After 20 years in the same house, I’m starting to feel like I’m not on my path anymore. It was 2008, the year of Barack Obama’s first campaign for president, but also the year of Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in California.
I was covering marriage equality for the editorial board, writing several times a week about everything from the parenting rights of gay couples to the economics of same-sex marriage.
Then I went home and, at the end of the trip, entered another world. Driving down the quiet streets of Laguna Beach is more like running the gantlet than going home. Most yards along the road have yellow and blue “Yes on 8” yard signs with a picture of an apple pie conventional family that looks more like the 1950s than the 21st century: mother, father, son. , daughter, the woman wears a dress. “Restore Marriage,” the sign says, as if the arrival of same-sex marriage has somehow eliminated all other weddings.
The preponderance of such signs is unusual in Laguna Beach, once known for its large gay population and California’s first gay mayor. The city’s open attitude is a big part of why we moved there.
On the surface, mine was just another suburban household in a California ranch house: mom, dad, three kids, two dogs and a cat. But inside, our family values are very opposed to what we see on the street. We were suddenly outsiders in a place where we always felt at home.
Those who assume the right to force their religious beliefs on others are not only harassing members of religious minorities like myself; they are scary. We have seen an expansion of the way we think about abortion, with terrible results.
When my family moved down the street, there were three same-sex households, but they had been gone for a long time in 2008. At the beginning of the Proposition 8 campaign, one neighbor came with a pro-8 pamphlet; we informed him that even though we see him as a good person with whom we always get along, we will all be better off if we never try that again.
More than half of California voters ultimately supported Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage in the state. The measure was immediately challenged in court, and in 2013, the US Supreme Court ruled that the defendants in the case did not have legal standing, which meant that Proposition 8 was blocked and same-sex marriage could continue.
But marriage equality in California has never been proven on its merits, only on a technicality. The text of the measure is unenforceable, but its dead words remain in the California Constitution, a dead weight on our collective conscience.
Until now.
On Tuesday, Californians defeated a reactionary measure in a more meaningful way by passing Proposition 3, which guarantees the right to marry without prejudice. They reject the message of hate and intolerance of Proposition 8, remove that language from our Constitution and officially reject the lack of understanding and acceptance shown by the state’s voters in 2008.
Of course, times have changed in more ways than one. Young children in Proposition 8 now vote for adults with broader ideas about sex and gender.
This year, no one on the street is putting up yard signs – about anything. Maybe it’s an attempt to stay friendly despite our differences during stressful times. Maybe it was détente. Maybe he has changed his mind about same-sex marriage or is just too busy with the garden.
Or maybe he knows it’s pointless to foster bad feelings about a measure that, according to opinion polls, he’s sure to pass. This time, it’s narrow minded that doesn’t fit into the mainstream.
The US Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage — in California and, two years later, nationwide — allowed it to become public. A generation grew up knowing that marriage equality helps many and does not harm one. Although the original defeat of Proposition 8 was unpleasant, it should still be celebrated, for the happiness that will follow and for the generation that just voted with the knowledge that many voters did not have 16 years ago.
On that day in 2008, I took the rainbow flag I had bought and hung it from the front flagpole. Message: Yes, we don’t fit in here, but we’re okay, and we’re not going anywhere.
I still live in that house to this day.
