Prop 54 and Gay Republicans
Proposition 54: Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin Initiative (CRECNO)
Qualified for the October 7th, 2003 ballot.
Prohibition Against Classifying by Race by State and Other Public Entities
Section 32 is added to Article I of the California Constitution as follows:
Sec. 32
(a) The state shall not classify any individual by race, ethnicity, color or national origin in the operation of public education, public contracting or public employment.
[...]
There's more to Prop 54, of course, but subsection (a) captures the gist of it, I think. Anyhow, it failed. So why am I talking about it? Well, because in commenting on comments made about my stupid-voters screed, I realized a common thread in republicans, gay republicans and Prop. 54: unilateral disarmament.
Bear with me for a moment. I came to understand, just after commenting on the benighted worldview of gay republicans what I find so reprehensible about them. It's not the self-loathing that must attend such an affiliation. It's not the I-got-mine-you-go-get-yours greed implied by their fiscal-conservatism-at-the-expense-of-social-progress or even the blatant hypocrisy in that political stance. Instead, look at the difference in the reasons that conservatives and liberals each agreed that Prop. 54 was a bad idea.
Conservatives basically had their knee-jerk reaction to government “intruding” on their personal conduct. Ironic, then, that the Republican party has allowed itself to be suborned by groups like Focus on the Fear Family.
Liberal opposition can best be summed up by something Camejo (a Green Party candidate in the Recall and the only person to make any bold sense in the debate) said:
“It's a radical measure that would make it
harder to fight disease and hate crime.
Prop 54 would make it easier for the
police to hide racial profiling. Prop 54
would make it harder to fight racism in
the school system.”
What he's saying here is that not only are race problems not over and we still need to pay attention to where prejudice still occurs in our society and government, but also that it's just plain dumb to think that socio-political equality implies biological sameness. It don't.
This is the part that made me realize what is so inexhaustibly tedious about gay republicans: they want exactly this. They want to erase the gayness, expunge it from all records, so there's no documentation. They expect that fairness will rule employers, corporations, government agencies, society and enlightenment will just magically arrive like a beatitude.
I take that back. They don't care for enlightenment, they really would rather not talk about it at all. They aren't proud of themselves for bucking the social stigma and being strong enough to be themselves. No, they came out of the comforting closet into the harsh and cold light, and now they want back in the womb. Erase it all. “Being gay isn't who I am,” they'll protest. But being gay is a big part of that, for anyone, just as being heterosexual is fundamental to straight folks. Entertainment, clubbing, barhopping, dating, marriage, couplehood, family, household, socializing, friendships...they all stem from the fundamental relationships we form with others, both romantically and platonically, gay or straight. We are shaped just as much by lack of pressure as by pressures on us from the outside.
It's this crazy idea that by not only disarming one's self completely but also making the possession of defense tools illegal, that the Bushes and Schwarzeneggers and Robertsons and Falwells and Limbaughs and Leona Helmsleys of the world will open their eyes one sunny morning, bluebirds descending with diaphanous wraps, and suddenly get that being gay is just swell.
What color is the sky in that world, honestly? All I know is that it ain't pink.