Dear Yes on Prop 8 Supporters

Dear Yes on 8 supporters,

Hey there. I’m going to go out on a limb here that most of you are feeling pretty proud of yourselves right now, patting each other on the back for your near victory of 3%. It must feel good to win huh? God knows I would be proud too if I woke up to find that my vote had such an impact on thousands upon thousands of people. I must say, I’d be pretty elated over the defeat of the US’s strides for separation of church and state, the victory over the very things our fore fathers fought and died for –the things our country was founded on, Yes, I have to say, I’d be pretty enthralled with myself for the devastation of an enormous group of people, but I’m not.

I’m not because I voted no to legal discrimination; no to the idea that a religiously founded belief and opinion should have any say in the legal constitution which rules over other people who may not have the same beliefs. I voted no because I felt there was a greater need for human equality and compassion than the whims of an organized religion that practices intolerance and promotes the sub-human treatment of a group of people. I voted no because I could not bring myself to believe in the hypocrisy of a love that would deny people fundamental rights supposedly granted to everyone.

But I suppose that doesn’t matter to you, does it?

Well I hope you’re happy with yourselves now. I hope you can look into the mirror and say how happy you are to emotionally devastate hundreds of thousands of people and their loved ones. I hope you can look in the mirror and say how proud you are to treat another group of people with substandard subhuman notions for reasons they cannot change. And I HOPE you can look at yourself and feel just FINE with the fact that your vote has such emotionally scarring ramifications that people (your neighbors, your coworkers, you family members and possibly friends) may never fully recover from this sort of thing.

I hope you can think about that and smile without flinching.

Take pride in being a bigot, because you are. Disagree? The definition of a bigot is a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion. Utterly intolerant, as in, so intolerant that you cannot stand to allow a marriage between two people you don’t even know who you don’t deem acceptable for your definition of marriage.  

And maybe you don’t understand the weight of what you’ve done because you were taught to believe that being different is NOT ok. Or maybe because you never had to fight for the same rights as your neighbor, your fellow US citizen.. your fellow human being.

But that’s no excuse.

What you have done was hurtful and inexcusable.  It was a choice based on unjust fear and selfishness. Fear of what you don’t understand and cannot relate to. Selfishness of worrying over what this means for you, what this might do to YOU or your soul instead of what this means for your fellow man and woman.

And don’t pretend this was for the children because 300 pediatricians told you otherwise. Because of your vote, children who are already being raised by gay parents now have their chance for an economically protected environment ruined. Children who had the chance to be adopted by gay married parents, who OBIVOUSLY wanted them more than their heterosexual birth counterparts, will now suffer as well.

And as for YOUR children…gay marriage was never going to be taught in schools and you knew it. The California super attendant for schools and the Teachers Associations told you so. This was never about church rights, everyone told you otherwise. In fact, just about every large newspaper, major company head, California leader as well our current (Obama) AND past (Clinton) US President told you it was WRONG and you voted for it anyway.

This was never about anyone but you and your fear.

Fear so strong that you would be willing to deny people the right to be above subhuman just to keep yourself “safe”. I have never seen a bigger hypocritical unprecedented discriminatory injustice short of the Rwanda genocide and the Hate crime killings in my time.

And don’t try and console me with domestic partnership because it is NOT the same a marriage. The term “marriage” isn’t just some fluffy term for us to throw around and parade about. It comes with legal power that domestic partnerships don't have Things like. A Domestic Partnership may be dissolved without court ruling under some circumstances. Federal tax returns filed separately. In a Domestic Partnership, you do not receive Social Security, veteran's benefits and pension plan survivor benefits upon death of partner. You're not guaranteed equal benefits from employers. Your insurance isn’t guaranteed to carry. You MUST share common residence.  You're excluded from long-term care benefits. You're not guaranteed family leave to care for ill partner.

Those are just to name a few of the things wrong with Domestic Partnership. Now, would YOU want a domestic partnership instead of a marriage if you knew that the domestic partnership could be dissolved if you ever decided to live under a different roof as your partner for whatever reason (work related or not)?

Would you want to have to wait 7 years in some cases before you’re even granted these simple rights?

I’m going to take a stab at this and say you wouldn’t. So if you wouldn’t revoke your marriage for a domestic partnership (or take a domestic partnership instead of a marriage) then why would you demand that of anyone else? You should never ask someone to do something you, yourself, are not willing to do.

That’s equality.  Justice, liberty and freedom for ALL. Not a few.

How dare you spit in the face of that because of something you feel is a sin.

You want to know what REAL sin is? REAL sin is taking away someone’s free agency – their right to choose.

If you take away someone’s right to choose to keep or not keep their processions (theft), that’s a sin. If you take away someone’s choice to fornicate with you or not (rape), that’s a sin. If you take away someone’s right to choose life or death (murder), that’s a sin.

And if you take away someone’s right to marry for no other good reason than you’re afraid, that’s a sin.

If the churches don’t want to sanctify the marriages, that’s their religious freedom. They don’t have to. If GOD doesn’t want to sanctify the marriages, then he/she won’t. But it is NOT your RIGHT to take away MY rights as a human being because you don’t agree with my life style which ISN’T hurting anyone else.

I have every right to marry who I love within reasonable standards. I have every right be as legally and financially safe as anyone else. I have the right to every one of those marriage privileges as anyone else and it’s being taken away from me. Not because I committed a crime. Not because I gave up my own free agency.

But because of my sexuality, because of something so fundamentally apart of myself that I cannot change it no matter what you say or do. No amount of therapy will change that.

This is human cruelty.

And I love my spouse just as much as the next person does, or should, and I’m proud to call her my wife. I want to tell everyone I’m happily married and I fought hard to be with her. I want the right to say I’m married, to go to the hospital and check the married section instead of having to check the single. To check married on my taxes instead of having to file single. To not HAVE to explain to my employer or anyone else how I can be married but still have to legally claim single.

I want my future children to be safe if something should happen to either of us. I want my possessions, my property, my belongings to be passed on to my spouse, my wife. Yes, I even want my insurance to carry.

And when the time comes for it, I want to be laid next to the one I loved when I am buried.

Now how could that possibly hurt you?


And don’t start your victory dance yet because while you may have succeeded in your cause, thus far, it is far from over. People will not lay down and go quietly when their basic rights are being threatened. People will not stand down when they have something as powerful as love to fight for. And they WILL fight for it. And they will endure it and they will, in the end, out last you.  Because their motive, my motive, is something humanity has been fighting for since its inception. And you cannot stop that.

So everyone who believes what I believe, let’s fight together. Let’s fight for love.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Winter