Postcards From The 8

Dear Catholic Undergraduate,

I really appreciate your willingness to engage with me civilly when I stopped by your apartment to Get Out The Vote. Of course it was clear I supported Obama, and you made it clear you were going to vote the Republican ticket. When I asked you why, your first response indicated you did not want to get taxed when you make a lot of money. (How presumptuous to think you will make more than $250,000 in the next four years!) When I asked about the implications for social injustice (because I assumed all college-educated people under 25 were socially liberal, even if fiscally conservative), and the probability of enhanced assault to civil rights, particularly gay rights, your response was what in retrospect must be common: that what people do at home is their business, but “maybe because I’m Catholic” you did not endorse same-sex marriages. At that point, I wanted to shout at you “Because you have never known hardship! Because you have never had to worry that you would be accepted. Because you will never know what it’s like to be refused permission to share—legally and spiritually—your love, health, and wealth with a partner.” The privilege you live you take for granted every single day. And it’s the lack of thought about that privilege that disappoints and irks me most.

I saw the same kind of presumptuousness in some of your peers on election day. Serving as an election official, I was happy to see so many first-time voters, but this happiness was lessened by my astonishment at what I perceived to be political affiliations based on socialization rather than independent thought. I was astounded by the number of youth—and particularly the number of young women—who were registered Republicans. As my colleague, who used to work at the Emma Goldman Clinic (a local health care clinic that was the first in Iowa to provide abortions) said, “Well, I hope these girls never have an unplanned pregnancy.”

I wish you and other privileged youth would think harder about who they support and what that means. As University students, you are especially privileged—you have opportunities, resources and information available to you that many people don’t have. Your generation, like mine, assumes a college education of its middle and upper classes. Yet the assumptions you were born into and with which you go through life remain unquestioned, and seem to have dulled your empathetic skills. We live in a state where 94.6% of the population is white, 15% are older than 65, and only 21% of those who stay here have college degrees. Prop 8 only made the news after it passed. Here in the center of the country, you and some of your peers are perfect examples of complacent white privilege. Life is relatively easy and carefree for you, so why bother caring about people you’ve never met and how they may feel being denied the rights you have taken for granted your whole life?

I urge you to examine yourself, your beliefs, and how your actions—speech, purchases, votes—contribute to or detract from the well-being and progress of humankind everywhere. If you, Undergraduate Catholic, really do subscribe to Christianity as you claim (as do many of your peers), then meditate again on what Jesus explicitly said when asked to explain the most important commandment:

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (NIV, Mark 12:28-31).

The Golden Rule derives from this commandment. Take it into your heart and act on it. Do you really do unto others as you would have them do unto you?

Dear Neighbor:

It is important to me that those of you who voted to support Proposition 8, the recent initiative to remove the human and civil rights of gay people to marry, understand what your vote means to me and to my family. I hope that you are able to listen to my pain and anger, and to hear it with your heart.

I am a longtime Sacramento resident. I've worked, raised two wonderful sons, and have been married to my husband for 35 years. I'm the proud grandmother of three lovely hostages to the future. My youngest son is gay. Do you understand that this is not a 'lifestyle' for him? That this is not a 'choice' he made? This is who he is. He has known this is who he is since he was a teenager. You should also know that he is smart: he has a doctorate degree that he earned from one of the nation's most prestigious schools. He works hard, pays taxes, and is responsible about his civic duties. He is a faithful and committed friend. He maintains a varied and close set of relationships with people with whom he went to middle school, high school, college, graduate school, and from other cities he has lived in. He has an abiding commitment to family: he is a devoted godfather to his niece, a regular correspondent with his grandmother, and the one in our family who always remembers the thank-you note, the wedding remembrance, the postcard to the great-aunt in the nursing home. And so it came as no surprise that his chosen life-partner is very like him: smart and family-focused, thoughtful, hard-working, good at his job and engaged in the community.

When the Supreme Court found that these two men had the right to marry, they had no doubts and no hesitation. They married immediately, and just as immediately began planning the big celebration to acknowledge their commitment to each other, to their families, and to their immediate and larger community.

