No on H8!

I just took Olive for her regular evening walk. Tonight, I wanted to make sure she got out before the sun set, or the rain started again. At the corner of Macarthur and Lakeshore, about a dozen Yes on 8 activists were out with their signs, shouting "Yes on 8!" at the passing cars. They were mostly young-ish, mostly Asian/Pacific Islander. A couple of intrepid white folks with No on 8 signs flanked them on one side.

Across the street, a young man was holding a Yes on 8 sign in one hand. With his other hand, he was waving a stick with a shredded No on 8 sign strung from it. Between that and the middle-aged woman fervently yelling "Yes on 8! Yes on 8!" as I walked by, I felt attacked. Anger and a little fear flooded my system. Luckily, I had to focus on getting Olive across the street, which prevented my fantasy of starting an argument with a fanatic from becoming reality.

When I say I felt attacked, I mean I felt it physically, though neither of the bigots addressed me directly. The shredding of the sign got to me because it felt like a symbolic lynching, as if this guy would feel as justified violently beating a gay person as he would shredding a gay rights placard. And the yelling, well, it's bound to be a little unsettling to walk by a person who's yelling that your rights should be stripped from the state Constitution. Especially if you're just not used to yelling being a part of your daily life.

As Olive and I headed down Lakeshore, inappropriate responses to what I'd just witnessed paraded through my head. As luck would have it, between the time I wrote that sentence and the time I'm writing this one, I had some delicious fresh spinach fettucine with a delightful tomato, mushroom and ground turkey sauce, and Michael and I watched a video. Thus refreshed, I came back to my computer and deleted all the unkind, sarcastic thoughts that went through my head as I continued to walk Olive.

This article about the disproportionate amount of Mormon money behind the Yes on 8 campaign makes me wonder if, for many voters, the whole thing is a $50 million clash over semantics. What a waste of money.

The question I'm left with is, why is the state in the "marriage" business at all, if marriage is a sacred religious rite? The other question, of course, is, Why would God feel compelled to adhere to the letter of California law in determining who's eligible for the afterlife? He could just say, "This is Heaven. We don't recognize your loving union here. Go to Hell!" Can you imagine? If gays and lesbians retain their right to marry, God would be forced to say, "I'd like to condemn you to eternal Hellfire, but that damned California Constitution compels me to allow you through the Pearly Gates into Paradise."

I could yammer on about this for ages. For now, though, I think I'll just go to bed and love the sinner.