I really am celebrating the wins of yesterday, but the passage of Prop 8 in California has nearly broken my heart. I can’t summon anything approaching eloquence (if I ever could) about this, yet, so I’m recycling content wholesale from Andrew Sullivan, a conservative blogger for The Atlantic and also a married gay man who’s been extremely vocal in his support of gay marriage. Everything that follows is from his post “E-mail Of The Day“:
A reader writes:
I know you are very busy and will likely not read this message. But as a loyal blog reader I felt I could express some of my thoughts to you. My partner and I (we’ve been a family for about 20 years) finally married last June. We live in LA and come from loving and accepting families. The approval of Proposition 8 is a terrible blow to us. For the first time in so many years I feel pushed back into the psychosis and depression of the closet.
I am your age and have lived through many happy as well as very sad and dark times. We are now plunged into another bad time. I am fatigued from the battles. I am disgusted that our fellow Californians can do this to my family and friends.
I beg my gay brothers and sisters: do not let them drive you back to the “psychosis and depression” of the closet. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Know that your love is real; cherish it; hold your spouses closer; build your families; take care of your kids; live your dream.
What the Christianists want is to destroy your self-esteem and self-worth. It’s over the wounded souls of gay people that they construct their politics of fear and division. But we endured centuries of cruelty, and after our first taste of liberation, we faced a plague of devastating proportions. But we came back stronger than ever. For the sake of those who never dreamed we would ever see civil unions, for those who died of the plague, for those whose marriages through the ages were never recognized but were as real as any backed by law: fight on. Do not lose faith. Law never trumps love. And one day it will echo it.
Recycled Contents 
I, too, was disappointed by the passage of Prop 8, not just because it banned gay marriage in California, but also because it could very well be the tipping point for a national movement to ban it altogether. After so many gains in the past decade, it’s discouraging to consider how far this will set us back.
I have no desire to get married, but I cannot fathom the mindset which so fervently decries gay marriage. If it’s a religious institution, then do away with all the laws and benefits that accrue to married couples. If it’s a social institution, then denying it gays is a violation of the social contract and the goddamned religious fucks need to keep their fucking noses out of it.
Sorry. They make me angry.
Yeah. I’ve said nothing new. I’m sad. I’m a little fearful for what this means on a broader scale. And I’m still pleased as shit that Obama got elected and the Republicans get to spend the next four years feeling miserable every time they turn on the TV. Payback’s a bitch.
I’m equally angry, man. Equally, deeply angry.
Hey, we have a new Democrat Senator, so there’s something to be happier about.
This almost made me cry…. fuck you, 52% of California.
Fifty-two percent of voting California. It’s not half of everyone. That would be too depressing.
I really hope this gets overturned, or reconsidered, or… something.
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I really, really think it will be overturned by the CA Supreme Court. We’ll know soon. Court proceedings have already been started.