Passing of Prop 8 turns out to be a spark for progress!

This weekend I posted the following Twitters:

Just reverse those sentences to get the proper order of that thought bubble 🙂

I wanted to point out that I made that observation BEFORE Markos did! Yep, I was just about to expound on that thought here but stopped for a moment to check the latest front page posts on DailyKos and saw this one. Looks like Markos saw the same thing I did:

But I suspect history will show that the defeat of Prop 8, rather than halt momentum toward marriage equality (as I once feared), will prove the spark that launches the movement nationwide.

In my previous post election observations, I focused on the Presidential election results only. That was partly because the passage of Prop 8 had me truly seeing red with anger and sadness. Sure, there was at least a sliver of silver lining to see that it barely passed vs eight years ago when Prop 22 was passed with over 60% of the vote. Things ARE slowly getting better on the issue of acceptance of gays, but it’s still a movement in it’s infancy compared to the civil rights movement for racial equality. But it was still so hard to see. My state failed and I was very disappointed. Gays across the country were deeply hurt because they looked to socially ‘liberal’ California to be the first Big State to grant them full equality under the law. I felt that pain and took some lumps from my more passionate friends. I didn’t mind though, because I know how hopeless they must have felt. And yeah, my state did fail. As the anger subsided though, I also resisted ranting about it because there was plenty enough post game analysis and gnashing of teeth and finger pointing going on and I didn’t want to pile on especially using initial exit poll data and arm chair analysis that was perhaps not entirely accurate. And I wasn’t going to support the piling on of one minority group by another as was also building up. Then I saw something happening. It started with a couple of quick mentions during extended election coverage on a few networks. Then Keith Olbermann did his Special Comment that I posted last week. Rachel Maddow adressed it. It was discussed on two days in a row on The View. Of course I heard a lot on Air America but that is to be expected I suppose. But then the night I sent that twitter it was because I had just watched a full hour of Larry King on the topic of gay marriage alone. I’d received invitations to about 5 different Facebook groups and new Twitter accounts to organize and combat Prop 8. I saw messages flying around about demonstrations being organized for Saturday. Never in my lifetime has the topic of gay marriage been covered on such a national level all over every media format around. And THAT is when I knew that passing Prop 8 was GOOD for the overall cause! Because conversation is how this progresses. Because for every person against marriage equality purely for religious reasons (minds that I don’t think may ever be opened), there is someone like my boyfriend who just has not quite been able to wrap his mind around this yet. Not because of religious belief, but just a cultural history of Asians not being terribly accepting of *anything* too different. They can be a rather judegmental lot 🙂 He concedes that marriage equality will happen, he’s just not ready for it yet. However, for someone who does not even vote, and who was literally kicked out of my house on election night for his position on this issue (!! Yeah, I can be stupidly irrational about this topic !!), he keeps on asking me about it. So we talk and I try to come up with points from the many discussions I’ve heard that are not grounded in judgement or religion. It’s a conversation that is going on all over the country and it’s minds like my Sweet Prince’s that can be opened. I do believe as Kos does that it WILL happen. The combination of a real organization of the movement that he details and the conversations all over the country that are taking place will be just what is needed. Marriage equality activitsts will mark the passage of Prop 8 as the turning point towards acheivement of their goal. As the Men’s Wherehouse guy says “I guarantee it!”