Imagine going to sleep next to your husband or wife next Tuesday night, and waking up to find out that a million strangers, people who have never so much as laid eyes on you, have voted to dissolve your marriage.
Not even the happiness of having put Barack Obama in the White House, nor even electing a Democratic congress in a landslide, could undo the pain of that moment for me and every other lesbian, gay, and bisexual person in California.
Markos keeps telling us to leave every damn thing in the road. Crush the right, he says. When November 4 comes, whatever the result, just be sure you didn't leave one penny, one bit of energy, and one moment of time unspent.
So I'm not. I just took a deep breath and risked being unable to pay my bills next month, and donated another five hundred dollars to No on 8. That is not a small or easy amount of money for me, especially at a time when my income is shaky -- I'm a freelance writer -- and members of my family are in trouble.
I'm already giving every spare moment to the campaign, and last night I sucked it up and went down to a coffeehouse owned by my cousin Pat, and begged him to put up a "No on 8" sign in the window.
He was holding a "meet and greet" for a candidate for supervisor at his coffeehouse here in San Francisco, in the district where we both grew up and still live. It's not exactly Dan White territory, but it's not a completely wrong description, either.
He said he has never put political signs up in his coffeehouse, not even for other friends and family members. He said if I'd asked to have an event there, he'd have said yes, because he does do that, like he was doing that night. I had to accept it, and at least he didn't say "no" because he wasn't opposing Prop 8.
But at the last minute I couldn't ask him if he was voting for or against it. I just couldn't stand to hear someone who might now be a successful businessman, a father, and 42 years old, but who I used to babysit and hold in my lap, look me in the eye and tell me he didn't think I should have the same rights he did.
I just said, "Hey, Pat, if you're wondering why I'm so emotional about this, I have a question for you. Have you ever thought what it would be like to know that the state was holding an election on whether or not you and Buffy could stay married? Can you imagine what that would feel like?"
I don't know what went through his mind. He looked a little shocked, but whether it was with empathy or embarrassment, I don't know. He just said, "No. I haven't."
So I asked him to imagine it, and then I hugged him goodnight.
I went to the premiere of "Milk" Tuesday night -- I wrote about it here if you're interested -- and was talking in line to a guy who said he'd gotten married at his church, a UCC just like Obama's church, several years ago. Then he and his husband went and got married again when Mayor Newsom started handing out marriage licenses to same sex couples two years ago. They woke up one morning to find out their marriage had been dissolved by the courts, and when that case was itself overturned by the State Supreme Court, they went and got married yet again.
Now many times should anyone have to go through that? Why should people be in a rush to get married before Tuesday, worried that they'll never have another chance, and still not sure some post-election legal action won't make those marriages invalid after the fact? Who can live with that?
So I'm not asking, I'm begging. When the morning of November 5 comes, please, please, no matter where you live, please have left every damn fucking thing on the road against the religious right and the bigots who wrote and are financing this ugly proposition. Deny them everything: the White House, the Congress, and the California State Constitution.
Volunteer, donate, talk to your family members and friends in California, blog about it, tell me you care, but please, please... don't hold anything back.
No on 8.