Friday, November 07, 2008
Mean Times
Posted by Rebecca Juro at 5:12 PM
http://transgroupblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/mean-times.htmlor
http://www.bilerico.com/2008/11/mean_times_1.phpSo, the election is over and like so many in our community I'm still not sure whether to be happy, sad, both, or neither.
Not only did our guy win, but the Democrats took virtually complete control of Congress, reducing the Republican influence of the political agenda of our federal government to its smallest in decades. In New York, Democrats took control of their state Senate for the first time in forty years, clearing the way for transgender rights and probably same-sex marriage as well. Barney Frank told us we'd need at least a 15 seat Democratic pickup to make an inclusive ENDA passable, and latest estimates indicate that gain was at least 20. More openly LGBT and pro-LGBT officials were elected all over the country than ever before in our history. All great news to be sure, all reasons to hope.
And then, there's the other stuff. Three more states have now banned same-sex marriage, including California, which not only wrote a ban into its state constitution but defied it's own high court ruling that banning such marriages was not constitutionally permissible, thus taking away rights gay and lesbian Californians already enjoyed. I guess what gets me most about this is that two of the three states that voted to discriminate against gay and lesbians also voted for Barack Obama. It's not a coincidence that mailers that went out to Californians in support of Prop8 included pictures of Obama and his statement that he did not support same-sex marriage. While of course the lion's share of responsibility here lies at the feet of those who supported this hateful legislation, there's also one thing we must not forget, no matter how happy we are to have Barack Obama instead of John McCain as our incoming President: They couldn't have used it if he hadn't said it in the first place.
