I've Got Your Prop 8 Right Here

And now for a post by guest blogger Jill of the Bay Area

This perspective calmed me down just a little bit today: http://news.google.com/news?btcid=3470a2c45010e263.

Rev. Andrus's comments are poignant and true in my opinion. Yes, we will continue to work toward a transformed consciousness. Yes, we will persevere. In the meantime, however, we will be disappointed. Very disappointed.

Particularly disappointed am I in some of my black people.

That's right - I said it.

I saw some black folks enthusiastically reporting of their vote for YES on Prop 8 yesterday, and it made me sick. How is it possible that any black people -- my people -- could enthusiastically sanction constitutionally mandated bigotry? How could any of my people -- who, a few short generations ago were not even 'people' ourselves (at least not in an enfranchised, constitutional sense) -- cover another body with that scarred, stinking, bigoted cloth? How could any of us deprive another human being of coverage by the full fabric of personhood? We don't even have to think "There, but for the Grace of God, go I..." We've been there! And, we've been working like hell to lance the boils left by that infected place ever since.

I was ready to turn over tables when I saw a face that looked like mine grinning and cooning in front of a news camera, parroting some foolishness about "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve..." What the hell? Could we really vote for a constitutional amendment that would put its boot on the neck of an entire segment of the human population ... based on a hot steamy pile of ideology invoking GOD's purported oversight in her creation of Adam and Steve? Could we really do this, all the while proclaiming our support for the first black candidate to ever ascend to the U.S. presidency, because it's "Time for Change?" That's not irony. That's nonsense!

I have been distracted all day questioning how this is possible -- how this is even a question in the minds of a repressed and marginalized people.

I am and will always be a fan of the democratic process. There are few things I value more than a dissenter's voice. That said, this is a stunning disappointment. Something broke loose in my faith in the bondedness of the human condition today. Humanity is going to have to purify itself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka before I will get over it. (If you're not a Purple Rain fan, then you didn't get that and shame on you for it!).

That is to say, we've got a lot of work to do.