In the midst of celebration….

There is still work to be done on behalf of equality and fairness, and rights for everyone. The No on Proposition 8 campaign (California) looks more and more as though it has been defeated. There is work to be done in our communities, all of them… reaching across and around boundaries – both perceived and real.

Pam Spaulding writes:

I feel that a giant snowball of blame game is about to roll over and crush me as we wait for the final count in California on Prop 8. Who voted for Yes on 8 is clear now, as exit polls show 70% of blacks, (with black women at 74%) voted for the amendment. That’s about 20 points higher than any other racial group. But the blame needs to be put into perspective – blacks represent only 6.2% of of California’s population. There’s a lot to discuss in the post-mortem regardless of the outcome.
For those of us who are black and gay, a group too often marginalized within a marginalized community, I see this as a clear signal to the LGBT advocacy community. There hasn’t been enough outreach to those groups who voted against us. We haven’t reached them; there hasn’t been enough effort expended.

Read more here.

There is more to be said and much, much more to be done. For now, I will say this – those of us who are religious and are part of faith communities – our work begins there.

ETA – Please read this amazing post over at Prof BW’s. Excerpt:

As we fight each other, our rights become that much more vulnerable to denial by those in power as our energy is wasted in conflicts that are simply not true. Worse our ability to work together, which is the only way to win, is forfeited in a series of recriminations that not only cement division but erase those places where we overlap and the people who sit firmly in the intersections. Look at how decisively this post shifted from one in which I had hoped to discuss the losses as part of a political milieu supported by all parties this election and then focus on what we can do to work against that in the future, into one where I must once again call out racism from the left and wonder at whether we can ever really work toward equality for everyone in such an environment.