In the 2008 Presidential Election, America voted for change. They voted a Democratic House, Senate, and President into Washington D.C., and they made history by choosing Barack Obama to be our first African American President.
Our country desperately needs such monumental shifts in order to change for the better, and none of them would have happened without the movement for equal rights. No African American would have been able to run for a national office, nor could a woman have been his runner-up in the Primary elections. It is in that vein that we, the Campanil staff, express our bitter disappointment that Californians chose to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.
By voting Yes on Proposition 8, California took a step backwards in the fight for equality and justice that has created the results of this national election. There has never been an instance in history where the subtraction of rights has been validated in the long term. It is only with disdain and anger that people look back at times when African Americans were denied the right to vote or go to school and women were not allowed to own property. We feel the same way about Proposition 8.
We urge you to take action. Protest. Litigate. Those 14 words that Prop. 8 will add to the California Constitution represent a step back for every American, of any race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. This proposition takes away rights. It takes away freedom.
President-elect Barack Obama has called Prop. 8 “divisive and discriminatory,” and our staff could not agree more. Your voices put Senator Obama in our country’s highest office, and they are still needed to help overturn this fundamental mistake. Write to your senator, your religious leaders, your friends and family. Encourage them to take action. Tell them the fight is not over. Let them know that the fight for long-lasting legal rights for every person in this state, and in this country, has only just begun.
Go to noonprop8.com for more information on how to be heard.
