California's homophobic vote hurts all of us

"America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel."
Allen Ginsberg, "America" 1956

AMERICA, my queer shoulders are shaking with rage at the passing of Proposition 8. How dare California take away the right of its gay citizens to marry?

On Nov. 5, while people were celebrating Barack Obama's victory, I felt like someone had died. I am a happily married lesbian. My spouse and I have been together for two decades. On Sept. 10, 1989, after being together for a year, we had a commitment ceremony and I joked that now I was Mary's "unlawfully wedded wife." On Sept. 10, 2004, we married again, this time our union sanctioned by the state of Massachusetts. And though our marriage is not in jeopardy, what happened in California personally devastated me.

Besides both my wedding days, the happiest day of my life was May 17, 2004, the day gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts. The day was perfect; warm and sunny with neither a cloud nor protester in sight. Even though Mary and I were waiting to (re)marry on our anniversary, I went uptown anyway. This was one party I was not about to miss. When I arrived at Northampton's City Hall at 8 a.m., 50 couples were lined up outside the door, surrounded by hundreds of supporters.

One woman handed out plastic miniature wedding cake bubble-blowers. Someone else had baked a three-tier wedding cake for everyone to share. A child wearing a T-shirt that read "I love my two mommies" passed out homemade muffins from a basket slung over her arm. A local chorus called The Raging Grannies sang "Here Comes the Brides." A man waved a banner that read, "And they lived equally ever after."

Even the newscasters were moved to tears as same-sex couple after couple (112 in all) waved their newly acquired marriage licenses in the air like the flags of victory that they were.

I imagine that June 16, 2008, the first day marriage licenses were granted to California gay couples, was similar in tone. I cried with joy at the photo in the San Francisco Bay Times that showed lesbian activists Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon getting married after being a couple for 55 years. I oohed and aahed over the glamorous wedding shots of Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi in People magazine. I shrieked with delight when I unexpectedly came across a colleague's wedding announcement in the Sunday New York Times. And even if those marriages do not become null and void, it's a tragedy and a travesty that gay couples living in California have been stripped of their right to wed by members of their own communities.

And lest you think the problem of homophobia only concerns gay people, think again. Another ballot measure that passed on Election Day bans unmarried couples living in Arkansas - gay and straight - from becoming foster or adoptive parents. It's no secret that the measure was passed in order to prevent gay people from raising children. Because of this law, many children from tots to teens will be denied the loving homes they deserve. Homophobia hurts us all.

And if you still don't think homophobia affects you, consider how many hungry American mouths $73 million could feed. That's the amount that was spent on the fight over Proposition 8, money that could have helped a lot of people - gay and straight.

Someday the notion of same-sex marriage being illegal will seem as ludicrous as the notion that the United States will never have an African-American president.

Protests against Proposition 8 have already taken place coast to coast and more are being planned. Lawsuits have already been filed, and my guess is the same California Supreme Court that decided to allow same-sex marriage in the first place will eventually overturn Proposition 8. It will take time and a lot of hard work, but someday gay marriage will once again be legal in California. And in the rest of the nation as well.

America, we're putting our queer shoulders to the wheel in the hopes of attaining liberty and justice for all. Won't you join us?

Lesléa Newman, author of "Heather Has Two Mommies" and "A Letter to Harvey Milk," is the poet laureate of Northampton.