California's vote against same-sex marriage was one
negative consequence of Obama's victory.
Amid the euphoria
around Obama's tremendous victory, gay men and women
across America will find it difficult to contain their
disappointment, anger, and a painful sense of
betrayal. The success of Proposition 8, a ballot
initiative that amends California's state constitution to
define marriage as only between a man and a woman,
shows that despite all the gains we still rank low
when it comes to the struggle for equality.
Six months after
the California supreme court struck down the state's ban
on same-sex marriage, unleashing a wave of gay weddings,
it's like waking up to find that we're still the
misunderstood problem child that other kids shun in
the playground. There will be a lot of soul-searching in the
weeks to come, but the fact is that gay Americans remain an
electoral liability for Democrats whose support
remains largely tepid, often crystallizing only after
they've left office.
That's why it was
safe for Bill Clinton to lend his support to the "no"
campaign in the last few weeks, despite his advice to John
Kerry in 2004 to back local bans on gay marriage and the
federal Defense of Marriage Act that he signed into
law in 1996. And it explains why Obama played such an
awkward dance of being for equality, but against gay
marriage. On MTV last weekend he said Prop. 8 was
"unnecessary" (gee, thanks!) while reiterating his
opposition to marriage equality, a stance that played
into the hands of Prop. 8 campaigners, who used his
words in their TV ads and campaign literature. We kvetched
about that, but who can blame them? That's
politics.
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