A rough night for gay Obama supporters

The girl's eyes narrowed. "May God forgive you," she said. The driver behind me honked, waving at me to let him pass. "See?" the girl snapped. "He's honking to show he's on our side. He knows what you're doing is a sin."

As I drove through the intersection, I watched as one lone man injected himself into the crowd of teenagers, waving his lone "No on Prop 8" sign. I honked to show him that I was on his side, that I didn't think he was a sinner. He smiled at me, lifting his sign, looking determined and forlorn.

Suddenly Proposition 8 wasn't an insignificant, sour-grapes ballot measure destined to fail. It was a bellwether campaign in a bellwether state -- and the wrong side was winning. An onslaught of commercials portrayed horrified parents whose children had been or might be "taught about gay marriage" in elementary school and wide-eyed children begging, "Vote yes for me."

The barrage seemed to go on, unabated, for weeks. Finally the pro-gay-marriage forces mounted a response. In California and across the country, activists and celebrities, already stretched thin by their contributions to the Obama campaign, diverted their attention, time and money to No on 8. A host of high-profile personalities -- the California school superintendent, Ellen DeGeneres, Dianne Feinstein, the president of the California Teachers Association -- appeared in an endless loop of rebuttal commercials. By Nov. 4, the Proposition 8 campaign would break the national record for money spent on a ballot initiative, with "No on 8" spending $37.6 million and "Yes" spending $35.8 million.

A week before Election Day, Katrine and I started getting invitations to the "shotgun weddings" of our gay friends. And then, the day before Election Day -- wearing our "No on 8" T-shirts, accompanied by my happily tearful mother and our beaming friends Steve and Victor, surrounded by dozens of other gay couples, male and female, pushing strollers and dressed in drag -- Katrine and I stood before a deputy marriage commissioner in the Alameda County Recorder's Office chapel and said, "I do."

We came home to find a few mixed-message surprises on our porch. A festively wrapped bottle of champagne from our dear friend Jane. Two bottles of Grey Goose from my dad and stepmother. Two pairs of wool socks from my mother ("To keep you from getting cold feet"). And a bunch of fliers from the Proposition 8 campaign.

"I'm not that comfortable with gay marriage," a gray-haired white woman proclaimed on the first flier. "But I've asked myself the tough questions about Prop 8 -- and the answers are NO."

"You know me," an adorable girl-next-door announced on the second. "I am the neighbor who waters your lawn when you go out of town. I am your second cousin. I am gay. People you know are asking you to VOTE NO ON PROP. 8."

When I saw the picture of Barack Obama on the third flier, his image elicited my usual Pavlovian response. How great, I thought. He's finally going public with his stated, but not publicized, opposition to Proposition 8.

"I'm not in favor of gay marriage -- Barack Obama, MSNBC, 4-2-08," the headline read. I rubbed my eyes, read it again, turned it over. Four African-American pastors smiled out at me, urging me and the others in my predominantly African-American neighborhood to "uphold the sacred institution of marriage by voting YES on Prop. 8."

Katrine and I put the gifts and the fliers on the kitchen table and enjoyed a delicious, sacred marital kiss. Then we took off our "No on 8" T-shirts, and she put on her work clothes and went to see a client. And I put on my "Yes We Can" T-shirt and went to Obama headquarters to make some calls to undecided voters in Pennsylvania.

At the table just inside the front door I found a stack of door hangers that hadn't been there yesterday. "Should we eliminate the fundamental right to marry for our friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers?" it asked, and answered, "Barack Obama says no."

But not so loud that anyone can hear him, I thought.

For months I'd wondered how I'd feel on Nov. 5, 2008, but still I was surprised. The pinch-me wonder of watching those words, "President-elect Obama," appear on that Jumbotron; the "Yes-we-can-all-get-along" glow that lighted the spontaneous celebrations in the downtown Oakland streets; the high-fives we'd exchanged with people whose eyes we might have avoided the day before, who might have avoided ours -- all of it paled in comparison to the passage, by a margin of about 52 percent to 48 percent, of Proposition 8.

As the day and the pundits wore on, much was made of reports that 70 percent of African-Americans had voted to end gay marriage. The faces of the Obama volunteers I'd phone-banked with and hoped with and celebrated with flashed before my eyes. Which of them had voted to protect my civil rights? Which of them had voted to protect "the sacred institution of marriage" instead?

"Am I crazy to feel so bad about Prop. 8 when something so great just happened?" I asked my dear friend "Joseph." Like Obama, Joseph is in his 40s, was raised by a single white mother, had an absent black father and has worked all his adult life as a community organizer in the poorest of black neighborhoods. Unlike Obama, Joseph is a Christian minister. Also, Joseph is gay -- and concerned enough about the consequences of that fact to be quoted here pseudonymously.

"I feel exactly the same way," Joseph answered. "Sixty-seven percent of my state voted for a man who looks like me. Fifty-two percent of my state decided to deny me the right to live the life that's natural to me. It's really strange to believe that so many people could support me on the one hand and deny me on the other."

"Including a whole lot of black people, apparently," I said glumly. 

"And 53 percent of Latinos, and 49 percent of Asians, and almost 50 percent of whites, if you believe the pollsters," Joseph said.  "But yes," he added, slipping into his preacher mode. "The church, and the African-American community in general, has a very dark stain on it in terms of homophobia. It has to do with the emasculation of African-American men in this society.

"From the beginning of this country's history, black men have been the target of white male fear. We've been hyper-sexualized to mythological proportions, stripped of our place as leaders of our families -- starting with slavery, when our families were sold away from each other, right through Jim Crow and the welfare system.

"Black folks are afraid that homosexuality will further degrade the family, and the man's status as the progenitor," Joseph said with a sigh. "Everything that slavery took away from black men, they're afraid that homosexuality will take away as well."

"How strange," I said. "The reason Obama grabbed me so hard was his push for compassion and understanding as a path to unity. But I've been  so busy feeling rejected by black voters, I haven't even thought about where they were coming from." 

"Obama's election means there's an opportunity, at least, for change," Joseph said. "If folks can vote for someone who looks like me and comes from the same background that I do, even if they voted for Prop. 8, it opens the possibility that someday they'll accept all of me." There was a smile in his voice. "And all of you," he added.

I recalled aloud the Sunday morning a few years ago when Joseph brought Katrine and me to his church and introduced us to the congregation as each other's partners. "Everyone was so nice to us," I said. "I wondered how they really felt."

"I'm seeing change in the church," he replied. "More and more ministries are starting to validate who gay people are: the United Church of Christ, the Metropolitan Community Churches, the Unitarians. The UCC congregation in San Francisco is led by Bishop Yvette Flunder, an African-American lesbian!"

"But how is the rest of the world ever going to change?" I asked.

"Slowly," Joseph said. "Very, very slowly."