Postcards From The 8

To supporters of Proposition 8:

In 2006, after three years in North Carolina, one in Boston, and seven in Virginia, I moved back to my home state of California. Within 18 months, I’d procured a professorial post and an apartment and met the man I intend to spend my life with. We got a license at City Hall and married in the church of our choice. Since returning to California, I have had every opportunity to make a fulfilling home for myself.

An African American woman, I was regularly reminded that repression was so much a part of the fabric of Virginia that within my own lifetime I might not have been allowed to pursue the paths I’ve chosen for my life today. Made possible by the sacrifice, dedication, and vision of members of the African American community and their allies, the Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Acts, and hard-won laws and court decisions that banned segregation in public facilities and granted full access to education, marriage and property rights pushed America closer to forming “a more perfect union,” one that supports full and equal access to all and for all.

Distanced as some of us are from the strides toward civil equality this nation took in the twentieth century, we forget the details of many of the rights denied segments of our citizenry. Though I was a proud property owner while I lived in Virginia in the first decade of the 21st century, as recently as the 1970s, as an unmarried woman without a husband or father to sign the deed for me, I would not have been able to purchase my home. As an African American, I was only recently permitted the right to choose whom I married. African American marriages have not always been considered legal and binding, and even once that hurdle toward full citizenship was surmounted, Loving v. Virginia didn’t pave the way for interracial marriage in America until 1967. These are only a few of the examples of the ways that specific populations of Americans, women and Blacks in these instances, have been prevented from living their lives as full human citizens under the laws of their states.

Though I am not naive enough to believe no repression exists here in California, it was heartbreaking to witness, on November 4th, 2008, the decision on the part of so many to actively and consciously strip the full rights of citizenship from their neighbors. Californians tend to pride themselves on their independence and tolerance, and yet we have allowed Proposition 8 to debase and dehumanize our fellow citizens. I left Virginia because the legacy of old inequalities still clouded its citizens’ dreams for their futures, but here in California a new measure for promoting inequality has been approved. What a sad stain on our state. It was because of Californians’ vision and belief in the full potential of all men and women that I came back home. Now that I’m back, I am working hard with members of the Gay and Lesbian community and their allies to reclaim the rights of all California’s citizens to fall in love, to marry, to make themselves a home.

Toward a more perfect union,

Camille Dungy

Dear David,

I've been thinking about writing this email to you for a long time. Well, since November 4, specifically.

The passing of Proposition 8 in California shook me to the core. I had initially been shocked to even hear of its existence, since we live in a time that seems to be trying to move towards equal rights for all of its citizens. This year, we took a giant step backwards. It really disgusts me that Americans would pass a law that BANS other Americans from doing something they can rightfully do.

Every American has the right to believe whatever they want to. I've tried to be understanding of your bigotry for many years. However, now that I know that you actively supported discriminatory laws against other Americans, as an American, I cannot consider you a friend.

I hope you realize that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who love each other and only wanted something that other millions of Americans, including yourself, enjoy. This is about LOVE. I'm sorry that it is different from your community, but there are millions of people who grow up to believe that they will marry the person they fall in love with when they become adults. It is cultural for them, and may have a different definition than you have in your community.

I thought we lived in a country that was accepting of the differences between our communities?

So, while I can no longer tolerate your bigotry in a friendship, I have to thank you, because this experience has been an eye-opener for me. I really took for granted that this sort of intolerance was outdated and that despite our differences, most Americans believed that our laws should support equal rights for all Americans. Now that I see that even people who consider themselves artists feel comfortable legislating hate against other Americans, I have become very impassioned to become involved to see what I can do to help fight this injustice.

I'm very excited that our governor in New York is outspoken in his support of equal rights for all Americans and am already participating in efforts to bring tolerance to New York. It was a highlight of my fall to get to speak to Marc Shaiman, an artist who helped bring together artists against the bigots who worked together to pass this discriminatory law. As an American who does not share the same civil rights that you and I do, he was able to deal with his alienation with humor and pride.

Some people lashed out against him for making a stink over this issue...but I guess those people would have told Rosa Parks to just sit down in the back of the bus and write a letter to her congressman.

Sincerely,

Tiffany Little Canfield