Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Why I'm not in full-throated celebration of the justified downing of both DOMA and Prop. 8

I am not celebrating today. I am not celebrating an obvious good decision in the DOMA and Prop. 8 cases before the Supreme Court because yesterday was so bad.

And let’s repeat that. Yesterday was bad. Hyper bad. Disastrously bad, is-this-a-country-worth-saving bad.

Let’s be clear about a couple of things. I am a Straight Black dude in California. I was never going to see any direct benefit from Marriage Equality. But my neighbors were. That was good enough for me.

So, when these same neighbors asked me to support their cause, I did. I gave money. I signed petitions. I supported the cause. I did the work that got LGBT Friendly Politicians into office to get the result we got today.

Now, I’m expecting the same force to be brought to bear for my cause, restoration of the Voting Rights Act...and to be real honest with you, I’m not optimistic I will.