CALIFORNIA STATE PROPOSITION 8

Sadly, but not unexpectedly, California State Proposition 8 passed by a clear majority – 52 percent to 48 percent. I say not unexpectedly, because millions of dollars from the Mormon Church poured into California for slick, misleading television ads. The purpose of Prop 8 was “to enshrine bigotry in the state’s constitution by preventing people of the same sex from marrying. The measure was designed to overturn May’s State Supreme Court decision, which made California the second state to end that exclusion of same-sex couples. Massachusetts did so in 2004. The firmly grounded ruling said that everyone has a basic right ‘to establish a legally recognized family with the person of one’s choice,’ and found California’s strong domestic partnership statute to be inadequate.” So proclaimed the New York Times editorial this morning.

It continued: “We wish that Tuesday’s vote of 52 percent to 48 percent had gone the other way. But when those numbers are compared with the 61 percent to 39 percent result in 2000, when Californians approved the law that was overturned by their Supreme Court, it is evident that voters have grown more comfortable with marriage equality.”

As I wrote on October 19 with my Blog posting Ballot Initiatives, Amendments & Taxes, the major issue for me is procedural. I think it is completely out of kilter that it takes a two-thirds super-majority to pass an ordinary California State Budget, yet it requires only a majority of a single citizen’s vote to amend the state constitution, and in this case take away a civil right. In the federal constitution, one of the major objectives of the Bill of Rights is to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

A curious sidebar: although Great Britain still has no written constitution, the precedent for our own Bill of Rights came from the 1689 English Bill of Rights, a result of the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. My Schola friend, Sam Smith, referred to it as the “Bloodless Revolution,” but I would contend that name wasn’t used until after the bloody French Revolution of 1789 and particularly the “Terror” of 1793-1794. (Refer to my September 21 Blog posting Evolution of Meaning and Two Flip-Flops.)

Still, we’ve made progress. Thirty years ago we celebrated the defeat of Proposition 6, the Briggs Initiative, which would have banned gays and lesbians from working in California's public schools and came on the heels of a highly explosive conservative campaign in Dade County, Florida to repeal one of the first gay rights ordinances in the U.S. With Anita Bryant as their spokesperson, the initiative temporarily passed. I remember how thrilled we were with the defeat of Proposition 6 and celebrated with a march in the Castro. Only a few weeks later we marched again with a candlelight procession down Market Street to City Hall after the assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk— and that was only days after the horror of Jonestown!

I heard on NPR this morning that there have been disruptive marches in Los Angeles in opposition to passage of Proposition 8—also, that there has been a legal filing to the California Supreme Court to overturn the ballot initiative. One had been filed before the election to remove it from the ballot, but the court decided to defer until after the election. I think there could, in fact, be valid judicial reasons to overturn Prop 8, but the State Supreme Court has now let itself be subject to even greater rightwing criticism if it rules against the ballot initiative after the fact. It would have been much cleaner to act before. Again, I strongly assert that ballot initiatives passed by a simple majority are no fair or proper way to amend any constitution!

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Evolution of Meaning and Two Flip-Flops

The study of history is partly a study of words –or the definitions of words. Over time there have been switches in meanings.  The word ‘revolution’ for example: most people think of it as a violent change, or the overthrow of an existing political order. Unfortunately, I cannot verify my source. I think it was Professor Martin Griffin from my English History course, freshman year. As Dean of Saybrook College, however, he died of a heart attack, while crossing one of the courtyards in the snow. For my 40^th birthday, Dennis and I went to a Yale Alumni Seminar at the R.L. Stevenson School at Pebble Beach, and Yale Professor John Boswell (since then a victim of AIDS) said that my recollection about the word ‘revolution’ could not be right. He contended the word was derived from ‘revolt.’

 

Unless I reached the conclusion myself, I think I recall Martin Griffin’s mentioning that the word ‘revolution’ was first used in a political sense during the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. That was when Parliament kicked out the King, James II, and replaced him with his daughter Mary, the wife of William of Orange. The legal argument was that the King had violated the terms of the Restoration of the Monarchy, and that Parliament was merely restoring the situation to an already agreed upon compact. In other words, it was not a violent overthrow, instead, it was a righting the ship of state—or a seasonal correction. Martin’s point was that the word was borrowed from astronomy, and when you have a complete revolution of a moon or a planet, you end up exactly where you started.

 

When the American colonies sought independence from England, it was the colonials who called it a ‘revolution.’ The English called it a ‘rebellion.’ Clearly the word had a positive meaning to its adherents, and was a reflection of the political writings after 1688. The revolutionaries claimed that it was the King who had violated the compact. Read Mr. Jefferson’s Declaration (though I would contend that most of the charges against George III would not hold up in a fair court of law.)

 

The meaning of the word changed drastically, when the French adopted it for their own political upheaval, which then became very violent and bloody. Ever since, that’s what people think of as a political revolution.

 

Or take the word ‘comfort.’ Is it a hard word or a soft word? Most people contend that it’s a soft word—to comfort, as to console. But think of the King James version of the 23^rd Psalm. “…Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” That’s a closer example of the intended meaning. It’s originally from the French: com-fort, or, with strength. The Bayeaux tapestry shows Duke William comforting his troops, at the point of a sword. He is encouraging them— prodding them— as a shepherd does his sheep.

 

So when people today say it’s important to stretch yourself, to get out of your 'comfort zone,' that’s exactly what the original meaning intended.

 

I suppose, if you were being attacked by Vikings, and were protected in a castle keep, you might feel consoled by being protected – but that comfort comes from strength.