Voting

Voting is just one of the ways in which I am a big nerd. Even during my dissipated youth I only ever missed voting in one election. (For the record, it was in the fall of 1989 when I was 19 years old and had just moved to Berkeley; I couldn't vote because I had failed to re-register in time for the election.)

Since Isaac's birth I have taken him with me to the polls for every election. Do you think it will make an impression on him? While I don't remember my parents explicitly teaching me about voting, they never miss an election themselves, and I imagine it's from them that I got the idea that voting is a right and and a responsibility, one of the benefits and burdens of adulthood. (I told you I was a big nerd.)

But in 20 years of voting, I've never stuck a bumper sticker, posted a yard sign, or given money to a strictly political cause* -- until now. Although I have been strongly moved by things happening in politics, I've always kept my feelings private. (Well, almost always.) But now, for some reason, I'm going public with my opposition to California's Proposition 8, which would change the state constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.

It's a civil rights issue and a matter of logic -- the country already decided against "separate but equal" 40 years ago, so every adult citizen should be allowed to make the marriage of their choice. Settling for domestic partnership just isn't equal.

But what has really gotten me upset is the false and fear-mongering argument that somehow same-sex marriage is bad for children -- not even the children of gay couples, but all children! We've gotten a bunch of pro-8 propaganda in the mail that tries to scare parents by suggesting that their children will be taught about gay marriage in school (as if that was a bad thing). I even saw a yard sign that read "Prop. 8 = Parental Rights," which enraged me so much that I practically foamed at the mouth.

After all, if you're adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage, nothing is stopping you from teaching your kid about it at home, which will (unfortunately) override anything more objective they teach in school.

But more fundamentally, I'm offended by the suggestion that banning same-sex marriage somehow protects my child, or protects my rights as a parent. What would be the benefit of preventing Isaac from learning about same-sex marriage in school? It exists, after all. And what's more, I want my children to be taught about committed and loving families. At the age of three, Isaac knows gay people, he knows same-sex couples -- and he even knows married same-sex couples with kids. It is simply not a big deal.

But at the same time, it is a big deal. Getting married is serious business, and it's something all adult citizens should be allowed to do -- like voting, marriage is a right and a responsibility, a benefit and a burden. Maybe it's because I'm happily married myself, but I feel like it would be good for children, families, and society in general if more people got married.

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*Unless you count contributions to various human rights, civil liberties, environmental protection, humanitarian, and reproductive rights organizations as "political," which I don't. But in 1987 I did write "Bork is a Dork" on my binder during his failed Supreme Court nomination hearings, so I guess I'm not a total stranger to political action.

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Another theory is that I'm fretting about Proposition 8 because I'm displacing my worries about the presidential election.

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Edited 11/4/08 to add:

And this morning Craig called to tell me he saw a pro-8 banner that read "They condition children; we protect children." He wanted to share his fury with me. "Condition" children to what, exactly? Justice? Fairness? Tolerance? Yes, please.