The news this morning about the fest director of FIND’s LA festival, Rich Raddon, turning up as a “Yes on Prop 8” contributor is forcing those of us on the other side of that vote to seriously ponder our moral lines in the sand. FIND has come out and said a person cannot be fired for their religious beliefs, and they are correct on that, just as the California Musical Theater could not have fired its artistic director, Scott Eckern, for supporting Prop 8. Nonetheless, the gay community does not have to support organizations headed by people known to have voted against equality in marriage. They have the right to say, so long as this person is in your organization, we will not give it our financial support, period. And they will.
And those who argue that supporters of the gay community on this issue have to just accept the will of the majority of California voters on this issue need to take a step back and honestly examine what underlies that argument: You have to ask yourself, quite simply, if you would be making the same argument if that proposition had been targeted at women, or blacks, or any other minority group. If Prop 8 had sought to define marriage as being only between a WHITE man and woman, would your argument still be the same?

The underlying prejudice beneath the surface of Prop 8 is still that being gay is a “lifestyle choice.” That is what Prop 8 attacks. The way a person is. The way they were born. Who they are. And that is no different than the way in which Jim Crow laws sought to differentiate blacks and whites for the chemical composition of their skin, or the Nazis sought to differentiate Aryans and Jews because of genetic heritage, or the core ideas behind women not being able to vote, or being viewed as the property of their husbands because of an XX chromosome instead of an XY.
I spent some time yesterday myself researching Prop 8 supporters who are also business owners, both in Park City and in my hometown of Seattle, because I do not want to give my own financial support to people who supported that measure. But I was hoping not to stumble across the name of someone I know on that list. This is a moral conundrum for our time, and how we respond to it will teach our children something about the kind of people we are; the answers are not always going to be easy, and I’m still struggling with them myself.
There are a lot of Mormons here in Seattle. My older son’s best friend since he was four years old is from a Mormon family. My friend who co-led my now 11-year-old daughter’s Girl Scout troop with me for years is a Mormon. There are many Mormon families who are active participants in the youth theater our family has been involved with for many years, and these folks have been our friends. But at the same time, my support of the No on Prop 8 campaign is not just lip service, so I have to ask myself these hard questions. My daughter’s best friend’s father is a gay man. The vast majority of my male friends, and a fair number of my female friends, are gays and lesbians.
And although I am married to a man, and we have four children together, gay rights issues affect my family as well. Although we choose to be married to each other and to raise our children together, my husband and I are both bisexual people, who love each other and have chosen to be together and raise our family together. My marriage with my husband has the same legal protections as a marriage between a straight man and a straight woman, because we are a man and a woman and there’s no box you have to check when you apply for a marriage license that asks, “But are either or both of you bisexual?” If I’d chosen to be in a relationship with a woman instead, though, and raise children with her, our union would not have that protection.
It may be time to take a step back and ask ourselves what we’re really fighting for here.
Part of the struggle over Prop 8 is the very reason why it passed — that a lot of folks who otherwise support conceptually the idea of equal rights for gays, and the right of gays to join in civil unions, see the idea of the word “marriage” as a different thing that has religious overtones. Which it does. And really, what I most agree with is the basic argument that the concept of “marriage” should not even be a legal entity at all — it belongs in the realm of religous institutions only, just as baptisms are religious events and not legal ones. If you’re baptised in a church, you have a baptism certificate, but good luck using that to try to get a passport.
A baptism certificate mean nothing outside the realm of your church, and a marriage certificate should be the same thing — an acknowledgement by the church of your choice that you have been married according to the constructs of your faith, and nothing more. Everyone, gay couples and straight, who gets “married” should simply have a civil union certificate issued by the state as a legal record of the joining, just as a birth certificate is a legal record of your birth and a death certificate a record of your death.
Separate church and state when it comes to the issue of the joining of two lives, and this entire issue is no longer an issue. You take away the argument of the religious right that you are damaging the beliefs of their faith when it comes to defining marriage, because the concept of “marriage” is no longer a legal issue at all. We get what we really want — the legal rights of gay and lesbian couples to be afforded the same protections with regard to their unions as straight couples — while leaving it to churches and their memberships to determine the constructs of their faith.
Obama, as some have noted, has said on several occasions during this campaign, that he supports civil unions, but not “same sex marriage.” I supported the No on Prop 8 campaign, I think the Yes on Prop 8 campaign was particularly vile and misleading, and I understand the hurt and the anger. But we have a much better shot of instituting a legal change to protect the rights of gay people in this country if we attack from the angle of civil unions and not peoples’ religious beliefs.
With Obama in office, and a more liberal Congress, civil unions are within our reach. We can make that happen. We can keep working to change people’s minds about the nature of homosexuality, yes, but in the meantime, we need to focus on the fruit that’s within reach, the fruit that can have a real impact now on the lives of gay and lesbian couples and their families. We need to ask ourselves, what do we really want, right now? Reach the first summit, then continue to advocate for overall societal changes — but recognize that you cannot change the minds of every single person, and freedom of speech, and freedom of thought, means they have a right to vocally support their beliefs just as we do, however much we might disagree with them.
On Saturday, there will be a nationwide, all-50-states, mass protest in support of gay rights, organized by Join the Impact. If you’re here on the Left Coast, the protests happen 10:30AM on Saturday, November 15; East coast protests happen at the same time — 1:30PM EST. There are protests organized in every state, and you can find out where a protest is happening in your area on the Join the Impact site.
My husband and I are spending this afternoon making posters with our kids to take to the protest here in Seattle tomorrow. We will be there, supporting the rights of all families to have the same rights our family has. I hope that many of you will join a protest in your area, but let’s not have violence and hatred against the opposition permeate the tone of those protests. Advocate for change, but don’t advocate for hate.

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