they could have delivered $14 million overnight. So why didn't they?

The two people who have been our best voices are Michelangelo Signorile and Wanda Sykes. All of our spokespeople are leading us by default. Where is our Harvey Milk? Where is our generation's Larry Kramer?

Tomorrow is the National Day of Protest. There are a lot of questions about what's going on and, fortunately, there are also a lot of answers out there. Towleroad has the most extensive Prop 8 information online, including:

The State Supreme Court has asked Attorney General Jerry Brown to reply by Monday to lawsuits challenging the legality of Prop 8, suggesting the court is taking them very seriously: "The filing the court requested from Brown's office will not address the ballot measure's validity, but will focus instead on the initial questions of whether the justices should accept the suits for review - and, if so, whether they should suspend Prop. 8 while they decide the case, said the state's lawyer, Christopher Krueger, a senior assistant attorney general. Suspending Prop. 8 would allow same-sex marriages to resume."

USA Today: After passage of Prop 8, support for same-sex marriage grows.

L.A. Times: Boycott talk spreads...

And go to Join the Impact for any questions you have about protests in your city -- times, locations, etc. You'll also find pdfs of all kinds of signs and banners that you can download and print out, like the one at the top of this post, created by Shepard Fairey, the designer of the iconic Obama posters.

There has been so much energy surrounding this new direction for equal rights for us gays, and I have found it, well, exhilirating. I have felt a little bad, though, for not being able to join in unequivocally. I've been saying that we need to examine ourselves and our leaders for our failures. And I've been saying that we were too focused on blaming Mormons. And I've been saying that racism has played its part in the gay community for too long now. I've brought these issues up because I really do believe that now is the time to fix these problems (let's just call them that because that's what they are), but, honestly, I've felt a little like I've been somehow betraying my own community for pointing out its flaws. I've felt a little alone in thinking these things.

But, today, there two opinions in The Gay City News that make me feel a little less . . . isolated in this thinking. Herndon L. Davis writes:

My advice to the LGBT community, the organizers of No on Prop 8, the many different LGBT funders, and the remaining members of the Gay Mafia is that they take seriously the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors of black and people of color communities as they endeavor further in the marriage equality quest.

. . . In some corners of our diverse LGBT community, there is a blatant disregard for culture, religion, and the oppression of other racial and ethnic groups. Many working class blacks and Latinos are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and, yes, dodge bullets; their first instinct is not to lift their eyes up from their burdens to see the connection to the white- faced, seemingly privileged LGBT leadership that would move them to support marriage equality.

These are big chunks of truth that the LGBT community seems ill-prepared to accept, never mind tackle. In this new age of Obama, a much deeper conversation concerning LGBT race relations lies ahead, one that for now the community seems eager to shy away from.

And Eliyanna Kaiser and Gary Parker write:

Like everyone else in our community, we are upset about the passage of Proposition 8 in California. At a time when the country is celebrating the election of the first African-American president, the LGBT community suffered one of its biggest civil rights setbacks in recent history. And make no mistake about it, we are angry.

Unfortunately, some of the anger our community feels is being directed in unproductive and questionable ways, like the protest being held on Wednesday, November 12, outside the Manhattan Mormon Temple on Columbus Avenue.

There have been numerous media reports about how individual Mormons gave mega millions to the Yes to Prop 8 campaign at the encouragement of Church leadership. Unfortunately, many Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, Pentecostal ministers, and Baptist preachers have done the same, not just in California but in other states' anti-gay ballot initiatives, or to help elect anti-gay candidates here in New York.

This is why I really liked the call to action by Dustin Lance Black and Cleve Jones -- it asks each of us what we can do to advance all civil rights:"There are rare moments in human history when, suddenly and unexpectedly, the opportunity for great change and progress becomes possible. Barack Obama has shown us the power of hope and the urgency of seizing that moment. Harvey Milk has shown us the power we possess when we make our voices heard."

In an interview with MTV, James Franco talks Prop 8. The "Milk" actor says about playing a gay man in a relationship, "It's just a relationship." He goes on to show his support for gay marriage.

You know, there is something beautifully haunting about the release of "Milk" (it opens in two weeks) during this protest moment. Defamer had a post last week that asks: "Could an earlier Milk release date have changed anything?" It might have, but I think if we need a movie to rally around, we probably need a leader even more. It's almost like we've gotten used to having Hollywood fight for us. I think we're learning that we're strong enough to fight for ourselves.

