Tag Archives: obama

On Prop 8

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I haven’t written about Prop 8 yet.

Nothing can dim my utter euphoria at the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, which will have much greater consequences for our country and the world than the passage of Prop 8. But Prop 8’s passage is very disappointing nonetheless.

Still, all is not lost. California’s gay couples will still have the option of domestic partnerships that approximate marriage in all but name. This is not ideal, but ain’t beanbag. Same-sex couples can get married in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and probably next year in New Jersey. New York recognizes same-sex marriage, as long as the marriage is performed elsewhere.

Also, it’s ridiculously easy to change the California constitution. As attitudes on marriage equality continue to progress, same-sex marriage in California is more likely to become permanently legal. We’ll just have to continue to fight, that’s all.

Gay rights groups have filed lawsuits against Prop 8. I don’t think this is a good idea. Not only is it awful public relations, but it will probably lose.

The reason civil unions and domestic partnerships are not good enough, and will never be good enough, is because of the intangible advantage marriage brings: social respect. There are tangible advantages to marriage as well, such as: while everyone knows what marriage is, civil unions and domestic partnerships are harder to explain to the hospital administrator when you need to visit your partner there. But in a large part, this is about the respect that equality brings.

The defeat of Prop 8 shows that we don’t have enough respect yet. (And the irony that black Californians voted 70-30 in favor of Prop 8 is painful.) Which comes first: respect, or the right to marriage? Or does one reinforce the other?

Time is on our side. It will take longer to achieve success than we thought.

But time is on our side.

Finally, Dale Carpenter has written the best thing I’ve seen so far about all this.

Lincoln Memorial Rededication

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A few weeks ago, the New Yorker ran an article about the Lincoln Memorial and how the role of Abraham Lincoln in the American memory has changed over time. Next year is Lincoln’s bicentennial, and the Lincoln Memorial will be rededicated in the spring. The piece ends this way:

In 1909, the Reverend L. H. Magee, the pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield, Illinois, voiced his disgust at the exclusion of blacks from the town’s centennial dinner, but he imagined that by the time of the bicentennial, in 2009, racial prejudice would be “relegated to the dark days of ‘Salem witchcraft.’ ” Next year’s Lincoln commemorations in Washington will include the reopening of Ford’s Theatre, restored for performances for the second time since 1893, when its interior collapsed, killing twenty-two people. Congress will convene in a joint session on February 12th, and on May 30th the still new President will rededicate the Lincoln Memorial. The look and the emphasis of the occasion will have changed—measurably, for certain; astoundingly, perhaps—in the fourscore and seven years since 1922.

So President Obama will speak at the Lincoln Memorial next May. It will be stirring.

Obama’s Victory Speech

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This was the part of Obama’s victory speech that made the tears start flowing from my eyes.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that’s on my mind tonight’s about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She’s a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that “We Shall Overcome.” Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.