Proposition 8

Anyone can tell you that on Election Night, I was walking on sunshine. I was so excited and joyous, so proud and amazed that I called my family and just screamed things like "We Did it!" "Oh my God!" "I Can't Believe it!!" I hugged strangers, I danced in the streets of downtown Atlanta, I went to a club and danced to Live Your Life by T.I. I rejoiced in a moment that I know we can never forget. Victory was ours. I went to sleep and had happy dreams, a nice peaceful slumber because I had laid my burdens down.

I woke up early Wednesday morning, simply because I was excited to be alive, and remembered that Obama was not the only thing on the ballot on Election Day. I went to the NYTimes website and after smiling at a picture of the 44th president, our first Black president, I scrolled down only for my heart to sink. Proposition 8 was passed in California, passing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the state, overturning the Supreme Court ruling that has led to thousands of same sex couples exchanging legally protected vows.

Prop. 8 won with a margin of 52.5 percent in support to 47.5 percent against the measure. Not a landslide, but it doesn't really make a difference. Same sex couples in California have been stripped of their equal rights, which helps to close the door to similar measures passing in other states. Maybe the most troubling part to me is that exit polls show that 70 per cent of African Americans were in favor of the proposition to ban same sex marriage.

Many of the supporters claim that this amendment is necessary to protect traditional marriage. African Americans have the lowest marriage rates of any race in the United States and the highest rate of families headed by a single parent. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/healthymarriage/about/aami_marriage_statistics.htm, but I imagine that by allowing same-sex couples to legally marry this would plummet even further and reak more havok in the fragile family structure of African American families. I understand the church's right to do as they please, and I guarantee, I don't want to marry in your church. But just like other little girls, I dreamed of getting married, and I don't think that the populace should have a say in its legitimacy.

I am always confounded by how African Americans so easily use religion as a tool for bigotry, forgetting the way it was used against us for centuries. Understanding that we were a threat to the family structure of whites, to the morality of their communities because we were beasts and less than human. We were 3/5 of a person for goodness sakes, and now we stand proudly in discriminating not against some other group but against each other. I simply hope that one day my Black family and friends will recognize that I am no less Black that you are, I am no less human than you are and my love is no less real that yours. When you support injustice aimed at the LGBT community, or maybe fags and dykes are the words you prefer, you are disenfranchising me.

And if you strongly disagree, I am more than willing to listen to why I deserve less rights than you...