Politics, and life, have winners and losers. But they also dole out booby prizes to the losers, and for a reason. That is the way the narrow passage of Proposition 8 in California, on the same night as Barack Obama’s landslide victory, should be viewed.
Despite garnering more than 50 percent of the vote, the anti-gay Prop 8 is a long, long way from having any practical impact on people’s lives. And I’m not just talking about the inevitable court challenges, which seem destined to culminate in a ruling by the same California Supreme Court that has already ratified the concept of gay marriage. I’m also talking about Prop 8’s breathtaking irrelevance both in our polity and in our communal consciousness. That irrelevance multiplies every month, every week, every day, every hour.
About the booby prize reference: Our state is the petri dish of the national political future, and darn if we haven’t done it again. California led the way in uncloseting an issue as old as Adam and Steve; now we are ground zero of the backlash that will lead, if all too slowly, to ultimate equilibrium. Red state, blue state, one state, two state … it’s unrealistic to expect universal tolerance to get from there to here on a feather pillow, even on the night of Obama’s historic win.
Or -- and this may be my real point -- especially on that big night.
With his eye on his own vision of the prize, Obama throughout the campaign was, at best, circumspect on gay rights. (Remember the part in the Biden-Palin debate when moderator Gwen Ifill concluded that the vice presidential candidates agreed?) Famously, and to the frustration of gay marriage midwife Gavin Newsom, Obama seemed careful not to be photographed with Newsom.
But just as Obama proved to be a “post-racial” political figure, so is he poised to be a “post-culture war” one. Sixteen years ago Bill Clinton gave us “don’t ask, don’t tell” and a conversation focused on his own dick. There’s reason to hope that Obama will do better -- and that all of us are ready for that.
The cold shower of the Prop 8 result can be compared to the iconic and utterly illusory “filibuster-proof” Democratic Senate majority. Only the most insider of insiders need to win everything across the board, and those people can lose sight of their and our best interests. We shouldn’t want to “Carterize” the incoming Obama presidency by making him beholden to every platform plank of a conventional progressive agenda. Instead, we should want President-elect Obama to have the creative space (as well as the persistent outside pressure) to do what he does best: bring around as many as possible of the 49 percent who voted against him.
Tolerance for queers and recognition of their full humanity and citizenship are as natural and inexorable as the love of fathers and mothers for their sons and daughters. They continue their march to the goal line even as relics of the past celebrate their Prop 8 sideshow.