Seriously- the plaintiffs had no case at all; it wasn't even close. 6-1; that's one vote short of having the decision phrased, "You're lucky we don't fine you for wasting our time."
Look, marriage equality has few proponents more dedicated than I; one of my earliest posts on this blog was Why pro-marriage equality IS a conservative position . But as I noted in my previous post , I also believe in the rule of law and the democratic principle. Elections have consequences; I believe in these things even when they don't go my way. Principles that you uphold only when they favor you are not principles at all.
The only moral and ethical way to deal with this setback is to learn an important lesson from it: the Prop 8 supporters simply worked harder; this is an object lesson in "Nothing worth having comes easy." Don't waste your efforts writing blog posts castigating the Ca. Supreme Court for a terrible decision. Don't poison the waters by trying to take revenge on the supporters; preaching hate in the support of love is an untenable position. Just get out there and work as hard as they did.
4 comments:
My intent was to galvanize the lazy supporters, not to criticize those who did work- many of the most scathing reactions are coming from those who support the movement in the ideal, but never actually DID anything. It's a common phenomenon that although those who DO work, work hard, only a small percentage of any movement actually move.
Another aggravating factor is that many of the people who campaigned against prop 8 had never been active before, and so- as you noted- wasted much of their efforts with ineffective tactics. Working better can trump working harder. These things take experience; now having gained that experience, the next campaign will go better.
Rev Hoyt
I know I am recalling this in error, but here it goes: It seems to me that you wrote a post where you defended the flawed campaign strategy and said that its failure to reach out to non-white and rural voters was irrelevant.
I seem to recall a post when Prop 8 passed where you were furious that it seemed that non-whites were not supporting gay rights and you specifically dismissed the argument that the NO folks should have done a better job of reaching out to people of color.
Maybe I am thinking of another poster, or remembering your exact words in error. if I am, my apologies.
In any event, it is important and positive that you see that there was an organizational issue that undermined winning on this important vote. I hope that in the future your voice will bring the reforms needed to win on this important right.
I believe that the prop 8 campaigners didn't try hard enough, there is no question about that - but it's a really scary thing when the larger population gets to vote on the rights of a minority. By these actions, this could set a precedent for voting on the rights of women, people of colour and immigrants.
*sigh* I just want all this fighting to be done and over with...
the pro-gay-marriage folks may have been inexperienced and poorly led and maybe they could even have worked harder, but the anti-marriage side not only had experience and lots of money, but they lied a lot. their ads were full of out and out lies as well as misleading almost-lies.
How dare they take the "moral high ground" when they are full of lies?
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