Dating Confessions by You "The definition of tacky: he gives me a present. I give it back when we break up. He re-gifts it to his new girlfriend's mom for Christmas."
On November 5th, the heady buzz of election night had faded to a throbbing headache. My beloved home state, California, had at once voted to demand more legroom for chickens and pigs on factory farms (Prop 2) and to deny the state's many gays the right to marry (Prop 8). In the past five days, thousands of people from Palm Springs to Long Beach to Los Angeles to San Francisco have hit the streets to protest the constitutional revision; several were arrested, and at least one was beaten prior to arrest. There are already three lawsuits headed to the California courts to challenge Prop 8, and both supporters and opponents of gay marriage have vowed that the fight is far from over.
Prop 8 adds the following language to California's constitution: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." News of its passing left many shaking their heads, wondering how a state like California could give its votes to Changey McHoperson and at the same time approve a socially regressive constitutional revision. But in spite of its hippie radical reputation, California's voting trends generally look a lot like the rest of the nation's: a wide red middle, book-ended by blue. And though change has been the watchword of recent months, we sometimes forget that with change comes an inevitable backlash from those who fear becoming displaced in society.
The majority gets majorly freaked out when other people win the rights that they already enjoy, as though rights are finite and should be stockpiled like so many cans of beans in case of nuclear fallout.
Still, Prop 8 is on the losing side of history. The sex-panic button regularly gets hit in response to social change, racial tension, economic instability and foreign wars. The majority gets majorly freaked out when other people win the rights that they already enjoy, as though rights are finite and should be stockpiled like so many cans of beans in case of nuclear fallout. These regressions are frustrating and hurtful, but a study of history can put them in perspective.
Until 1977 the California Civil Code didn't have a specific gender requirement for marriage. The clause about marriage was actually gender-neutral from its ratification in 1850, defining marriage only as "a personal relation arising out of a civil context, to which the consent of the parties capable of making that contract is necessary."
Of course, the switch from gender-neutral to gender-specific didn't happen because Californians suddenly and randomly got their panties in a damp tangle. In 1977 the nation had just disengaged from the deeply unpopular war in Vietnam. Stagflation and the oil crisis were taking turns punching the American economy in the kidneys. Just four years earlier, Roe v. Wade had overturned all state and federal laws restricting abortion. And eight years earlier, the Stonewall Riots in New York City sparked a three-day uprising, arguably turning gay rights into a full-on movement. In this upheaval America's pre-war gender expectations needed a manly, normative pat on the back. Enter the first repeals of gay-rights ordinances (in Dade County, FL; thanks Anita Bryant!) and the spankin' new nouns in the California Civil Code.