I'm listening to Whoopi on The View right now, and she is talking about the protest last night. (Isn't it amazing that so many of us are turning to her right now to see what she says? She has become one of our voices -- more on that later.) Whoopi is saying, "If you don't know how you feel about gay marriage, go out and meet the families, go out and see what it is they really want." Amen.

Last night's protest was bracing. In a lot of ways.

It started at 6:30 (although I hear quite a few people arrive earlier), and I got there around 6:45. A thick river of bundled-up people marched down from the Mormon Temple, bent to file across 61st, and pool in Columbus Circle.

I moved in and out of the marchers, from the street to the curb and back. It was cool out, not yet cold, and serious out. There were alot of people, almost like a parade, but minus, for the most part, the abandon at a parade of a fesitival. Pockets of different chants dotted the route that wound beneath the enormous red CNN sign and headquarter. We were being seen. One of the protest marshalls kept shouting, "We're at 12,000 people! 12,000! Head down 61st! 12,000!"

More after the jump.

When I was deposited in Columbus Circle, I searched for a place to park myself and protest. I moved around, trying to see where the speakers were (I'd heard that Whoopi was going to be speaking), trying to find a place to focus my attention. Almost everyone else was doing the same. Most of the quieter protestors gathered around the more vocal ones, and groups of the chanters and listeners marked each corner of Columbus Circle.

As I roamed from corner to corner, I noticed that there was no real center, no focal point to direct the justified anger and the buzzing energy of the crowd. We had no leader. We have no leader.

Let me say now that I think what Michelangelo Signorile and Corey Johnson, Ann Northrop, and all of the other organizers did was remarkable. And I think the results of what they did have pointed us in a new direction. And that new direction is highlighting the areas we need to work on, as a community.

We are walking through a perfect storm of religion, race, and sexuality. Has this ever happened? And has it ever happened at a moment that has proven that fighting the good fight pays off? We have elected Obama. We know we can make things better. But where do we start?

I think we need to focus on the perfect storm itself. Homosexuality has not inoculated the gay community against the treatable diseases of the larger culture we inhabit. Last night was a very white, very male experience. Why? Why were there so few people of color? Why were there so few women? Why were we focused on what the Mormons did when there are so many other churches equally responsible? (I'm not the only to have noticed this - Andy Humm of The Gay City News noted these issues last night as well.) We don't do anyone any favors by pretending that the gay community is flawless and the rest of the world is evil. We need to address our problems head on so we can figure out how to solve them. And show them how it's done.

Andy Humm also wrote: "No speeches. No leaders. But lots of anger." I think the lack of leadership is what allows for a blurring of our message. The failures of the No on Prop 8 campaign came as much from a fractured gay leadership as it did from plain old bigotry. More from Humm:

Mark Monford, columnist at the Chronicle, called the response of the No side to the attack ads by the Yes people "utterly limp," writing, "As one of my politically savvy Chronicle colleagues put it, 'No on 8 was a bad campaign. Bad, bad, bad. Inept, amateurish, incompetent, and, above all, guilty of committing the first and worst sin of politics: taking the voters for granted."

And Dan Savage, bless his heart, has become a default voice, and he's doing as much harm as help. His "Black Homophobia" post was a bad idea, and his appearance last night on CNN made us look hysterical and unfocused.

We need to keep protesting, keep fighting, and become even more focused.Obama told us to get our own leader. So let's begin that search by leading by example. Let's use the enormous success of last night's protest to give us the energy we will need to make our community what it's always promised to be - a safe place for everyone.

For my money, the best and most clear-headed take on last night's protest and the entire Prop 8 response is from Andy Humm over at Gay City News. In the article he posted last night after the protest march, he writes:

No speeches. No leaders. But lots of anger.

Mobilized through social networking sites, an estimated 10,000 people turned out Wednesday night at the Mormon Temple near Lincoln Center in New York to protest the passage of the California amendment eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry and the fact that most of the money for the Yes on Prop 8 campaign came from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - the Mormons.

Corey Johnson, one of the key organizers with Mike Signorile and Ann Northrop, said the turnout "was a tremendous outpouring of grassroots energy and support." He hoped that energy can be harnessed to win marriage equality in New York.

Signorile said, "It's about a right that was taken away, not just marriage." He wants those energized to demand all of our civil rights and that Mormon-owned companies such as Marriott "stop giving money to the Church."

Civil rights attorney Norman Siegel said, "The spirit of ACT UP is in the air."

After the jump, how the religous vote really broke.

