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OutRight
by
Dale Carpenter
After
Proposition 22
We need to fight for
gay marriage ... and be honest about it
Since
defeat is an orphan, no one will claim responsibility
for our loss on Proposition 22, the antigay-marriage
measure also known as the Knight Initiative, which California
voters recently approved by a 23-percent margin. Whatever
its parentage, the loss brings some lessons and a silver
lining.
First,
we should be more honest with voters. The No on Knight
campaign—guided by polling in good Clintonesque
fashion—tried to divert attention from the marriage
issue by telling voters that passage of the initiative
would mean the loss of all kinds of rights for gay couples,
including domestic-partners benefits, hospital visitations,
and adoptions.
None
of this was true, as anti-22 organizers implicitly confessed
after the loss when they proclaimed in a press release
that “Californians were voting specifically on
the definition of civil marriage and not whether gays
and lesbians should be afforded the same rights guaranteed
to heterosexual couples.” After months of telling
voters that Prop 22 was not about marriage, they now
say it was. Voters were never fooled.
We’ve
been here before, haven’t we? We argued that a
similar statewide referendum in Hawaii was really about
the integrity of the state constitution, or something
like that. We were creamed. We used the same diversionary
strategy in Alaska—with the same result. Now, with
$6.5 million down the drain, we tried it again and lost
badly a third time.
Let
it be the last time.
Second,
we should save our toughest rhetoric for when it really
counts. The No on Knight campaign warned voters that
the measure would lead to antigay violence, but there
has been no reported rise in antigay crimes associated
with the vote.
They
called the measure “hateful” and “divisive,”
as if those words alone would numb voters’ minds.
But the pro-22 campaign was remarkable for its lack
of hatred and divisiveness. Supporters of Prop 22 repeatedly
insisted that they weren’t antigay and that they
even backed legal rights for gay couples. Opponents
were left grousing that, as one put it, “they’re
killing us with kindness.”
The
whole campaign was unreal. One side argued it wasn’t
about what it was about (gay marriage) and the other
argued they weren’t what they are (antigay).
Third,
from now on we need to articulate publicly and unashamedly
the case for gay marriage. Trying to salvage something
from the defeat, No on Knight organizers claimed voters
were “educated” about gay relationships during
the campaign. If only that were true. Although our ads
liberally used the word “gay,” gay couples
were invisible. Instead, in an especially controversial
TV spot, our side presented a heterosexual man, with
his lovely wife and children in the background, reassuring
everybody that most folks oppose gay marriage.
Here’s
what we could have said: We should be allowed to marry.
Our relationships are capable of commitment and love,
just as straight relationships are. Society has a powerful
interest in encouraging citizens to settle down in stable
couplings. Cutting us off from that deep responsibility
and tradition is cruel. It preserves no one’s marriage,
but it tells a whole class of citizens to live loveless
lives. It doesn’t save a single child from abuse,
but deprives many of nurturing, two-parent homes. And
so on.
This
straightforward approach is probably a loser in the
short run, since polls say most Americans oppose gay
marriage.
The
kind of people who run elections are the kind of people
who pay slavish attention to such polls. Read the post-defeat
words of San Francisco Supervisor Mark Leno, defending
the strategy of avoiding gay marriage: “As someone
who operates in the electoral world, I like to fight
battles that I can win.” But sometimes you have
to fight battles you’re destined to lose because
it’s the right thing to do.
Another
No on Knight leader said bluntly of gay marriage: “We’re
not going to fight that battle.” And so we didn’t,
did we?
Political
strategists would rather win than be right. They’d
rather lie than lose. But you’re usually better
off losing on the truth than winning on a lie because
people respect you more in the long run. Besides, when
it comes to marriage, we’ve been lying and losing.
That
leads to the final lesson, and the silver lining, from
this defeat: Americans are moving further and faster
on gay equality than we thought. The Prop 22 experience
provides two markers of this cultural change.
The
first is that antigay organizers calculated it would
backfire to run an explicitly antigay campaign. California
voters, more than 85 percent of whom say they know someone
gay, would have been disgusted by a return to the nasty
homophobia of past ballot fights. So pro-22 organizers
declared (disingenuously, to be sure) their support
for tolerance and equality. In order to hold their ground
on marriage, the last redoubt of heterosexual privilege,
they had to cede almost everything else.
The
second marker of cultural change is more important.
Even though they never heard a single syllable in defense
of gay marriage, four of every 10 voters walked into
the polling place, read a simple initiative limiting
marriage to “one man and one woman,” and soundly
rejected it. Even a decade ago, such a result would
have been unthinkable. It’s another reason we should
give honesty a chance: it will eventually work.
Voters
seem less afraid of gay marriage than we are. Maybe
we need to catch up to them.
Writing from the conservative end of the spectrum, former
Houston resident and attorney
Dale
Carpenter began his column for OutSmart in 1994
and has won three Vice Versa awards for excellence in
gay writing. Now living in San Francisco, he can be
reached at OutRight@aol.com
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