Three Predictions

The emotions I have expressed in the previous two posts continue to course through me. The Obama victory itself is emotionally twofold, both good. It is not just that we have a shot at a genuine liberal president with an aggressive agenda to change the country, but on a more prosaic level the election that would never die is finally over! We finally know what happened.

Even so, the other part of me still mourns the lost opportunity to put paid to the bigots at least in California. I think there is palpable sense among Democrats and liberals, at any rate, that this was a terrible error. I have not seen any remorse among black politicos, but I think the time will come when they understand that it was primarily the black community that let us down. Reports have it that the black vote was 70% yes on 8 ... that is disgraceful, and I cannot help but think that there is a lot of buyers' remorse at this point. Where was preacher Jesse Jackson and preacher Al Sharpton? Why didn't they lend their considerable weight to explain the cause to black christians. Where was the black congressional caucus? Where was Maxine Waters?

But that is crying over spilt milk. So here are three predictions, in descending order of likelihood.

1. There will be a National March on Washington for Gay Marriage this summer. And I'm going. I don't care what. I am sure it will fall on the deadline for my course catalog ... but if that is the case, I am moving the deadline. A national march just makes sense. There is going to be an enormous euphoria in this country as Obama assumes power ... who among you is not panting in anticipation at hearing his inaugural speech. (Note to boss ... I am taking January 20 off.) And gay people know that we got sucker-punched again. The 'publicans rode homophobia to the White House in 2000 and 2004, and the so-called "base" is primarily organized around hating homos and making sure that women can't decide things for themselves. Well we won the anti-abortion initiatives on Tuesday but we lost the anti-gay ones. All four of 'em.

(BTW, when they continually mewl and puke over the 'publican base, why does no one point out that the meaning of the Arabic noun al-qa'ida is "the base". Religious bigots, meet your counterparts, the religious bigots.)

It's time that changed. And it is time that gay people demanded of all our friends, the real ones who did show and the supposed ones who prefer smug silence, that they stand for us. We're calling you out Jesse, we're calling you out Laura, for that matter. Were calling you out, Arnold ... where the hell were you, anyway? And, Barrack, we shined you on for this one, but not next time.

So there is going to be a national march, and baby, I'm gonna be there.

2. The California Supreme Court is going to overturn Prop 8. It was a tight 4-3 decision that overturned the original ban, but those 4 have to get it at this point. You cannot use the Constitution to deny rights. That is the definition of anti-American. It is going to take a while, it will drag on and on. And we need to bring steady unrelenting pressure on the process. But in the end, they will bow to the obvious and confirm, again and once again, that religion and state are separate in America ... and more so, the state does not sit in theological judgment ... and they still salute the future and confirm that anyone can marry anyone.

That is what the Obama victory brings to this. We are facing the future now. Is the American future the sour hatreds of people who believe that the sun revolves around the earth? Or is the future a nation of immigrants in all their diversity doing their own thing and rocking the world?

That is the sense in which the victory of the medievalists and their kook-prophet pals (by which I mean the hypocritical coalition of the one true church and the no-we-are-not-polygamous heretics whom the former whisper-denounce day and night) puts our struggle on the agenda in a way beyond which we were ever able to do so.

3. DOMA will fall before the 2010 election. See #2. (I might fill this in a little, but I am due for dinner at 7.)

Photo by Arod in the tennis court where my dog Loki plays with the chow Dakota every morning from 6:25 to 6:47.