PROP 8, THE IRONY OF IT ALL

I can't even tell you how much stress Prop 8 has caused me in the last couple of weeks. The highs and lows of it all has made me feel like I'm on some bi-polar roller coaster ride. No other time in my life have I gone back and forth from being super-proud of being gay to wishing I was straight. And I'm sure I'm not the only gay person in our community going through this...and I'm also sure that no straight person would quite understand.

THE WEEKS BEFORE
The weeks leading to the election, each time I went outside, there were people showing their support for either YES or NO. Those that had their YES stickers on their cars and in front of their lawns would rile me up so much, that I literally could not contain these feelings that boiled inside of me. Feelings, I'd never felt before, like a helplessness mixed with "if I could just sit with this person for 1 minute, I could change their mind...give me 1 minute". If a Yes sticker would drive by, I'd try so hard to get next to them to see who this body of hate was, trying to get their attention to question why they believed so much in a Yes vote...as if I could possibly have my 1 minute driving 65mph on the freeway. Then, everywhere I went to escape this feeling of anger and helplessness, like hiking or shopping, there it was...PROP 8 hate everywhere. The Oakland Mormon church, go figure happened to be on the same street as my beautiful hike and all along the center divide leading to the hike, were Yes on 8 signs with little silhouettes of Families holding hands, as if to say "Do it for your Family". Then, on my way to Costco, a drive that normally takes me 10 min, had me stuck in over an hour long traffic...moving like snails, I'm thinking oh it must be a stalled car, or hopefully not a fatal accident...nope, it was this bike overpass that had a 15-20 foot wide sign that said YES on 8, MARRIAGE=1 MAN + 1 WOMAN and people surrounding it. 1 guy stood in front of them with his NO ON 8 little 8x11 inch sign and was waving at every1. It brought tears to my eyes, that he had so much courage standing with his little sign in front of all those people with the YES 15 foot sign and people surrounding it. But it also made me mad, that here in the BAY, of all places, where people are smart, cultured and liberal...the place I sought refuge, as I'm sure many other gay people did to live as far away from uneducated bigots as possible, that PROP 8 hate even existed here.

THE WEEK OF AND AFTER
On Election Day I was hopeful, but then I must admit I became cynical after seeing all the YES stickers and signs in the Gay Mecca. I knew it was gonna be close, but I had a bad feeling about the outcome...and I must have refreshed the Result Page on CNN every 2 min. to see how the race was fairing. The bad feeling came true, and in the morning, the results stayed YES ahead 52-48%. I felt like someone punched me in the stomach, and hated the world. I felt especially bad for anyone that got married, that were probably feeling confused as to whether or not their marriage was valid anymore. Then, I needed someone to blame and quickly found the exit poll results... Here I was thinkin that the exit polls would show something that made sense to me and the exit polls showed me something I never would have expected. All races voted pretty equally Yes and No...all but one. 75% of black people voted Yes on Prop 8. Truth be told the exit polls made me blame black people. It made me wonder how in the world could they turn their back on a minority with all they have been through. How? It disgusted me. It made me want to take back anytime I stuck up for all the stereotypes....anytime I felt empathy...It made me want to scream at every black person I saw, because chances were 3 of 4 I could have approached voted Yes. I mean here we are thinking white people are the gate keepers to true acceptance and elitist and we predict they are the most discriminatory group, but, we were proven wrong with Prop 8. Whites voted evenly both ways, making them more fair than Blacks. That left me speechless and now on the defense to every black person I came across. What the hell, Prop 8 has made me walk around carrying all this hate.

Now I'm not about to verbally attack a black I don't know...that would be like someone attacking a gay they don't know and really that is what this whole damn thing is about. These people voting YES, don't know me or my life and shouldn't be judging me. But I did have to do something with all the built up anxiety and anger and hopelessness. So I marched. I marched in SF from the Civic Center to Dolores Park. I marched with 10k other people, totally unprepared for the rally, holding outdated signs that said "Vote NO on Prop 8", but I didn't care if they were outdated...I had to make a stance and I needed to feel like I wasn't the only one torn up by this. Our march in SF may or may not have sent a message. To most people it was probably annoying, to be stopped in traffic during Friday rush hour for 2 hours, wrecking or halting whatever Friday dinner plans they had. But we have to start somewhere and if we have enough of these marches and stand together, I have the hope that we will gradually get there. There are marches and rallies all over the U.S. and I'm hoping that enough people take being gay seriously enough to know that we can band together and do this. This is not to have the right to party, or to be able to kiss in public...this is for equality...and for many of us, getting this equality will allow us to finally let go of this hate that has been dropped off to us.

Please join the impact and march this Saturday in front of your local City Hall...we are not going to be silent anymore:

http://www.jointheimpact.com/