Postcards From The 8

Dear Supporter of Proposition 8,

It is now almost one month since the November 4, 2008 election, and I am still at a loss to understand what motivated a majority of California voters to choose intolerance and divisiveness over the simple acceptance of the relationships of their neighbors, colleagues and friends.

I suppose that during the campaign, I didn’t want to believe that the people I read about in the newspaper or the ones I saw on television or the internet would win the day. You know who you are—exploiting your small, cute children to sing pathetic songs about how confusing same-sex marriage is for kids; marching around with your protest signs, fervently claiming that the end of traditional marriage and perhaps even the end of the world is upon us because of gay marriage; screaming hate-filled epithets at couples seeking only the same legal protections that you and I and any other heterosexual adults in America take for granted.

I was wrong to underestimate the strength of your intolerance. But please give me this opportunity to offer my opinion, for whatever it is worth, regarding same-sex marriage. Perhaps you will think on these pieces of information when the next challenge to Proposition 8 arises in California. Or perhaps a like-minded voter will think on it in another one of the too-many states that have banned gay marriage the next time those measures are challenged in court or on the ballot (there will always be a next time—I hope you realize that).

First, let me say that I live in Massachusetts. I have gay and straight friends, colleagues and neighbors here who are married and raising families. I have gay and straight friends who are unmarried because they choose to be unmarried. It’s pretty nice to be in a place where people aren’t prevented from exercising basic human rights and freedoms just because of their sexuality. And you know what? The world isn’t ending. And you know what else? My two young children aren’t confused as to what a family is. They know that they have a mom and dad, that the kid next door has two moms, that a friend from preschool has two dads, and that all of them are pretty lucky to live in homes with parents who love them and take care of them.

Second, how can you refuse to acknowledge the parallels between laws like Proposition 8 and the anti-miscegenation laws that were valid in so many states until the Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia in 1967? That case struck down a Virginia law that forbade white people from marrying people of color. The Court held that marriage is a fundamental human right, and that the equal protection of the law meant protection for the choice to marry someone of a different race, even if other people didn’t like it. Up until 1967, anti-miscegenation laws were upheld as constitutional because of the popular view that “race-mixing” represented the erosion of traditional marriage and that it was considered unholy in the Bible. Do these allegations sound familiar? They should, since they are the same, recycled arguments that are being made today. We should be ashamed as a nation that those anti-miscegenation laws stood for as long as they did. I can only hope that a few years from now we will look back on Proposition 8 and its kin as old, dead laws, and that we will shake our heads with shame that it took us so long to learn to treat each other with equality, humanity, kindness and grace.

--Sudha S.