A lovely fabulous forward looking post! Thank you. I was disheartened by the gay rights losses at the state level but I also know we will take this back to the vote again. Obama’s speech had a similar effect here. My housemate and I looked at one another and then rewound (love DVR) to make sure he’d said what we thought he’d said. WOW

Yeah, I was like, did he just say that?? gay, straight… what! I agree there are a lot of other issues that we need to put a focus on, but I do want to legally marry one day…

you are so right about needing national rights rather than the patchwork we are (or aren’t) getting. Also about having an awesome president (elect). but, while i think marriage is really not the most important thing, and that a lot of the national groups have done kind of ugly jobs, i have to defend them in that i don’t think it was the LGBT movement who chose to make marriage the central issue. it was the opposition who made that decision, and we were left to play defense. ’cause even if it’s not a major issue to you, no one wants to sit back and watch their rights get taken away (especially when it’s dirty political crap like taking away rights we never had in the first place).

Today has been an emotional rollercoaster ride, Up with Obama, Down with the California banned gay marriage. However, I do agree, gay rights have no place being decided on a state by state basis…equality is an issue best resolved nationally.

Great post, Sassafras, though I disagree with you that marriage is not where we should be putting our resources. If Christians could get married but Jews could only get civil unions, I’d be throwing myself against those barricades, too.

Thanks for this post. I have always been a critic of the “right to marry” movement for some of the reasons you mention. I do think Lady Brett is right that this agenda was largely set by the Right. However, it seems to me that mainstream gay and lesbian organizations were quick (if not eager) to embrace marriage as “the” gay rights issue. Unfortunately, from my perspective.

Although I’m critical of the gay marriage movement, I knocked on doors when a similar ballot measure was proposed in my state. Taking away rights from queer people is a big deal. People from our communities worked hard to fight these homophobic initiatives and their lives have been adversely affected because of what happened on Tuesday. To say that they’re having a “pity party” strikes me as dismissive, even unkind.