The biggest last minute change in how people polled and how they voted, DiCamillo wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle, was among Catholics, who are about 24 of the electorate and whom late polls showed going 44 percent for the measure.

"However," he wrote, "the network polls showed that they accounted for 30 percent of the California electorate and 64 percent of them voted 'yes.' Regular churchgoers showed a similar movement toward the 'yes' side," growing from 74 percent yes in a pre-election poll to 84 percent yes in the exit poll.

Notably, the pre-election poll showed that 58 percent of Catholics understood that voting yes would not take away the full domestic partner rights that gay couples enjoyed before the court ruling "versus 47 percent among non-Catholics." Many Catholics seem to have been swayed by a letter from their bishops read from most pulpits on the Sunday before the vote.

While that may explain whose votes were moved and why, it does not offer a fuller view of the No campaign's failure to be more effective. The gay blogosphere was full of reproaches for a campaign that almost entirely refused to feature gays or lesbians or appeal to emotions the way the Yes side did, but the invariable answer from No on 8 leaders during and after the battle was, "We know what we're doing." They insisted their ads were focus-group and field tested and that they worked with the voters that they needed to win over.

The Yes ads may have been lies - about churches being persecuted for not marrying gays and children being taught about gay marriage in elementary school -but they were effective. Even Barbara Walters on "The View" was repeating the Yes on 8 lies after the election, essentially saying that a Yes vote was understandable.

The right wing was also successful in exploiting Barack Obama's opposition to same-sex marriage in mailers and robo-calls, particularly in the African-American community. The No side responded with their own robo-calls citing Obama's opposition to Prop 8, but calls using his and Joe Biden's clear and early comments opposing Prop 8 went out only during the last weekend.

The leaders of the No side acknowledged that they did not make a serious outreach to the African-American community and did not feature blacks in their ads. After the campaign they wrote, "We achieve nothing if we isolate the people who did not stand with us in this fight. We only further divide our state if we attempt to blame people of faith, African-American voters, rural communities, and others for this loss."

1) Whoopi Goldberg at the NYC Prop 8 Protest (via boyculture)(6:31)
2) Dan Savage and Tony Perkins on Anderson Cooper (8:53)
3) Protestor video from inside the march headed to Columbus Circle (6:50)
4) Protestor Video of the Mormon Temple (3:14)

I was there last night as well. I'll be posting about what I saw and heard as soon as I can.

I just heard on Michelangelo Signorile's Air America radio show that Whoopi Goldberg is going to be speaking at the protest tonight once the march reaches Columbus Circle. Whoopi has maintained an admirably clear head in all of this.

I've said this before - an African-American woman speaking about gay civil rights is a powerful and poignant instrument of civil rights.

This got me thinking about Jasmyne Cannick, an African-American woman who writes for The Daily Voice: Black America's Daily News Source. Jasmyne has a post today that suggests African-Americans were not correctly targeted in the No on Prop 8 ads: "So let's recap, no Black people for the No on 8 campaign ads (using Samuel Jackson's voice doesn't count) and Black people in the Yes on 8 campaign ads. And Black people made up 69 percent of the Yes vote you say?" Cannick writes in an article in the SF Chronicle:

I am a perfect example of why the fight against Proposition 8, which amends California's Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, failed to win black support. I am black. I am a political activist who cares deeply about social justice issues. I am a lesbian. This year, I canvassed the streets of South Los Angeles and Compton, knocking on doors, talking politics to passers-by and working as I never had before to ensure a large voter turnout among African Americans. But even I wasn't inspired to encourage black people to vote against the proposition.

The blame for the failure lies with all of us. The No on Prop 8 committee failed in its approach to get the right information to the right people. The LA Times asks, "Where were the gay leaders? It's hard to imagine the civil rights movement of the 1960s succeeding without Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X, or to imagine the women's suffrage movement without the likes of Susan B. Anthony."

Below, is the video accompanying Jasmyne Cannick's post. It shows how the idea of gay marriage as a component of civil rights was twisted and re-shaped into something almost unrecognizable. Let me be clear - I am not saying in any way that African-Americans are to blame for the passing of Prop 8. This video is an indication of how some of those who favored it viewed its relation to civil rights. Imagine if there had been a similar ad that was AGAINST Prop 8?

I feel a little sick to my stomach even thinking about it, but Bill O'Reilly has a point. Now, obviously, I don't believe gays should be targeting black churches, but by that same logic, I don't believe that we should be specifically targeting Mormon churches, either. Let's stand in front of Catholic churches, Mormon churches, black churches, and Latino churches and make a broader, less bullying statement.

