MIKE SIGNORILE'S TAKE ON THE FATE OF PROP. 8 MAY WELL BE CORRECT

Mike Signorile's take on the fate of Prop. 8 may well be correct.

After listening to the hearings on March 5th, and the deference with which Kenneth Star who advocated for Prop. 8 was treated by the justices, I'm afraid that my optimism as to the overturning of November's vote of the electorate in California might well have been incorrect.

Of course, it's not over until it's over, and even if the justices of the California State Supreme Court affirm Prop. 8, even with the caveat that those who were already married after the Court's May decision stating that the deprivation of marriage rights to same-sex couples is and always was unconstitutional, and prior to the vote of the electorate on the amendment, would still have valid marriages, we can expect a great deal of revulsion expressed and far more activism manifested should this slap in the face occur.

"Equality under the law" must still prevail, and if the current California Supreme Court bends to the tyranny of the majority, we can expect that one day in the near future enough activism will be evinced so that every state in the union will affirm same-sex marriage.

However, we must never forget that for there to be equal rights for any minority group, there must be, to use Martin Luther King's words, "a season of suffering."

And we should all hope that there is sufficient numbers of LGBT people and allies with the necessary fire in the belly to engage in meaningful activism, such as continuously picketing selected homophobic churches (as it is denominations and churches that have done the most to make possible the denigration of LGBT people); continuously picketing and mandating Marriage License bureaus to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples who are entitled to the same rights and privileges as any other citizen in this country; provoke the major LGBT rights organizations to become far more aggressive in asserting the demand for equal rights; educate people that we are under the Constitution of the United States and we are not a theocracy whereby religious convictions determine Constitutional rights.

Should the California State Supreme Court uphold Prop. 8 (and we will know their finding within 90 days), this should provoke increasing numbers of us to become far more political, less frivolous, and far more focused in realizing that we are engaged in a civil rights struggle no less important or urgent than the civil rights struggle that embroiled African Americans and their allies not all that long ago!

And if the Court affirms Prop. 8, whether or not those marriages that occurred within that window between the Court's May decision and the electoral vote in November are deemed valid, that finding may well be a blessing in disguise if it motivates LGBT people and allies, not only in California but in every state in the United States, to exponentially increase our anger, our rage, and our activism at the blatant injustice in enabling LGBT people to be consigned to second class citizenship bereft of the same rights and privileges enjoyed by their heterosexual counterparts!

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