Four years after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s gay marriage block party got shut down by a very testy legislature, the California Supreme Court lifted the ban on gay marriage statewide. Woo Hoo! Make some noise! Tie strings of tin cans on injustice’s gas guzzling bumper as it lumbers out of town.
Of course some Grumpy Gusses are already throwing rice pudding. Do they have day jobs? They reject the CA Court’s two bedrock arguments that tradition alone does not justify discrimination and that sexual orientation must be part of the strict scrutiny in equal protection. Be prepared to smell that “choice” chestnut roasted again on the flames of hate.
But before the end of civilization as we know it – and really, is that such a bad thing? – or the anti-gay marriage people get their store-bought signatures certified for another ballot initiative, let’s pop some corks! Hip, hip, bye, bye to hypocrisy!
While our behemoth national cruise ship flounders and stalls, the little tug boats of states are working the harbor, hard-hauling and nudging a national course-correction.
I was just in Columbus, Ohio to do a show the night before the third annual Lobby Days sponsored by a group called Equality Ohio. Three hundred and sixty activists from all over the state, spent money on gas, got child care, and took time off work to converge on the Ohio state capitol to urge their legislators and representatives to pass a Senate and House Bill to end anti-gay discrimination in Housing and Employment.
After Equality Ohio’s well-organized session on the how-tos of lobbying, ordinary Ohioans, proud of their Buckeye home, walked out of the Hyatt function room, across the street to the State House to tell their stories, big and small, of the effect of discrimination on their civic and personal lives. Their laser focus on the job at hand was an inspiration.
Truth to tell, I’ve been bumming a bit through the long sexist, racist slog of the national primaries, so I’m happy to dust off my party hat, put on my pretty party dress and combat boots and whoop it up.
Thanks to the California plaintiffs and to the good citizen lobbyists of Ohio! And to the other forty-eight states where the grind of working for justice is done every day! Go Buckeyes! Go Golden Staters! Lead the way! Woo Hoo!