As yet, there is no consensus about who is to blame for Prop 8's passing, which probably means that the blame should be spread around to every voter who voted in favor of Prop 8.

Bill Marriott, the Mormon CEO of Marriott hotels, has issued a statement:

As many of you may know I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some might conclude given my family's membership in the Mormon Church that our company supported the recent ballot initiative to ban same sex marriage in California. This is simply untrue. Marriott International is a public company headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, and is not controlled by any one individual or family. Neither I, nor the company, contributed to the campaign to pass Proposition 8.

This is an opportunity for us, the gay community, to demonstrate that our hard-fought wins and losses have made us sensitive to the struggles of ALL minorities. Right now, the Mormons are an easy target for our rage, but that does not mean that an easy target should be the only target.

The full statement after the jump.

The Bible that I love teaches me about honesty, integrity and unconditional love for all people. But beyond that, I am very careful about separating my personal faith and beliefs from how we run our business.

I am personally motivated to speak now because Marriott was built on the basic principles of respect and inclusion. My father, who founded this company along with my mother, told everyone who would listen: "Take care of your employees, and they'll take care of your customers, who will come back again and again."

For more than 80 years, our company has grown and changed, but that basic principle still holds up. We embrace all people as our customers, associates, owners and franchisees regardless of race, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation.

Our principle is backed up with a formal diversity program, which we established more than 20 years ago. Our Board of Directors has also focused on this priority and helped us be a leader and a better company. We were among the first in our industry to offer domestic partner benefits, and we've earned a perfect 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index for two years in a row. Many of our hotels have hosted LGBT community functions and events for years.

I am very proud of all of our associates at Marriott. And I want all our associates and guests, whom we welcome into our hotels, to know that we embrace your talents and thank you for your many contributions and your business.

Gay Marriage takes a step in the right direction (and one that does not require a protest or a march) in Connecticut today. The Washington Blade reports:

Superior Court Judge Jonathan Silbert has scheduled a hearing at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday in New Haven to enter the final judgment in the case that allows same-sex marriages in Connecticut. Once completed, couples can pick up marriage license forms at town and city clerk's offices.

Connecticut state Rep. Beth Bye and her partner Tracey Wilson hope to make history on Wednesday by becoming the first gay couple to marry in their town of West Hartford.

For Wilson, it's not just a personal milestone, but a professional one as well. She's the town's historian.

"She'd love to be the first one in town," joked Bye, who spent hours as a lawmaker listening to testimony on the marriage issue and ultimately helping to shepherd Connecticut's 2005 civil union law through the General Assembly.

In New Jersey, the third leg of the tri-state area, gay marriage remains near.

Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.

Daily Song:
Seal
"A Change Is Gonna Come"
From today's Listen Up! (New Release Tuesday)

Television:
The View discusses Prop 8. With all the shock surrounding the passing of Prop 8, watching the women of The View talk about this is like watching the entire country grapple with the consequences of bigotry. Black women discussing this issue brings to mind the emotional struggles that the dominant members of our society must have felt when they were granted the power to change and improve the lives of others. How did slave owners really feel about being slave owners after the Emancipation Proclamation? How did men really feel about giving the right to vote to women after keeping it from them for so long? How did white people feel about segregation? How do the people who oppose Prop 8 really feel about taking away the right for gays to get married?

They must struggle with themselves. They must. And it is our responsibility to show them that their struggle is worth resolving.

Politics:
Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on Prop 8. I haven't been a big fan of Olbermann, but we owe him a big "thanks" for stepping up and saying this. With this "Special Comment" he has done something that not even Rachel Maddow has done.

Movies:
"Chris and Don: A Love Story"
The documentary about Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy was just nominated for best documentary in the Gotham Independent Film Awards. The legendary gay couple was born thirty years apart and stayed together thirty-three years.

Music Video:
Grace Jones "Corporate Cannibal"
From today's Listen Up! (New Release Tuesday)
Also from today's Listen Up! (New Release Tuesday)

Click below to jump to the full size players or click here to launch them in a new window. Or just hang out and watch them in The Media Bar next door.

Daily Song:

Seal "A Change Is Gonna Come"

Television:

Prop 8 follow-up (11/10/08 - clip via Good As You.)

Politics:

Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on Prop 8. I haven't been a big fan of Olbermann, but we owe him a big "thanks" for stepping up and saying this. With this "Special Comment" he has done something that not even Rachel Maddow has done.

