crying over milk II

a protest sign outside the california supreme court hearing last thursday considering the legality of proposition 8. dan white was a san francisco supervisor who assassinated san francisco mayor george moscone and supervisor harvey milk, on november 27, 1978. milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in california.

it appears likely the court will let the proposition stand, while perhaps allowing the same-sex marriages that occurred last summer – in the window between the court legalizing those unions and the passage of prop 8 – to also stand.

much of the california gay community is looking to move on, while at the same time many are examining what went wrong. why did the no-on-8 campaign reject badly needed volunteers, ignore references to gay people in their campaign ads and, perhaps most stunningly, why did they not use this letter from then presidential candidate barack obama in any campaign material?

As the Democratic nominee for President, I am proud to join with and support the LGBT community in an effort to set our nation on a course that recognizes LGBT Americans with full equality under the law. That is why I support extending fully equal rights and benefits to same sex couples under both state and federal law. ...

And that is why I oppose the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution, and similar efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution or those of other states. ...

Finally, I want to congratulate all of you who have shown your love for each other by getting married these last few weeks.

the questions, the struggle, and the self-examination continue here, and here.

UPDATE 6:37 p.m. – andrew sullivan pulls an interesting statistic from a new marriage poll in california:

Voters who say they personally know or work with gay or lesbian individuals are in favor [of a new amendment overturning Prop 8] 56% to 41%. Those who do not are strongly against the proposed amendment, 66% to 27%.

i've said before, this is not just about a movement or a ballot initiative, it's about a conversation. your parents, your friends, your co-workers need to know who you are.