Why do I feel left behind?

I will have the requisite "celebratory Obama post" later. Right now, I'm not feeling too celebratory.

I don't want to kill completely the Obama buzz (which I am still feeling as well); we should rejoice at this triumph (and I am). But we also need to spend some time grieving for an almost equally important failure: the (apparent) passage of California's constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Sadly, I fear the message of November 4 turned out to be "Change We Can Believe In (Unless You're Gay)."

There are so many people I want to blame right now. The vicious and fraudulent Mormon "Church." That repulsive Catholic cult, the Knights of Columbus. The fucking Central Valley with its troglodytic farmers. Blacks and Latinos who do not recognize discrimination against members of another minority group. The idiots who wrote the California Constitution so as to allow A SIMPLE MAJORITY VOTE to amend it.

Let's take a moment to consider that last one. The California state constitution is going to be amended because approximately 5 million people voted "Yes" on Prop 8. The population of the State of California is over 36 million people. By my (admittedly fifth-grade) calculations, this means that less than ONE SEVENTH of the population of this state was able to amend the state constitution.

ONE SEVENTH.

Think about that for a minute. Doesn't 1/7 of the population seem a wee bit too small to be amending a state constitution? Doesn't this seem like broken government?

When I think of all the work that volunteers like Ted Gideonse put into the fight against Prop 8 and when I think of people like me and my friends cutting into our bare-bones grad student budget in order to give small (but meaningful--at least to us) amounts to the fight and when I think about the brave Mormons (and yes, there were a few) who were willing to stand up to their "Church" to fight discrimination...
I'm proud, sure; but I'm also discouraged and demoralized.

I'm an adopted Californian. And today, for the first time since I moved here, I am ashamed of my state. I suddenly feel uncomfortable in California--the same discomfort that I felt when I lived in Indiana and Virginia. The sense that most of the people surrounding me hate me. Not in Santa Cruz, of course (although the margin in Santa Cruz County wasn't as big as it should have been), but in the clear geographical majority of my state. I know it could be worse and that I could be stuck in Utah or Alabama or some other moron colony, but it used to feel good to live in California. And I miss that feeling already.

Want to know a secret? My boyfriend and I almost got married last week. We knew it would have been a little early in our relationship (especially in terms of breaking the news to our family and friends); yet, we were worried that we wouldn't be able to do so in a year or so when we are actually completely prepared for it. But we decided to rely on the polling (which was wrong, but not by a ton) and our belief in the general benevolence of Californians. We were wrong.

I think the gay rights movement is in a bad place right now. If an Obama landslide and record youth turnout couldn't defeat a gay marriage ban in one of the most liberal states in the US, we have to start reconsidering our position in American society. I think we have to start asking questions about our assimilation to standard American domestic values (like marriage and children) and whether we are in my lifetime going to be allowed full civil rights. Maybe we need to try something else.

Electing Obama was huge step forward for America; so why do I feel left behind?