Movies:

"Chris and Don: A Love Story"
The documentary about Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy was nominated for best documentary in the Gotham Independent Film Awards. The legendary gay couple was born thirty years apart and stayed together thirty-three years.

Music Video:

Grace Jones "Corporate Cannibal"

From today's show (11/10/08 - clip via Good As You.)

Hearing the women of The View talk about Prop 8 is a demonstration of how intractable this issue can be. Whoopi and Joy deserve a hat tip for being clear-headed about all of this and for keeping the spread of mis-information to a minimum.

I will say this - Hearing one African-American woman talk to another African-American woman about the issue of gay marriage shows that race is really just a component of this problem. This "issue" of race is cloaking a more important explanation for this apparent bigotry -- the level and kind of faith of the people who voted for Prop 8. No reasonable person of color can argue for separate-but-equal without first hanging his or her reasoning skills on a religious hatrack.

But this does not mean that it's time to start attacking the Mormons. I will be attending the NYC protest at the Mormon temple in Manhattan, but I can't help but think that these marches are targeting Mormons because they themselves are easy targets.

Dale Carpenter agrees:

Nevertheless, I am uncomfortable with pickets directed at specific places of worship like the Mormon church in Los Angeles. It's too easy for such protests to degenerate into the kinds of ugly religious intolerance this country has long endured. Mormons, in particular, have historically suffered rank prejudice and even violence. Epithets and taunts directed at individuals are especially abhorrent.

As I've been looking into how race affected the results of Prop 8, I have been struck by the history of the uneasy and schizophrenic relationship between sexuality and race.

In March of 2007, Keith Boykin wrote the article "Why Are Whites So Homophobic?" In it, he writes:

Every time a Tim Hardaway or an Isaiah Washington or an unknown black preacher makes an anti-gay comment, reporters call me up and ask why are black people so homophobic. But when high-profile white people make homophobic remarks, nobody ever asks why are white people so homophobic. They should, because the answers to the two questions are related. African Americans are homophobic because white Americans are homophobic. We all live in the same homophobic society, and in this case the prejudice starts from the president on down.

And in January of this year, Obama gave one of his most remarkable speeches. On the day before Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, At one of the premier black American churches where King used to preach, long before he was the Democratic nominee and even longer before he was President-elect, Senator Barack Obama told 2000 worshippers:

If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community. We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them.[Politico]

Just this weekend, on 365Gay.com, Wayne Besen wrote:

I can understand why white gay people are angry. I certainly am. But let’s take a step back and look at this dispassionately. I believe our failure with the African American vote (70 percent voted in favor of Prop. has more to do with education levels than race. In general, people with lower levels of education - of any race - do not vote for gay rights. White people are twice as likely to graduate college as black people. This accounts for the difference by race on Prop. 8.

And then on The Daily Voice Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes:

"No surprise that blacks tipped the scale for California's gay marriage ban" - The painful truth is that Proposition 8 would have gone down to flaming defeat if blacks hadn't backed it in droves. Proposition 8 was the ballot initiative that defines marriage as strictly between a man and a woman and embeds that in the California state constitution.

Just one month before the election most polls showed that a majority of Californians rejected the measure. But then something happened. A slew of Yes on 8 signs and stickers popped up overnight on lawns in my neighborhood in the predominantly black Crenshaw area near South Los Angeles. The week before that a well-heeled core of preachers who head fundamentalist leaning, mega and medium sized black churches held a rally and then took to their pulpits and bible thumped their congregations to pass the initiative. It worked. Associated Press exit polls found that seven in 10 blacks voted in favor of the proposition, while Latinos marginally supported it and whites were split.

No one seems to have the complete answer, and everything I try to write to sum all of this up sounds . . . not quite right. We're not going to agree with everyone or even each other, necessarily, but we can, and should, arm ourselves with our shared histories. That's, at least, a place to start.

CNN Late Edition Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Prop 8. Some hope - Schwarzenegger says the Supreme Court justices could overturn Prop 8. "I learned that you should never, ever give up." (Via Wockner)

The turnout for the weekend's Prop 8 protests was massive. From Salt Lake City and up and down California, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest Prop 8. Between this turnout and the statement by Gov. Schwarzenegger above, there is reason to hope.

San Francisco
The San Francisco march saw one of the largest Prop 8 protests to date. Crowd estimates run as high as 25,000. (Via Joe.My.God) "We're not going to do nothing, we're going to start with a march tonight but we're not going to stop until we have equality again!"

