Reply #47: Of course. No question about all your points - I don't think anybody disagrees here.

[yardwork]

It's as unfair, unproductive, and patently ridiculous to say "all black people in California are homophobic" as it is to say "all white gay people on DU are racist."

Getting back to the op-ed piece, the author has a right to her opinion. I just pointed out, upthread, that I don't agree with her presentation of this issue as a set of opposing choices. It didn't take voters any money to vote "No on Proposition 8." It was just as easy to vote "No" as it was to vote "Yes." Voting against bigotry doesn't take any money from "more important causes" or ask anyone to ignore those other causes. So when she says it wasn't a priority in the black community because it's not as important an issue as others, well, that argument just doesn't hold up. The people pushing and supporting Proposition 8 went out of their way to make an issue out of something that was not an issue before. They're the ones who deserve criticism, not the folks whose rights were lost.

I'm an Anglo lesbian. I spend most of my time, money, and energy fighting for equal access to health care and contributing to human rights causes that help all people, like the Southern Poverty Law Center. My focus is not primarily on gay rights.

With all the problems in the world, why should gay people have to spend extra time and money to defend rights in states where we'd already won rights? Whose idea was it to take marriage away from 18,000 people who were already married, and make it impossible for any more gay people to get married, after it had been legal for six months? Now, that's a waste of time and money on a lousy cause, one that we all should be able to agree about.