As you might imagine, I’m deliriously happy today. As I was putting my older son to sleep last night, I had just heard about Ohio. I explained to the boy that Obama was going to win the election and become the first African-American President of the United States. The boy looked up at me, eyes filled with wonder, as one’s kids will on occasion, and said, “Really? The first? How can that be?” My son will grow up in a different country than I did, a country where more things seem possible, where more things are possible.
The boy woke up today, left his bed, and stepped into his world of new possibilities. He marched into my bedroom and inquired about the election. I told him that Obama had won. He then asked about Proposition 8. I told him that it passed, that a majority of Californians chose to annul the marriages of several of his cousins and the parents of two of his good friends. He didn’t say, “Really? How can that be?” But he was upset — even after I explained that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends toward justice.
He’s off to school now, and I’m left feeling like I should have worked harder against Proposition 8, like I should have spent more time phonebanking, should have raised more money. I’m ashamed that I was so overconfident, so sure that the day of justice was finally at hand. My son takes immeasurable comfort in his parents’ marriage. His little cousins, his friends from school, the people he knows who will be most directly affected by Prop 8, awoke today into a world without that comfort. The arc of the moral universe feels unbearably long right now, even as a I celebrate President-elect Obama.
61 comments
November 5, 2008 at 9:59 am
dana
Awww, ari. This is a touching post.
November 5, 2008 at 10:02 am
Vance
I explained that the arc of the moral universe is long, but that it bends toward justice.
Coming from a historian, this should carry some weight. (Also, as the philosophers among us will confirm, that you “explained” this rather than, say, “arguing” it, means it’s true.)
I certainly hope you’re right. In fact, I believe you’re right, but in the religious sense of partly willed belief.
November 5, 2008 at 10:05 am
Jen S.
It is sad that many of those who voted for a man whose parents’ marriage would have been illegal in many states also voted to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry.
November 5, 2008 at 10:07 am
kid bitzer
given that prop 8 is going to be overturned in ten years, max, and given that its being overturned is foreseeable by anyone with a sense of demographics,
how enforceable is it going to be? how much will it cost to enforce it, and will californians be willing to pay that cost?
after the mormons have gone back to their hell-hole and taken their cash with them?
November 5, 2008 at 10:08 am
Vance
I feel the same, Jen, but it’s not much of an argument. Most Americans believe now that it’s OK for whites and blacks to marry. It simply doesn’t follow that they should believe it’s OK for men to marry men. I do believe that, and there may be good arguments for it, but the analogy with race only works when preaching to the converted.
November 5, 2008 at 10:22 am
quietCanuck
Awww, ari. This is a touching post.
Very.
For those of you who have a sense of politics on the ground in CA, what do you think drove the results?
November 5, 2008 at 10:31 am
soup biscuit
Kid Bitzer, I’m sure that’s a real comfort today to anyone who’s just had it pointed out yet again how many of their neighbors consider them to be second class citizens.
How does it cost anything much to enforce?
November 5, 2008 at 10:33 am
Michael Bartley
While trying to get thru the long hours of worry, I finished reading Bernard DeVoto’s The Year of Decision 1846, a wonderful book by one of the American West’s greatest historians, and was struck by this, “in the course of human history…the future has not always won when the past attacked it. This time the future won. Yesterday was overturned and rejected…Yesterday lost out.”
Here is to tomorrow. It is just the beginning. The fight for all our brothers and sisters will go on and someday soon justice will prevail.
November 5, 2008 at 10:35 am
Sam-I-am
“the arc of the moral universe is long, but… it bends toward justice.”
When I quote that, do I credit you?
I’m an economist, so I argue. But I do so like to hope. I can almost taste it, right about now.
November 5, 2008 at 10:37 am
ari
Me or Martin Luther King, Jr. Whoever comes first to mind.
November 5, 2008 at 10:47 am
Zach
As a black American, I am enraged that exit polls show that Prop. 8 was won largely because of the actions of black voters. You’d think that as a people who have suffered for so long at the hands of a democratic government unwilling to protect our interests and rights, we might choose not to celebrate this historical election by ignoring the rights of another minority population.
Fuck…this really is just heartbreaking.