I am stunned that a bare majority of Californians believe that the commitment of these two lovely men is a threat to the social fabric, rather than a source of strength and happiness. I am astonished that people would feel that the creation of another family unit, with all the protections and responsibilities that go with the civil definition of marriage, is anything other than an opportunity to strengthen their own family. I am angry that a religious assertion from one group of churches should attempt to dictate the legal and social decisions of people who don't share those beliefs. And I am deeply angry at the hurt and exclusion of those who say to their fellow citizens: you are not equal, you are not entitled, and, ultimately, you are not acceptable.

I am working hard to follow my own religious dictates to forgive you, on the assumption that you know not what you do.

Sincerely,

C. Catherine Camp

Dear Mr. S.,

I'm writing to you because you donated nearly a thousand dollars to a shameful attack on my family. You and your allies funded a campaign of outright lies, gross exaggerations, and misleading suggestions, and managed to convince the slimmest of majorities that this is just about symbolism, not about actual discrimination. That it's about (false) religious belief, and faith, not hate.

Well, you fooled them, and you may have fooled yourself, but you don't fool me, and I don't believe that you're fooling God, either. The good news is that there's still hope for redemption and salvation as long as you're still on Earth, and I'll pray for you.

I married my partner of six years on June 17, the first day it was legally recognized in California. We met three states ago, in Massachusetts in 2002. We moved together to Texas in 2003. You may recall that Texas overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment banning equal marriage rights for all citizens in 2005. Living through that campaign was an ugly, painful experience for me. It crystallized my feelings of unease in Texas into bitterness and contempt for a vile and hateful place. I decided that I wasn't going to contribute my emotional and economic energy to the betterment of a place which placed no value on my family or my life, and in 2007, we shook the dust of Texas from our feet and moved to California.

I still thank God for delivering me from Texas, although I am no longer moved to do so every day.

The news that the California Supreme Court had affirmed my equal right to marriage came on my 30th birthday, May 15. My partner and I went to dinner, and talked about it, and decided that we would marry as soon as it was possible for us to do so. I don't know if I can describe the feeling of elation that I had; I get a little shaky even thinking about it now. We've been together for a long time, and formed our household years ago, and have family holidays together, but this felt different. The ritual of standing up before God, our families, our friends, and the State, and professing our love for one another is truly powerful. We promised that we will support one another, and asked for the promise of support from our friends and neighbors.

That promise is what this is truly all about, although you may not realize it yet, or may deny it. Before I got married, I always felt like my "nieces" and my "in-laws," had air-quotes around them when I talked about them. One of the most powerful things about marriage is the connections it recognizes - not just the bond between two people, but the web of bonds between those two people and all of their loved ones, who they have brought together. I love my family, all of my family, and I refuse to acknowledge that the air quotes have been put back around half of those relationships.

This narrow victory of discrimination and intolerance that you bought earlier this month is Pyrrhic - your war has already been lost. All across California and the nation, all of the decent people and their families who believe that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law woke up to realize that even if that concept is fundamental to both the California and the U.S. Constitutions, there are enough bitter and misguided people to challenge those basic rights. Your supporters are fearful and growing fewer with every passing day, and the march of freedom - including freedom from fear - will not be held back much longer. If not this year, then two years from now, or four years, or eight, Prop 8 WILL be overturned. One day, you and your grandchildren will be ashamed that you ever supported it.

Sincerely,

Andrew S.

Dear Supporter of Proposition 8,

On election night November 4, 2008, my evening began with feelings of jubilation as America ushered in a new President and California, like so much of the rest of our country, had overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama, the first African American President elected to represent us all. Instantly, I thought Obama’s victory demonstrates how far we have progressed in California and across America toward accepting and getting past the superficial differences that exist between us and instead focusing on committing ourselves to our shared ideals of equality regardless of our differences. But then, on the same night, in sharp contrast, came passage of Proposition 8, designed expressly to bar access of an entire group Californians to the civil institution of marriage. I couldn’t believe this was happening in California, of all states. My mood on election night quickly turned from jubilation to grief and dismay. I am still profoundly disappointed, confounded and hurt by the fact that anyone could support such a discriminatory proposition.

How is it possible that anyone, let alone the same Californians who helped sweep the first African American President into office, could feel entitled to strip a whole class of people of their civil rights that they had just recently been granted? How could any Californians be willing to write one narrow interpretation of religious dogma into our state’s Constitution forcing all of us to abide by that narrow religious view? How could Californians deprive loving couples of their right to marry?

