Californians to Vote on Ellen's Divorce…
…not to mention George Takai's, not also to mention that of several tens of thousands of same-sex couples now married. You may recall that on the next voting day in California, residents of that state get to vote on "Proposition 8", a proposed constitutional amendment intended to remove the established right of same-sex couples to marry in that state.
In her blog, Ellen had this to say:
Hey everybody. There’re only a couple weeks left before we vote. In California there’s a proposition that’s trying to take away my right to be married. And if it passes, my marriage will probably no longer be valid.
The supporters of Proposition 8 have raised more than $25 million just to discriminate against same-sex couples who want to get married. That’s a lot of money.
I can think of 25 million other uses for all that money:
– How about paying teachers more?
– What about helping those people who just lost their homes in the recent fires?
– How about buying a pony for every child in California? How much fun would that be?!Don’t let them convince you that discrimination is okay just because they can pay for a commercial. It’s wrong. Please vote NO ON PROPOSITION 8! I’m begging you. If you vote no on Prop 8, I’ll buy you a pony.
[Ellen DeGeneres, "Don't Discriminate — No on 8!", The Ellen DeGeneres Show, 22 October 2008.]
Aside from its sheer size, the $25 million raised (wasted?) by opponents of marriage equality (aka "sore losers") is interesting because some $18 million of it came from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. NB: it didn't come from the church itself, which would be illegal; it came from members of the church who were strongly urged by church leadership to "do everything they could" to win passage of Proposition 8.
It's not entirely clear why Mormons feel the intense need to see the right of same-sex couples to marry taken away. Some commentors believe that the LDS church is trying to win (buy) respectability from other denominations. Whatever, I think it's perverse.
Regardless, most of the money goes for buying television advertisements–another huge waste of money, in my opinion. A pony would be much more fun.
But anyway, these advertisements are rather strident, hysterical, and excessively untruthful. Apparently one of the biggest ways that civilization as we know it will end is through the teaching to second-graders that same-sex marriage is okay!. Goodbye civilization.
This end-of-civilization event is dramatized by a young girl's arriving at home an announcing "Guess what we learned in school today! That a prince can marry a prince!" In this hysterical universe the mother appears horrified as the ominous voice-over intones something about "Don't think it can happen…?"
Here's why this surprises me: doesn't virtually every second-grader (or there-abouts-grader) announce his or her intention to marry his or her best friend? Isn't this best friend — the betrothed — usually of the same gender as the betrother?
Furthermore, isn't this situation nearly always one that embarrasses parents and makes them wring their hands, wondering how to answer? "Nearly always" because there are always a few non-neurotic parents who know enough to say "that's nice dear, we'll all come to the wedding" and worry about it no further. Then there are those, I guess, for whom this question is the early warning sign of impending choice by their young one to adopt the you-know-what lifestyle and they feel the pressure to answer the question very, very carefully lest they impel their child in the wrong direction. Horror!
Well, for those who worry in California (or Massachusetts, or Connecticut), they currently have the easy answer: "that's nice dear, we'll all come to the wedding since it's a constitutional right". Done. Clean, tidy, non-embarrassing and unlikely to be a major contributor to the child's lifestyle choice.
Unless, of course, they — the parents who worry so much that a gay person somewhere might be secretly happy and that this innocent question from their own child might signal the presence of a gay-to-be in their midst — are successful in taking away the right of Californians to marry the partner they love.
Now, why would they shoot themselves in the foot like that? Wouldn't a pony be a lot more fun?
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on Wednesday, 22 October 2008 at 21.11
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They put $25 million into that? Unbelievable.
Last I heard, California conservatives were claiming destitution from the burden of educating and providing health care for hordes of offspring of immigrants, most of those illegals.
Makes me wonder if there's a meddlesome gene.
on Saturday, 1 November 2008 at 23.43
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Great part about the fact that kids wanting to marry their friends. At various points in my young childhood i announced i was going to marry: a female cousin, my youngest brother, an adult friend of my dad's (no weirdness involved i swear), and Han Solo. I've married none of them!