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My Best Friend Voted For Prop 8

By Julia Rain

This is in no way a defense of her vote, merely an explanation. I certainly don't agree with her decision, but I thought it might be good for people to understand what went into the thinking of one person who voted for prop 8.

You may remember my best friend. Rachel, from my diary of Dailykos a few years ago, which can be found here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

In this diary, I detailed how, though she has no problem with people of other races, says she can be "racist at times", especially when she is with racist friends. This is maddening to me, the idea that anyone would essentially pretend to be racist. But she stopped this, finally. Early on in the primaries she told me she would be voting for Obama and that she felt many people were voting for Hillary simply because they didn't want a black man to be president.

I also spoke of how Rachel wanted to join the military until I talked her out of it, is a self-declared "redneck" and how her mother, when we were younger, told her not to speak to me because I was a liberal and "brainwashing her".

She's still a redneck. She says. She's also a nurse. She knows how bad the health-care situation is in this country - we certainly don't have any disagreements there. She works at a substandard nursing home where she is constantly forced to lift 400 pound patients by herself and where she is (not surprisingly) frequently injured on the job. Broken ribs, a broken toe, a dislocated shoulder, a giant numb lump in her neck (still there - undiagnosed) are among her many ailments for which she usually did not receive time off. She's also seen patients die due to preventable mistakes. I wish her eyes could have been opened another way.

Though in her teens she was adamantly pro-choice (I was even undecided for a while, so I think this just changes with age) she is now completely pro-choice. She understands what it's like to not be able to afford to eat or put gas in your car. She knows what it's like not to be able to drink your own water.

So in many ways she's very politically enlightened for a 21-year old. She's even had a few female lovers. She contends that it was just experimental and that she's sure now that she's straight, which is fine of course.She's always had gay, lesbian and bisexual friends.

So when she told me recently that she had voted for Prop 8 I was rather surprised. I also felt a bit guilty, as it's quite likely that if it weren't for me she'd never have been registered to vote in the first place. I didn't express anger in any way. After all, I could tell she was worried I wouldn't approve, but she'd chosen to tell me anyway. She wanted to explain to me why. And I wanted to know.

She told me that gay marriage offended many people's religious views. She is a sometimes-practicing Wiccan, but was raised Catholic. Either way it certainly doesn't offend her religious views. I suppose maybe a religious person made a case to her. She said gay people didn't need to get married; that they already have the same rights as straight people. I said that wasn't true. She said that people should concentrate on getting gay people the same rights then, instead. I actually agree with this, and told her so.  

Then she really shocked me with her knowledge of politics when she proclaimed that she thought it a bit underhanded that the will of the voters who had previously voted against gay marriage had been overturned by the courts. I had to admit that in just about every other case, I would feel the same way. I told her that I don't like the will of the voters to be overturned any more than she did, but that in this case the "will of the voters" had been was deemed unconstitutional, just like many racist laws decades ago. She told me "I'm not against gay marriage, I just don't like the way they did it. But they'll find another way. You know they will eventually."

Which is true. Eventually.

Then she said, "And even though it got defeated, a lot more people voted for it this time than last time. So next time it should pass."

I avoided telling her that, though she was probably right about that, it make a whole lot of sense. If people voted according to her logic, the "will of the voters" would never be overturned because people would vote in accordance to what the "will of the voters" was the last time this particular issue came up.

I don't know why I didn't tell her that; maybe because I didn't have the time to put my thoughts into a cogent format like that above. But I think she knows. Maybe she regrets her vote. Maybe she doesn't fully understand why she cast it or what it was really for. Or maybe not. Either way, the conversation was enlightening.

I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on January 19, 2009 (boomark / email).