I have been blissfully married for many years. Allowing all loving, consenting adults access to marriage takes nothing away from the quality of my marriage, rather, it gives my marriage, and the institution of marriage itself, greater credence. On June 17, 2008, the first day that gay civil marriages were allowed in California, I had the privilege of witnessing my close friend’s wedding to his longtime domestic partner. It was on that day, with that experience, that I developed a much deeper appreciation of how important allowing their access to marriage is in demonstrating to our gay loved ones our acceptance of them as equals. Never have I known two people more in love or more committed to each other than are these two men. Watching them exchange the familiar wedding vows, and seeing with my own eyes how strongly affected they were and their tender resolve to live by those vows I saw how strongly they share the same desire that my husband and I share to fit solidly into society. In marriage my friends received the same commitment of the state and their community to protect and honor their family, their relationship that my husband and I received years ago. By requiring the government to remove this right of loving committed couples such as my friends to marry, we rewrite our constitution to define some people, in this case, gay people, as second-class citizens, defining their love as less worthy than other peoples love, and, to me, that is un-American, it’s wrong, and it hurts.

There is a Buddhist saying that in every loss there is a gain, as in every gain there is a loss. By revising our constitution to allow only certain privileged people to marry in California, we write discrimination into law, devaluing California itself; a major loss. By that action, we lost our chance to lead the nation, to stand up against bigotry. But in the days following this loss, California is experiencing something wonderfully new and hopeful; a vociferous cry for marriage equality, now, not just from California, but from all across the nation. This decry may be unstoppable.

Yours in disappointment and in hope,

Patrice Rogers

Dear Mr. Bennett,

I am writing to you because you are my neighbor, and because you supported Proposition 8. I am writing to tell you how, and why, what you did affected my family. But first I want to share with you what In Re: Marriage Cases, the California Supreme Court decision of this past May, meant to my family.

On June 17th, 2008 – the first day it was legal for us to do so – I married my partner in a civil ceremony at the County Clerk’s office here in Sacramento. My spouse’s best friend from college served as his best man. My brother served as my best man – just as 13 years ago I served as his – and he brought his wife and two daughters to witness our joy. My 8 year-old niece was so excited to be flower-girl that she could hardly sit still. One of my best friends from college, along with her fiancé, drove up from San Francisco to serve as additional witnesses.

Knowing that my family is now protected under the law, knowing that I now have someone with whom I will share all my burdens and cares all the days of my life, knowing that my friends and relatives were happy, joyful, and eager to stand before the state and say “yes, this is a good thing, and we are here to witness it” – all of that means so much to me that I cannot but share my happiness with others. And it is this thing – legal protection for my family – that the California Supreme Court made possible for me and my spouse.

Having the protection of the state is fundamental for my family – but so is knowing that we have the watchful care of the community on us. That watchful care will be vital when we step forward to take responsibility for bringing up children – as we intend to do in the next few years. That watchful care will be vital when the time comes to take up the joyful responsibility of taking care of our parents. That watchful care will be vital whenever we need advice and support for the decisions we make together.

That watchful care is what we intend to ask our friends and relatives to commit to, when we invite them to stand with us, before God, and witness our marriage in a religious ceremony at a Congregational church here in Sacramento. Making those promises with my spouse, before God and all creation, and knowing that I have the watchful care of my community on those promises, is something to which I look forward with so much joy in my heart that I cannot but share my happiness with others.

It is true that Proposition 8 hurt. It was a slap in the face to my family and to everyone who knows us. But I thank God and the good people of the state of California, knowing that my family is safe, and knowing that come April I will have the watchful care of my community on my marriage, no matter what happened on November 4th.

For as much as it hurt, I know that when someone strikes me on the right cheek, I must turn to him the other also. So I look forward to the day when we have another election on this. I look forward to the day when others will have what I have. I look forward to the day when everyone I know and love will be in a family, protected by the state, and under the watchful care of our community.

Sincerely yours,

Bayliss J. Camp

As part of my academic work, I study social movements. And there is a basic truth about what it takes to make for positive social change: political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and frames.*

These are pieces of sociological jargon, but they are names for really quite simple concepts. To wit, in order to have a successful social movement, you should (ideally) have three things lined up in your favor:

#1: Political opportunities: this means simply that you have friends in high places – or at the very least it should be the case that those with power are not united against you. Thankfully, we have friends, some with lots of power, who are willing to stand up for justice.

