From outside the state, some have blamed various factors. (This piece is written by California residents Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, C.I., Kat and Wally.) Among those being blamed are Gavin Newsom. Gavin didn't do a damn thing wrong and he wasn't 'in your face'. The Los Angeles Times is a dirt-bag conservative paper and it has no history of supporting gay rights. It does have a long, long history of undermining LA's own LGBT community that goes way, way back to the immediate post WWII period.
They made history.
So did the homophobes and it wouldn't have killed Barack or Joe Biden to decry the robocalls using their voices. To garner support for same-sex marriage? No, to get people to vote against it.
Barack and Joe didn't call out the robocalls and they may have taken the attitude that they deplore same-sex marriage, so who cares?
Do you believe in equality or not? Do you believe in equal before the law or not?
If you do, you believe in same-sex marriage.
If you don't, you hem and haw and lie repeatedly, the way Barack pretends that Loving v. Virginia had something to do with churches. "Churches" is his excuse for opposing same-sex marriage. "Churches" do not issue marriage licenses, nor do chuches issues divorce decrees. Churches are merely one of many places a wedding can be held.
Barack embraced homophobia, embraced and encouraged it.
When he didn't have the African-American vote in South Carolina, the thing to do was to shore up right-wing African-Americans, pull them from the Republicans, and what better way to do that than by putting multiple homophobes on stage in November 2007, by ignoring the protests from gay rights groups and by having the campaign brag afterwards that they got what they needed? It was time to put homophobia back on stage starting last September as Barack's 'values' tour hit the swing states, homophobes on board and on stage.
Along with Barack, blame also goes to the likes of Amy Goodman.
As Ava and C.I. have documented here, Goody plays like she's against homophobia . . . unless it's an African-American. She can and did play Bernice King (who has actively marched in Georgia against the LGBT community) speaking about 'perversions' and did so without ever calling King out. King's remarks were worth sharing to Goody, and passing on, but not worth condemning.
There's been a pass from the sewer segment of NYC to some members of the African-American community for too long. Homophobia is homophobia and it is something to be called out.
The fact that an African-American is the one pushing it doesn't make it any less distasteful or offenisve. Nor does it minimize the need and responsibility to call homophobia out.
We're not interested in 'civil rights' struggles for one group. Equality across the board. If you're not part of that movement, you're a bigot. You make excuses or look the other way when homophobia goes down? You're a homophobe in our books. So, yes, Robin Morgan, you're a homophobe. Gloria Steinem, Laura Flanders and all you other Barack supporters who refused to call him out for his use of homophobia to scare up voters, you are all homophobes. And we don't tolerate it.
We don't accept it.
And we don't forget it.
Nor will history. Be prepared to live with history's verdict because all of you earned your failing grade.
For those upset about Tuesday's vote, get angry, get mad and get ready to fight because Prop 8 did not end the debate and it did not ignore the movement.
6.3 million voted for Barack Obama. 3.8 voted for John McCain. 5.3 voted to do away with same-sex marriage, that's more than John McCain's supporters. This
[For more on this topic, see Ruth's "Homophobe-In-Chief" and Kat's "NYT can't stop lying for Barack."]