Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Prop 2

Figured I would start my blog off with the latest and greatest which appears to be the reaction around the world of Prop 8 passing California. For those not in the know Prop 2 in Florida also passed.

Here's a sample of the ads placed here (Florida) before the election...

Little girl lost
Traditional Marriage

Now if that's not the stupidest crap I've ever seen I don't know what is. I worked briefly with Marriage of Equality in Florida to prevent 2 from passing but as usual Florida showed its true colors and went for the gusto to not only screw "gays' but hetero's as well. Not that I was really suprised, the turn out for promotion of Prop 2 or rather the Say NO campaigns was dismal at best. I met more than one gay person who had no clue what 2 was even about.

Check this; the ballot language said, "This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized." Courtesy of Wiki

Essentially for all those heterosexual couples living together as man and wife but not legally married your union is no longer recognized. Along with that all those old assumptions such as health care and pension benefits being passed on, nope nada. Florida already had a statue defining marriage as between one man and one woman Prop 2 now prevents the state legislature from altering that definition within the state.

To a certain extent I'm almost glad it didn't pass and here's why. Now the door is open for this to move past the State Supreme to the federal Supreme Court. I'm having flashbacks to the civil rights movement though I know many blacks don't feel there is a comparison warranted. If you take out the word black and replace it with gay you'll see where most proponents of gay rights are coming from. Also remember that a little over 40yrs ago the Supreme Court ruled in favor of interracial marriage Loving vs Virginia Here is an excerpt from the ruline, note they use the word person below and please ignore the racist undertones.

“Intermarriage prohibited; meaning of term ‘white persons.’ — It shall hereafter be unlawful for any white person in this State to marry any save a white person, or a person with no other admixture of blood than white and American Indian. For the purpose of this chapter, the term ‘white person’ shall apply only to such person as has no trace whatever of any blood other than Caucasian; but persons who have one-sixteenth or less of the blood of the American Indian and have no other non-Caucasic blood shall be deemed to be white persons. All laws heretofore passed and now in effect regarding the intermarriage of white and colored persons shall apply to marriages prohibited by this chapter.” Va. Code Ann. ß 20-54 (1960 Repl. Vol.)

After stating all this what do we do now?

Well I attended a protest a couple of weekends ago in downtown Jacksonville. It was great to be able to do "something", unfortunately I could count the number of black women/men present on one hand. I know most here are still in the closet but I still expected them to do more, be more. The next chick that introduces her girlfriend to me as wifey I'm going to politely remind her that isn't possible and ask what she's doing to make that possible.

Check out Marriage Equality

Being better than...

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