November 5, 2008 at 10:48 am
ari
Wanna write a post?
November 5, 2008 at 10:52 am
Zach
Ask Cyn. She’ll say it much better than I will. Besides, I have this book to finish, and grading papers…and exams…
November 5, 2008 at 10:53 am
ari
You ask her. And tell her the offer’s serious.
November 5, 2008 at 11:04 am
Kathy
On the arc of justice: Martin Luther King was quoting Theodore Parker. Obama also used a version of the quote last night.
November 5, 2008 at 11:05 am
Wrongshore
It may bend towards justice relatively swiftly in this case. Drum points out that in 2000, CA voted 61-39 for Prop 22; yesterday was 52-48, which he predicted months ago based on a perceived trend of the public warming toward gay rights issues at a rate of about 1% a year.
I gave more money against Prop 8 than I ever have before, and now I feel a little rotten getting straight-married in December. And it feels rotten living in California with WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? But they are 9% less rotten than they were at the dawn of the decade, and that ain’t bupkis.
November 5, 2008 at 11:19 am
dware
Californians shouldn’t feel alone in their shame; the voters of Arkansas adopted an initiated act making it lillegal for unmarried persons to adopt or foster children. This measure was first introduced by local politico-churchish types as a prohibition against homosexual individuals from adopting or fostering, but that version was thrown out as discriminatory. Hence, this newer equal-opportunity insult.
My question: mustn’t states honor marriages originating in other states, regardless of gender composition? Something about “full faith and credit” keeps rolling around in my head. So regardless of any brave-sounding acts, laws, proclamations or amendments proclaiming marriages to consist of a particular gender formula, mustn’t any marriage registered and recognized as legal under the laws of one state be accorded that same regard in the others?
Just please, god, don’t let this question get to the Supremes just yet. Wait a while.
November 5, 2008 at 11:21 am
kid bitzer
“On the arc of justice: Martin Luther King was quoting Theodore Parker.”
theodore parker?
wasn’t he one of the chipmunks?
November 5, 2008 at 11:29 am
urbino
On the long arc, we are all dead. (Martin Luther Keynes)
I like that you refer to your son as “the boy.” Reminds me of E.B. White. Now you just need a ghoulish dachshund named Fred.
November 5, 2008 at 11:32 am
ari
Now you just need a ghoulish dachshund named Fred.
Like hell, I do.
November 5, 2008 at 11:37 am
urbino
Then you can’t go on referring to your son as “the boy.” No half-measures, Kelman. This is wartime; get off the fence.
Something about “full faith and credit” keeps rolling around in my head.
Credit is scarce, these days. Faith is plentiful.
November 5, 2008 at 11:51 am
Malaclypse
My question: mustn’t states honor marriages originating in other states, regardless of gender composition?
“Thanks” to DoMA, no, they do not. Nor does the federal goverment. I believe, but may be wrong, that the Supremes have ruled DoMA constitutional.
November 5, 2008 at 11:56 am
quietCanuck
that a majority of Californians chose to annul the marriages of several of his cousins and the parents of two of his good friends.
Another question: Isn’t there some question of how prop 8 effects existing same sex marriages? I thought the language was open to interpretation?
November 5, 2008 at 11:58 am
Megan
I know. That part is such a disappointment. I did do a little work for Prop 8, and was confident. I didn’t think we were still mean.
All the more reason for the Constitutional Convention.
November 5, 2008 at 11:59 am
Brad
I feel happy for my country and pissed for my state. This is reversal of my usual state of mind.
At least Prop 4 went down.
And chickens get to flap their wings in freedom…as long as they are straight chickens.
November 5, 2008 at 11:59 am
ari
It is. A colleague assures me that it’s likely that those people who are already married will remain so. The courts will decide, it seems.
November 5, 2008 at 12:14 pm
politicalfootball
Californians shouldn’t feel alone in their shame; the voters of Arkansas adopted an initiated act making it lillegal for unmarried persons to adopt or foster children.
I remember a time when California didn’t take consolation from it’s similarity with Arkansas.
November 5, 2008 at 12:39 pm
RobinMarie
Thanks for this post, Ari; it has been comforting to several of my friends and has made its rounds already.
