Today is National Coming Out Day

[heidi]

So I am going to come out in support of voting against both Proposition 8 in California and Proposition 2 in Florida.

If Prop 8 passes in California, the state constitution will be amended to state that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Not only would this invalidate the thousands of marriages that have taken place in the state over the last few years, it would also make it impossible for couples who have been legally married outside the US or in states like Massachusetts to have their marriages recognized as valid in California. No legal mandate for hospital visits, no rights of inheritance of a home a couple has lived in for decades, dozens of hoops to jump through for a parent to be legally recognized as a parent for his or her own child, and the wholesale destruction of thousands of rights and obligations that come with a marriage license.

My in-laws live in California, and my husband and I have begged them to vote against Prop 8; I hope they will so thousands of Californians can enjoy the right to marry the person he or she loves.

The California proposition sucks. But the issue on the Florida ballot is actually worse - it will amend the constitution to read, "“Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

My city's been doing domestic partnerships for years and they could all be invalidated if this passes. Family courts will be thrown into turmoil in the case of the (God forbid) death of a partner, as the court will not be allowed to consider the relationship between the partners in determining where children raised in that family will live, Cities will not be allowed to give domestic partner benefits . Public hospitals may not be allowed to have a policy in place to allow someone's partner to visit under "family" rules.

Luckily, passage requires 60%, not a simpole majority, but the polling is still far too close to that level.


Please, if you have friends or family in California or Florida, make sure they vote against these discriminatory proposals. I am 9000% sure all of you know what to tell them to convince them, but one new addition is this ad by one of the No On Eight groups - then talk to them about George Takei and Brad Altman, or about Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, or any of the thousands of happy couples who took their vows in California this year. I'm sure there's at least one on your flist.

Comments

[hllangel]

I may be living in Texas right now, but I'm a Californian, and made sure that I stayed registered in CA for this election JUST to vote against prop 8. It think it's horrendous that they're even trying to do what they are.

As for florida, that sort of legislation scares me more. *hugs*

[zorb]

The pro-Prop 8 ads are some of the most blatantly homophobic television I've ever seen. "If we don't pass this proposition, schools will teach your children that it's okay for boys to marry boys." And I'm really not paraphrasing much.

[chickadilly.livejournal.com]

Those ads piss me off so damn much.

[hermorrine.livejournal.com]

Those ads disgust me... although the look of horror on the mother's face bothers me even more. I just find those ads incredibly difficult to believe, anyway. I can't wait until this is over and Prop 8 goes down.

Heidi, if you haven't seen the ad that LetCaliforniaRing.org did, you should definitely check it out. That's my favorite No on 8 ad - makes me cry every time.

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Ours bothers me a lot. Even if I weren't an advocate for gay rights, I'm an advocate for HUMAN rights. The fact that if that goes through and I couldn't put my boyfriend, whom I've been with for eight years and lived with for three, on my health insurance or visit him in the hospital just because we didn't want that piece of paper right now gets my goat.

[dreamlittleyo.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this post. I hope it's all right I've linked to it from my nonfandom journal (let me know if it's not, but I figured what with the message you probably wouldn't mind) and plan to do so from this account as well.

[rivers-bend.livejournal.com]

thank you so much for posting this. I hadn't realized the numbers in Florida were looking grim, I haven't seen them in a month or so. I've been counting too much on the 60 vrs 50% thing maybe. The more yes ads i see here in California the angrier I get, and it's terrifying. would that I could vote in Florida (and arizona) as well as here.

[gorgeousnerd]

I'm glad you posted this; I posted something similar in my journal earlier, but I probably don't get a quarter of the reads that you do.

[xntrick.livejournal.com]

Prop 8 people have dumped a crazy amount of money into advertising. It's everywhere, including on MSNBC during Countdown and Rachel Maddow. It's on progressive radio as well. I think I've only seen one anti-Prop 8 ad. It's pretty sad.

I'm voting no and so is my mother. She can't wait for Nov 4.

[ness-va.livejournal.com]

The commonwealth law here in Australia was amended in 2004 to state that marriage is only "between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others" or some similar wording to that. We didn't even get to vote on it. So now even same sex marraiges that were recognised/performed overseas can't be recognised here.

I think some states have tried to introduce their own domestic partnership registration but since commonwealth law overrides state law (from what I remember of legal studies in high school), I don't understand the point of them trying.

But they have all this semi-recognition by default of domestic partnerships (heterosexual or homosexual) but it's so vague. That's something I have an issue with, because that's what my relationship falls under - if we were to get married I'd feel like I was signing a contract that I agreed with how this country legally views marraige, which I don't. But I also honestly don't know how legally protected we are in some situations.

[selinakyle47.livejournal.com]

Since the word "marriage" is so important to the social conservatives that they'd fight to keep it between a man and woman, is there a way to get around that term to give homosexual couples legal recognition of their union? And by that, I mean having the state recognize all unions and leaving the term marriage to religious groups.

I'm just thinking out loud here...

[brighteyed-jill.livejournal.com]

This shit's really frighting, y'know? I was sitting in on a conference call last week with the national Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues, and they were talking with people from No On Eight and a few other groups, and one thing I took away from the conversation has been really helpful in talking to people about it (since, y'know, mostly the people with whom I associate don't suck, but it's good to know how to talk to people who might be up on the air as to how to vote on this). They mentioned that language is so important when polling folks. If you ask, "Should gays be allowed to marry," many fewer people give a good answer than if you ask, "Should the state take away the rights of adults of any orientation to engage in unions or marriages?" Because nobody wants existing rights taken away. So if you find yourself engaging in dialogue with people who might be on the fence, try to phrase it as a government-taking-away-civil-rights issue. Because that's a way in to changing people's minds. Or so we can hope. /public service announcement.