#2: Mobilizing Structures: this means simply that you have access to one or more organizations that work to bring people and money and other kinds of resources together. Thankfully, there are lots of organizations working for marriage equality (see the links on the main page).

#3: Frames: this means simply that you should have an idea of what needs to be changed, and why, and how to go about it.

This website is really about the third thing: providing people a mechanism where they can develop their own ideas of why we need marriage equality now. And then sharing those ideas with other people so that we can convince as many people as we can that our cause is just, and must be made to happen as soon as possible.

If we are ever to make marriage equality happen, we must know what to say about why we want it to happen. Not just for the people who are wrong, and not just for the people in the middle, whom we hope to convince of the truth and justice of our cause.

We must know what to say about marriage equality for us.

If we are to do the hard work of making it possible for our friends, our family, our neighbors, our faith family -- all the good people of this great state – to form families and pursue happiness and bring more joy into this world, we must be utterly convinced of the truth and justice of what we are about.

One of the more powerful frames, it turns out, involves focusing our attention not just on what is wrong (prejudice, ignorance, etc.), but on who is wrong.

Because there are people who are wrong on this issue: people that voted against marriage equality, people who donated money to make sure Prop. 8 passed, people who want to make sure that people like me can never marry the person whom we love.

If we learned anything from Proposition 8, it is that there are lots of people who will fight very hard to make sure that people like us cannot marry the person that we love, and so form a family. Because there are lots of people this this, and even because there are lots of people who are in the middle, the next fight to make marriage equality happen will be hard, make no mistake about it.

If we are to make marriage equality happen, we must know why we want it to happen. We have to know what to say if we are to fight hard enough to win.

That is what PostcardsFromThe8 is about.

So get to it -- write a letter, and make marriage equality happen.

*It is, of course, somewhat more complicated than this. But the complications are really about weighing these three things against each other, as well as delineating the historical specifics of what they look like in particular examples of movements that were successful (what worked) and unsuccessful (what didn't work). For more at-length treatments of these subjects see: Sidney Tarrow's Power in Movement or Doug McAdam's Political Process and the Development Black Insurgency or Lee Ann Banaszak's The U.S. Women's Movement in Global Perspective.

Question: Why should you write a letter?
Simple Answer: Simply stated, because it will clarify how you feel about this issue.

More complicated answer: When we put our feelings into words, we force ourselves to make sense of our emotions. That can sometimes be simple, and it can sometimes be a little harder. But either way, when we make sense of our emotions, it usually becomes much clearer what we can -- indeed, what we should -- do in terms of actions.

We also, in writing, practice what we might say when asked by somewhat what we think about this issue. The website editor's father -- just as a for instance -- was interviewed by a newspaper reporter about this issue. The words that he used in that interview came, pretty directly, from the letter he posted here (to read the article, go here).

Question: To whom should you write my letter?
Answer: It can be someone specific (see below), or it can be to a class of persons. My friend Jack has already written to his parish priest. My friend Marge plans to write to her grandson. My father wrote to the local Catholic bishop. Others have said they’ll write to mothers, or to friends, or to fellow Christians, or just to all who supported Proposition 8.

Question: How can you find a specific person to write to?
Answer: Well, one method is to ask your friends, family, and neighbors how they voted. This might be an opportunity to have an honest conversation with someone important to you about your feelings on equal marriage rights. If you don't have somebody near and dear to you in mind, you can find a list of donors online - donating money to a campaign in California is a matter of public record. Several newspapers have constructed searchable databases: the Sacramento Bee, and the San Francisco Chronicle, both of which draw from the California Secretary of State's online records (note, the State records are not as user-friendly as the newspapers).

Question: Should I mail my letter “for real” to someone specific in the opposition?
Answer: Only if you feel comfortable doing so. The website editor, for instance, did yet mailed his letter to his neighbor.

Question: Are all letters posted?
Answer: The website editor is committed to respectful civic dialogue. All civil and respectful letters will be posted.

Question: Why the name?
Honestly? Because we send a lot of postcards in my family – it's how we communicate with each other.