The Prop. 8 election irony

Re “Focused beyond marriage,” Nov. 6

There is too much irony in the 2008 election. How can a people make such great progress by electing the first African American president but relegate an entire section of its population to second-class citizenship?

Today I wake up and find myself separate and unequal. I do this on the same day many Americans feel equality for the first time.

This was not a vote about marriage. This was a referendum on a particular group -- and the people have spoken. We no longer are in the same class of citizenship as the rest of the country. We do not enjoy the same rights and protections. We are separate and unequal.

On Nov. 5, I woke up a second-class citizen.

C. Stenke

Los Angeles

--

When I woke up Thursday morning, I felt pretty bad. I was not only troubled by the results of Tuesday’s elections but repelled by the manipulative, fear-mongering rhetoric of the anti-marriage proponents.

But then I checked my e-mail and saw messages of consolation from friends and family. Then I went for a hike in the hills with my partner, the love of my life for 16 years. Then I went to work -- where straight colleagues, whom I’ve known for only a few months, came up to say how sorry they were about the results.

And that’s when it hit me: We’re still here. Gay and lesbian folk are still waking up in the morning and pursuing our radical gay agenda of breakfast making, bill paying, exercise getting and hustling to bring home a paycheck.

Why is this so satisfying? Because the people who sponsored Proposition 8 don’t only want to protect marriage -- they want to destroy gay people. They want to destroy our freedom to live and breathe easily in a state that has welcomed us; they want us to think we can’t expect to go to work and find a friend; they want us to think we don’t fit in.

Well, I’ve got news for them: It is they who don’t fit in. We may not have won this round, but it’s clear which way this country is going. I say to the sponsors of Proposition 8, savor your victory. It’s your last hurrah.

Joann Moschella

Santa Cruz

--

As our nation celebrates the election of Barack Obama as turning a page on the discriminatory practices of the past, California would be hypocritical to join in the festivities. Proposition 8 succeeded because its proponents promoted the same tactics of fear that once characterized our race relations.

California hasn’t grown; we’ve just changed targets. How sad that we Californians have more respect for our farm animals than for human beings who pose no threat to others and who only seek the freedom to live their lives that should be theirs by birthright as Americans.

Future generations will (soon, I pray) look back on this vote and condemn its fearful narrow-mindedness in much the way that we today look back at slavery and the long subjugation of women.

Eric Scott

Bloomington, Calif.

--

Why on Earth is a simple majority allowed to amend the California Constitution? Fifty percent plus one is fine for enacting statutes, but the founding fathers had it right when they called for a two-thirds majority to change our fundamental values.

It’s time to start gathering signatures for a new initiative: A two-thirds majority is needed to amend the state Constitution, with an exception that allows for a simple majority to repeal prior amendments that were passed by simple majority.

Robert Constant

Mar Vista

--

As a black male, I can tell you that the reason the African American community voted for Proposition 8 had less to do with religion and more to do with a sense of resentment toward the gay community and the California Supreme Court for attempting to equate one’s bedroom activities with the color of one’s skin. Try as you may to fallaciously link the two, interracial marriage is still a man-woman issue, and gay marriage is not. It is something new and different, for which our society has already crafted a new and different type of union called a domestic partnership.

Jason W. Perrault

Studio City

--

It’s amazing that seven in 10 blacks in California voted in favor of Proposition 8.

Despite many of us having already received our not-so-subtle voting instructions on this issue in church the Sunday morning before the election, you could have figured that more blacks here would have known better than to inflict discriminatory laws on another minority group.

Regardless of personal religious views or insecurities, one’s credibility in the equal-rights arena is shot when you get caught “doing unto others” that which you fought against when it was applied to you.

Mike Henderson

Los Angeles

--

It’s a sad irony that the African American community strongly supported the elimination of civil rights for one group of our citizens by voting yes on Proposition 8 -- religious teachings having trumped support for those rights.

I am a 70-year-old white woman who actively volunteered for the “No on 8” campaign. I have lived long enough to see the disappearance of separate “colored” and “white” signs and the elimination of interracial marriage bans, and to have seen an apartment in Cicero, Ill., trashed because a black family moved in. Happily, I’ve also lived to see our first African American president.

I was the old lady in a crowd of young volunteers working to stop Proposition 8, which will ban same-sex marriage. We can only hope that those young volunteers represent America’s future in our continual advance to a more just society and to ensure civil rights for all of our citizens.

Elizabeth Sussman

Studio City

--

People are confused when they see gay marriage as a civil right. Does a polygamist have a civil right to marry more than one spouse? Does a brother have a civil right to marry his sister?

There never has been an adequate answer to these questions by the opponents of Proposition 8. Marriage limitations have always been imposed by the state and by government. Defining marriage as being between one man and one woman is based on thousands of years of history, sociology, theology and biological reproduction. To define marriage any other way is like redefining something as basic and apparent as the act of breathing.

Andy Noch

Rancho Palos Verdes

--

Re “After Prop. 8,” editorial, Nov. 6

Your pushing of no on Proposition 8 and the slurring of its opponents as bigots seems out of proportion to the need to discuss the many other serious issues on our table at this juncture in time.

Proposition 8 is not the Patriot Act. Gay people are not being rounded up like Japanese Americans were in the 1940s. Cops aren’t clubbing them like they did the hippies on Sunset Strip in the 1960s or tear-gassing protesters like Ronald Reagan did in Berkeley.

Your comparisons of the passage of Proposition 8 to the civil rights movement is a major insult to blacks.

Get a grip.

Robert Myers

Santa Monica