Rick, you mentioned that you thought RR is a bubble. I don't completely agree with that. If you read as many different sites as I do you will find many of the same discussions and the same ideas expressed.
So why was Prop 8 voted in then?
Do you think the population identified in the
Mercury News study has time to spend all day discussing hoity-toity ideas on the 'Net?
No. They're working their two, three jobs to earn less than $40K a year and raising their four, five, six children because "biological events happen."
...and when they finally put the kids to bed and the sit on their porches and discuss with their like neighbors the events of the day - they all agree that homosexuality is deviant and to vote Yes on Prop 8 - plus their pastors/fathers told them to...
Yikes Rick. The anger can be a positive, but the bashing isn't. The fact that Prop 8 passed does not negate the fact that gays are much more accepted in society than they ever have been. Let's remember that we are a minority within every other minority. We come in every age, color, shape and size and even within our own racial groups we are the minority (we are the minorities minority). I think we have explored nearly every possible reason why Prop 8 passed. I'm not sure that picking poor, uneducated, fertile straight people as the next enemy is the the best choice of target for our anger.
The real enemies are the leaders of the groups that get their followers to support their ideas AND the ignorance that allows that to happen. It seems that most everyone now knows or is related to an openly gay person. I can just as easily see the people in your example sitting on the porch talking about how it just seems wrong to tell Uncle Ray or Mike and Tom down the block (the ones with the beautiful lawn) that they can't get married.
There are still closeted gays out there too. They may have secretly voted 'no' in the booth but the reason they are closeted is that they likely know people who hate gays and I'm sure their conversations with those people never include supporting equal rights. I have already mentioned the gay guy I met election night who voted "yes". We won't really understand the reason until we actually talk to the people who voted yes, but, like I said, I'm not hearing anyone admit that they did.
This may be heresy but I also think that some members of the gay community have started to believe the glowing statistics about us. Not all of us are more educated, nice, creative, rich and loving people. So, even if everyone knows someone who is gay, they don't necessarily like or value them, in fact, the gay person they know may reinforce all the negatives they already feel toward the community.
Despite all the time and energy we've spent trying to pinpoint who to blame, I don't think we will ever have a cut and dried answer. One thing I'm realizing is that, the more time we spend pointing fingers, the less time we spend educating. The more time we spend digging into this, the more we discover that
everyone could be perceived as our enemy. We've already pinned this on Mormons, Catholics, Blacks, Latinos, Asians and even some gays. We are not going to find THE ENEMY. We need to progess and work on making people understand why this was wrong - there are some we will never persuade, we have to accept that, and move on to the people who we can.
Having said all that, I stick to my guns that, in my experience, I, as an openly gay man, am much more accepted now than any other time in my life.
