Round Table

Posted on February 22, 2009 – 3:46 PM | by OldManFoster

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by Rachel Gregg, photos by Jesse Vasquez

The days following the passage of Proposition 8, the state proposition that eliminated the right of same sex couples to marry, were a tumultuous time for Californians. Here in Sacramento we saw protests and vigils-we saw the emergence of new activists and organizations who are bent on righting the wrong of Prop 8. For me, as a lesbian writer with my eye on other political contests, I could have never guessed the impact the passage of 8 would have on my life and on the spirit of my community.

Many of us, gay and straight alike, are holding out hope that legal recourse will dissolve the mandate of Proposition 8. Until then, gay marriage is illegal in all but one state. In January, I asked a group of local movers and shakers including West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon, activists and co-founders of Equality Action Now Jade Baranski and Tina Reynolds, lobbyist Wendy Rae Hill, musician Lauren Hess of Agent Ribbons, researcher and activist Jovi Radke, and MM photographer Jesse Vasquez to get together to reflect on love and the passage of proposition 8.   –Rachel Gregg

Rachel:
Let me take you back a couple of months to election night, November 4, 2008. Where were you and how did you get the news?

Tina:
Headhunters. Everybody cheered when Obama won. An hour later, everyone was just miserable. It was electric, you could hear them out in the streets. Then an hour and half later it was just very scary.

Wendy:
I had to go do a senate campaign down in Santa Barbara and so I was in a room full of people who were focused on Obama and Hannah Beth Jackson. Everybody was totally high energy because of Obama, I was a Hillary gal, so I was like ‘oh yay, like we didn’t know that was going to happen’ and as soon as the first numbers popped up (on Prop 8), I knew what was going to happen. I just looked at my girlfriend and tears welled up in my eyes and we just walked out. We couldn’t go back in to the party. I left at 6 a.m. the next morning for Chicago. Everybody’s reaction there was, “how the hell did this happen in California?”

Christopher:
I was up for election that day, so I had my reelection night party as results were coming in and I couldn’t leave. Everybody was there to celebrate my splashing victory in my own community, which was simultaneously voting narrowly for Prop 8.
I fully expected, that day, that we were going to lose on 8, because I’ve been there before on 209 and 187. California, almost every single time that it has had a choice, has voted to strip rights away.

Lauren:
I was making wontons and we were watching online results and were excited about Obama. Then I was watching the diagram of California and the districts and when it came to LA and they hadn’t posted the results I thought, ‘oh yeah, LA, that’ll totally push it over the edge.’ Then that came in and I was like, “we’re screwed.”

Jade:
I’d worked all day at the polls, literally from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. We made it to Headhunters and I did an interview about Obama, then I went home and went to bed. I got a phone call at 2 in the morning from a lobbyist friend. He was crying, saying, “we lost, we lost, we lost.” It was horrendous. I couldn’t sleep. It was awful.

Rachel:
In your own, words tell me how important legally recognized same sex marriage is for you in your own life.

Tina:
Legally recognized same sex marriage is the most important thing. The day that I said I was married, everyone who I said it to understood what my committed relationship was. I didn’t have to explain any further. I said, “I’m married” and they know what it means. Period.

Wendy:
I think for me the public distinction is one thing. But being a mom of kids and having to deal with the actual legal rights of marriage is way more important. If something happens to Aiden and I can’t get to the hospital and my domestic partner goes to the hospital with Aiden they ask for the domestic partner certificate and health care directive that says that she has the right to make decisions. If she says I’m married, I’m the step-mother, everybody knows what those rights are.

Christopher:
I did ask myself, ‘why do you care so much about this’ and I noticed, that a lot of the folks that came out and were, for the first time, recognizing that it wasn’t just about the actual issue of marriage. What touched them was this sense that they’ve constructed this reality that allowed them to believe that it wasn’t that big of a deal to be gay. Every year they’d read about a Migden/Leno bill that pushed more rights into their lap- rights that they hadn’t even asked for or done anything to achieve. This was the gigantic wake up call. No, progress is not unidirectional. It’s not automatic. And there are a lot of people that, you didn’t realize, think you are less than human. That was the fundamental. For a lot of folks, including for me, it was a lifting of the veil about where society really is.

