The discriminatory nature of CA Prop 8

I am so deeply saddened by the right wing attack on gay marriage in my recently previous home of California. The implications for the potential ban on gay marriage are frightening, suggesting that any union that isn’t between a man and a woman will become illegal. It is amazing how much money has been pumped into the Prop 8 campaign, because a few months ago many of us believed the prop didn’t have a shot in hell. This video that I found via Amanda uses a play on words to show exactly how discriminatory a gay marriage ban is. They replace gay marriage with “interracial.”

Also, this video from Yes on 8 enthusiasts in Oakland via Feminist Law Professors.
Prop 8 is just one piece of legislation to strips away the rights of and harms our gay citizens, it doesn’t change harassment or hate crimes. It does however set a precedent of how society sees gay people and a marriage ban would tell us that they are not actually citizens. This has implications and Carolyn Goossen at New American Media takes a look at the harassment of gay teenagers in California.

While gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people have achieved major gains over the last decade — California and Massachusetts both allow same-sex marriage — in many fundamental levels of daily life, prejudice persists and violence continues to threaten students like Almero.
That is the basic finding of a survey released last week by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a New York-based policy and advocacy nonprofit. The network’s National School Climate Survey, which is the only national survey that regularly tracks LGBT young people’s experiences in school, indicates that schools are resistant to changing attitudes.
The survey of 6,209 middle and high school students found that nearly nine out of 10 LGBT students (86.2 percent) had experienced harassment at school in the past year.
The survey also found that three-fifths (60.8 percent) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation, and about one third (32.7 percent) skipped a day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe.
Kevin Jennings, director and founder of GLSEN, says that high levels of harassment and feelings of fear among LGBT students nationally have remained largely unchanged since 1999, when the survey was first conducted.

Read the rest here.
These statistics are deeply problematic. Homophobia is an insidious cultural setback and if we are to work towards being a more just and fair society, voting No on Prop 8 is only one step in the right direction towards that goal.

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