My instinct is that Kid Bitzer is right, and give this thing a decade or a little more or less and we can get it reversed. However, that’s no call for apathy about it; the more we can do to speed the bright day up, the better.
November 5, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Walt
I didn’t know until just now that Obama was quoting King. Somehow, the fact that we elected a black President didn’t seem real until now. Even seeing Jesse Jackson — who’s affect away from the podium is always so measured — cry didn’t bring it home.
Maybe when Franz Kafka said “There is hope, but not for us,” he was not 100% accurate.
November 5, 2008 at 1:19 pm
ben
a majority of Californians chose to annul the marriages of several of his cousins and the parents of two of his good friends
The consensus seems to be that marriages already entered into prior to the passage of the proposition will remain valid.
November 5, 2008 at 1:39 pm
TF Smith
Ari –
Not that I disagree about Prop. 8 (I think it was rubbish, and the LDS have lost a lot in my eyes) but:
“…up in a different county than I did.”
Yuba?
All the best
November 5, 2008 at 1:43 pm
kathy a.
i think it is all going to be litigated for years to come. yes, even the legality of the marriages already performed.
how could california [my state] do this? got me, but there is work left to do. a lot more people need to see this as personally affecting people they care about. and, everyone should be worried if a majority vote can change the state constitution to strip a disfavored group of fundmental human rights.
November 5, 2008 at 1:50 pm
ari
The consensus
Not a consensus, no.
November 5, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Tyler Madden
A decade is too long, a proposition effectively nullifying 8 needs to be on the next statewide election ballot. The Yes On 8 folks won by shifting the battle ground from a simple issue of civil rights to hoarse-throated Gavin Newsom the bogeyman coming to teach your 2nd Grader’s about sodomy.
Having gone and knocked on doors for Obama in Nevada, and seeing the massive amounts of Californians taking part there, I am almost certain that 8 would have been shot down if such a substantial amount of politically active Californians weren’t dedicating all of their time and energy to turning Nevada blue. I don’t regret dedicating myself to that fight, because in the long run, a McCain presidency would have hurt civil rights more than this has, but I am disappointed that we failed to win on both fronts.
November 5, 2008 at 2:14 pm
rosmar
Can’t blame black people for Prop 8–what percentage of California do black people comprise nowadays? 7? All the other people in the country should have easily outvoted them if black people were the only ones bigoted against gay people.
Though it makes me very sad that 70% of black people voted yes on 8. My girlfriend is black, and sometimes it is very difficult to be black and gay. (I’m latina and gay, which can be pretty hard sometimes, too. As can being anything and gay, I guess.)
November 5, 2008 at 2:25 pm
AEP
Look to the North–to my state Oregon–to see how it all could go: Our blue Gov implemented the Family Fairness Act in 2007 to mitigate the anti-gay marriage amendment we passed in 2005. And here we sit in NW Oregon, a blue oasis in a sea of red, waiting for rural Oregonians to let us cityfolks marry the people we love (as if gay people don’t farm and ranch). It’s their last hold on us–we beat them almost every time on land use, high offices, taxes, and labor (if not on the ballot, then in the courts). It’s power not values, I’m telling you. And the tide is turning. Ten years, tops, and gay marriage is legal. It’s hard to let go of those last bits of social control, don’t you think?
November 5, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Vance
This post and comments do the math (back-of-the-envelope style) to show that if black voters had voted for Prop. 8 in the same proportion as the general electorate, it still would have passed.
November 5, 2008 at 2:48 pm
ben
Is that so, ari? I’m sure I read recently that the AG believes otherwise.
November 5, 2008 at 2:53 pm
ari
Yeah, ben, but the AG’s view doesn’t necessarily represent a consensus. Surely you know that and are arguing for, well, I’m not sure why you’re arguing. You’re perfectly capable of using google, of course. And if you do, I feel confident that you’ll turn up plenty of folks eager to overturn even those marriages that have already been recorded by the state. Will they succeed? My colleague suggests that the answer likely is, no. Will many people who have already been married have to sweat out the lawsuits, wondering if their union will continue to be legitimate? My guess is yes.
November 5, 2008 at 2:57 pm
dana
I can’t even imagine the stress one would be under wondering if one’s marriage was suddenly going to poof away.
