Don't hate the Mormon's or the Black Community for Prop 8.

[Meldread]

I posted yesterday that I wasn't disheartened or even angry about what happened. In fact, I was actually happy that we got so close to winning. That is not something I even thought would be possible just four years ago.

However, after having another day to dwell on it, and listening to various opinions on the issue there seems to be a vast amount of anger at the Mormon and Black Communities. I may be a lone voice in the wilderness here, but I am going to speak from personal experience. It does not do us any good to hate or even get angry.

For a very long time I was filled with loathing (hatred is too mild of a word) for the Religious Right. It is the events that took place in my life during that period of time that has shaped my ideological world view. Sometime during the last several years, gradually, I came to the realization that hatred did not serve me nor the cause I was fighting for well. I drew upon it for passion, and it was like drawing water from a poisoned well. With each drink it only harmed me. It may seem silly, but for some reason I had convinced myself that by hating them I was somehow empowered.

It was not true. Hatred blinded me in such a way that I could not see that I was giving my opponents power. I allowed them to control my emotions. In doing that it stripped my ability to think objectively. It caused me to burn bridges that I might have otherwise built.

The reality is that we have friends in the Black Community and in the Mormon Community. When we launch a broad based attack, we shoot ourselves in the foot. When we call Mormon's evil and a cult or slam black folks in general we not only are guilty in a hateful assault, which makes us little better than those we oppose, but we also push away our allies in those communities.

What we need to take away from Proposition 8 is not hatred or even anger. Those emotions are pretty irrelevant and will not help solve the problem facing us. We need to understand that we have woefully fallen short in getting out our message to those communities, the black community in particular.

Bigotry does not know skin color, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. It is something we are lured into by our lesser selves. I am convinced that if we want to have any hope at victory we are going to have to build a massive coalition. We are going to have to have massive outreach programs.

Fundamentally speaking, I am not interested in just marriage. I want my life and my relationships as a gay male to be equal to heterosexual relationships, to be viewed just as valid and good and to be celebrated equally. This is the goal, and only when a child can be born into this world, get a boyfriend or a girlfriend and not feel as if he or she is doing something wrong, and have the support of his community and family will we have been successful.

I know I will forever bare the scars of discrimination, some of which I have inflicted upon myself. It is my hope that someday, and I know it will not be in my lifetime, that a distant generation will grow up and be able to not even think about gay or straight, making them irrelevant concepts that existed a long time ago in the past.

Legal recognition of our relationships is the first step, but we cannot change minds alone. We have to be able to look into communities who, at this time, may not consider us friends and separate them into the categories of foes and potential allies. Then we need to reach out to them and grow our support. We do not need to engage in hatred or bitter finger pointing. It does nothing to move us forward, and serves only to distract and undermine our goals.

I would like to have a constructive conversation on what we can do to move forward.