Jovi:
It is definitely a gay box that we live in and it was a big slap in the face. We tore open that box. It was like, ‘sorry, there are straight people in this world and they don’t like you’.

Rachel:
Looking back on the months leading to November, what do you wish that we, here in Sacramento had done differently to change the outcome on 8?

Lauren:
Like Jovi said, it is like living in a box. I’m in such a bubble in Midtown. I’m around people who think the way I do. I had to drive to Monterey the week before the election and there was yellow, yellow, yellow everywhere. Debbie and I were like, ‘what the hell?’ I think reaching out to the outlying areas and focusing on that.

Jovi:
I wish that as many people that are involved now and immediately after the election would have been involved before. I wish that same amout of enthusiasm and passion had been shown to prevent this outcome.

Jade:
I have the same idea. The reactionary way that our community tends to be depresses those of us that try to be on top of it. Everyone I talked to in this town said, ‘there is no way this is going to pass’. I was spending every waking moment of my day working on this, because I was scared. There was a wall, and it was brick and I could not get through, at all.

Wendy:
Politically, I was involved in the Sacramento based campaign efforts. I was so frustrated because I knew that there was such complacency out there.
I think that the way that the campaign was run and it was run as a straight, strategic political campaign-I think is what made it easy for somebody to have ‘Yes on 8’ and ‘Christopher Cabaldon’ signs in their yard. It wasn’t people. You weren’t voting against us.
That’s what we have to do differently and we are doing differently. You’ll never be able to see this happen again where our faces aren’t there.

Jesse:
I think this is the opportunity of this whole period. You have to put yourself out there, not wait for a leader or a strategist. It has to be direct.

Jade:
Decentralized politics.

Jesse:
Exactly.

Jade:
We have the people. We have the mobilization. We have the passion. Now we just have to follow through.

Lauren:
Totally. People realize, now, how important it is.

Wendy:
It is very symbiotic to every other civil rights movement that has happened. You move forward. You move back. The hope of new generations is bringing nothing but hope and positivity for equality for everyone.

Rachel:
Marriage equality is about rights, but it is also about love. So tell me, who is your Valentine?

Tina:
My girl-wife. Kate Moore, the love of my life. She is my Valentine forever.

Christopher:
Mine is well…49.8% of the city.

Rachel:
Your city supported 8, but your county voted against it…

Christopher:
Yes. The difference in my own city between (Proposition) 22 and 8 is moving faster than the rest of the state.

Wendy:
Which is a very large testament to you and to your courage.

Christopher:
It’s still extraordinarily disappointing. It’s like, ‘you keep voting for me. You’re willing to let me protect your children through the police and fire departments that I run. Take responsibility for your day-to-day welfare through parks and roads and everything else. But I’m not competent to make a choice about who I love and want to spend the rest of my life with?!’
That dissonance was so strong.

Jesse:
I think that’s the illuminating thing about this. This whole thing happened in a space that is incomprehensible. It doesn’t have a rational basis. How do you confront that? That’s the giant looming question.

Rachel:
…back to that Valentine question.

Lauren:
Even though she claims that we’re not official. It’s Deborah Chang.

Jovi:
Even though she won’t officially announce it- it’s also Debbie Chang. No. I’m holding out for Diane Lane, but if she doesn’t get back to me before February 14, its Margie Wells. She’ll be my fall back Valentine.

Jade:
My girlfriend Emily

Wendy:
Dr. Carrie Tedrick. I’d be in trouble if I didn’t pick her. She bought me third row, center seats for Wicked on Valentine’s day…

And you dear reader, you are my Valentine. Thank you for taking the time to read this round table and get to know “us” a little better. I am guessing that not everyone who picks up this arts and culture mag voted to support equality for all people-but I am willing to guess that as you begin to know the people affected by Prop 8, you will begin to understand, as I do, that love, is love, is love.