Pink News reports:

In excess of 15,000 people are marching through San Francisco to protest at the passing of Proposition 8, the voter initiative in California that effectively bans gay marriage have admitted defeat. Organisers said: "We are protesting tonight in San Francisco because it was in San Francisco that the California Supreme Court gave equality to all Californians, and many people who helped us get to that point are based in San Francisco."

Los Angeles
Wockner writes: "Some 13,000 protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles' Silver Lake district Saturday evening, as large demonstrations continued across the state against Proposition 8 . . . "

365Gay.com writes:

We marched up to Wilshire Boulevard, and sat down again. It was getting toward rush hour in Los Angeles, and we were essentially an unscheduled parade on a major traffic artery. It was sort of like walking up to O’Hare airport on Thanksgiving and mentioning that we’d be taking over a couple of runways for the weekend. Were we really going to do this? Yup.

San Diego
More from Wockner: In San Diego, between at least 7,000 (police estimate) and 10,000 people marched against Proposition 8 today in San Diego, from Hillcrest, the primary gayborhood, to North Park, the secondary gayborhood -- a distance of about two miles.


Salt Lake City
The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Opponents of a measure that banned gay marriage in California took their outrage to the spiritual hub of Mormonism on Friday.
More than 3,000 people swarmed downtown Salt Lake City to march past the LDS temple and church headquarters, protesting Mormon involvement in the campaign for California's Proposition 8. The measure, which defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, passed this week.
A sea of signs in City Creek Park, where the march began, screamed out messages including, "I didn't vote on your marriage," "Mormons once persecuted . . . Now persecutors," and "Jesus said love everyone." Others read, "Proud of my two moms" and "Protect traditional marriage. Ban divorce."

New York City
The Prop 8 NYC Protest Facebook page has more info on the upcoming NYC protest:

Tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters are in the streets in California and Salt Lake City and around the country protesting the votes banning same-sex marriage in California. Join them! Make your voices heard right here in New York City. We will tell the Mormon Church how we feel about its relentless campaign to condemn and control our lives. Join us in speaking out against hate and discrimination! Stop them taking away your rights!

I was afraid this would happen. This is awful. Rod 2.0 is reporting that during the recent protest in front of the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood, some white anti-Prop 8 protestors began using the N-word against the people of color also at the protest:

The recent passage of California's Proposition 8 has exposed some of the latent racism of many within the LGBT community . . . Unfortunately the "blame the blacks" meme is being commonly accepted by some so-called "progressive" gay activists. A number of Rod 2.0 and Jasmyne Cannick readers report being subjected to taunts, threats and racist abuse at last night's marriage equality rally in Los Angeles.

Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice. "It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU NIGGER, one man shouted at men. If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger. Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the temple...me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them."

More after the jump.

Los Angeles resident and Rod 2.0 reader A. Ronald says he and his boyfriend, who are both black, were carrying NO ON PROP 8signs and still subjected to racial abuse. "Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, 'Black people did this, I hope you people are happy!' A young lesbian couple with mohawks and Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were 'very disappointed with black people' and 'how could we' after the Obama victory. This was stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it didn't matter because 'most black people hated gays and he was 'wrong' to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever heard. I guess he never thought we were gay.'

. . . There is more than enough blame to go around—the homophobia of the black church, lack of outreach by mainstream LGBT organizations, reluctance by the Obama campaign, many blacks gays and lesbians in the closet, deep pockets of the social conservatives, take your pick . . . . "

Read the entire article over at Rod 2.0. Something needs to be done about this and quick. I'll update this post as new information comes in.

Yglesias argues against the notion that gays pressed too hard and too fast for marriage by calling upon the judicial rather than the legislative branch to legalize gay marriage:

That aside, granting the backlash hypothetically, I never quite understand what the upshot of this sort of analysis is. Say you’re living your life with your partner and you want to get married. But then the local legal authorities tell you that you can’t get married. That seems like unfair discrimination to you, so you inquire with an attorney. The attorney says, yes, your state has never allowed a man to be legally wed to another man, but he agrees with you that it’s unfair. And not just unfair, illegal, a violation of your state constitution’s guarantees of equal rights. So you sue! Then the case comes before a judge and the judge thinks, yeah, the local authorities’ action is a violation of the state constitution’s guarantee of equal rights. Is the judge supposed to rule against you even though he thinks your case has merits, offering as his reasoning “it would be counterproductive to the long-term political strategy of the gay rights movement for me to offer the ruling I believe to be correct”? That doesn’t sound right.