November 5, 2008 at 2:57 pm
ari
Or are you trying to get into an argument with me about the meaning of consensus? Seriously, I can’t figure out your point here.
November 5, 2008 at 2:59 pm
ari
Sorry, that was directed at ben.
November 5, 2008 at 3:06 pm
kathy a.
consensus does not mean a legal issue is decided. we’ve got us an undecided legal mess, is what we’ve got.
November 5, 2008 at 3:07 pm
kathy a.
also, and AG’s opinion is not the same as a legal decision.
November 5, 2008 at 3:14 pm
urbino
I can’t even imagine the stress one would be under wondering if one’s marriage was suddenly going to poof away.
Isn’t that sort of the life of all married people?
November 5, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Walt
You think ben has points? You poor deluded bastard.
November 5, 2008 at 3:15 pm
ben
I’m sure there are plenty of people who are eager to overturn the already established marriages; that eagerness doesn’t constitute their having already done so, nor does it constitute evidence regarding what the consensus interpretation of what has already been done is (except via negativa, in a way unhelpful to you: if they want to do this further thing, they must not already have done it).
I cited the attorney general because of my assumption that he is qualified to say what the import of the proposition is and can therefore express, not establish, the consensus. Of course it doesn’t necessarily represent the consensus. But it seems reasonable to suppose it won’t be too much at variance with it.
November 5, 2008 at 3:17 pm
ari
Okay, so you want to argue about the meaning of consensus, then. Fine. Point ceded.
November 5, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Matt Weiner
There’s “Human relations are inherently unpredictable” and then there’s “My neighbors just used the power of the government to declare that I don’t count.”
November 5, 2008 at 3:19 pm
ben
also, and AG’s opinion is not the same as a legal decision.
No one claims otherwise.
A consensus is also not a legal decision.
Insofar as we’ve got an undecided legal mess, it seems premature to say that any marriages have been annulled (unless you think that in interpreting the mess our state’s legal minds will be discovering that in fact the marriages were already annulled, only we didn’t know it yet).
Perhaps I am wrong about the balance of informed opinion as to the consequences of 8’s passage, but I don’t think I’m as wrong as ari thinks I am.
November 5, 2008 at 3:20 pm
ben
?
What do you think consensus means, ari? Seriously: I can’t figure out what your point is here.
November 5, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Matt Weiner
…last comment directed at urbino.
ben, I grant you that the AG would be qualified to express the consensus if there were a consensus, but that assumes that there is a consensus, which is a substantial assumption.
November 5, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Matt Weiner
Ugh, crossposted again. I think “a consensus” means “a substantial majority of people who are qualified to have an opinion agree on this.”
November 5, 2008 at 3:22 pm
ari
ben, I already granted upthread that my statement about annullments was premature, though certainly it would have been possible to interpret that passage in the original post non-literally. Regardless, second point ceded. Seriously, I don’t want to fight with people who agree with me about the basic issues at play here.
November 5, 2008 at 3:23 pm
ben
I’m satisfied if there simply is no consensus.
November 5, 2008 at 3:23 pm
ari
There’s no consensus, ben. There’s just a lot of disagreement.
November 5, 2008 at 3:24 pm
ari
And pwned by both Matt and ben.
November 5, 2008 at 3:27 pm
kid bitzer
but are we at least reaching consensus on what “consensus” means?
November 5, 2008 at 4:07 pm
andrew
An overview of the revision vs. amendment distinction.
November 5, 2008 at 4:44 pm
urbino
but are we at least reaching consensus on what “consensus” means?
Depends on who “we” are.
November 6, 2008 at 12:36 am
bitchphd
Someone asked upthrerad why people voted yes, and a lot of people have said basically that the yes vote proves that people are mean.
I actually don’t think that’s the case; my reasons are here. I think that the issue to emphasize isn’t “Californians hate gay people” (really, I know people who have gay friends but who voted yes); it’s that this is a question of *equality under the law*. I have to believe that a emphasis along those lines would change the way blacks in California would vote.
Also, keep in mind. Young people voted against it by a huge margin. Yes, it sucks that 8 passed. But I think Wrongshore’s right; in this case, the arc of justice might not end up being so long after all.