Mo Dowd On Gay Marriage

In the nyt.com, Maureen Dowd does a great job covering the embarrassment of Prop. 8 passing in CA. She begins with coverage of the real events around the killing of Harvey Milk, the first out-gay elected official. In the shadow of the film "Milk" debut, CA voted against LGBTQ marriage by passing Prop. 8.

Sen. Feinstein--who then became mayor after the death of Moscone along with Milk's death--recounts what happened at that time. While she was first opposed to gay marriage, she has recently changed her tune:

The gays were outfoxed by their opponents. In both Prop 6 in 1978 and this year’s Prop 8, the specter of children being converted to a gay orientation was raised. Feinstein said the TV ad of Prop 8 supporters insinuating that “gay marriage would be taught in school really hurt.” (“I can marry a princess,” a pigtailed girl told her mom in the ad.)

“I think people are beginning to look at it differently, I know it’s happened for me,” Feinstein said of gay marriage. “I started out not supporting it. The longer I’ve lived, the more I’ve seen the happiness of people, the stability that these commitments bring to a life. Many adopted children who would have ended up in foster care now have good solid homes and are brought up learning the difference between right and wrong. It’s a very positive thing.”

I e-mailed Larry Kramer, the leading activist for gay rights in the era that followed Milk’s, to get his read on Prop 8. (In 1983, I interviewed Kramer about the new scourge of AIDS, and he read me a list from a green notebook of 37 friends who had died. )

“DON’T WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE RIGHTS?” he e-mailed back, blessedly cantankerous. “I AM ASHAMED OF YOU THAT YOU HAD TO ASK ME THAT QUESTION.”

Click here for the editorial.

Pace!

B