I was a bit taken aback by Rick Dilling's Nov. 10 letter to the editor, "Prop 8 and Obama," and its implication that the passing of Proposition 8 in California "lies squarely with" President-elect Barack Obama and the African-American vote.
I looked at the CNN exit polls for this measure myself and while I was greatly disappointed with the result, I do not think the blame is on Obama or with the 70 percent of blacks who voted "yes" to Proposition 8. On the contrary, I believe the blame is on the people who voted "no." Allow me to explain this seemingly contradictory logic.
Support of homosexuality and gay rights is one of the movements of our time. Sex is, and always has been, an issue that riles up nearly everyone. It is very hard to be neutral about gay rights. This phenomenon, however, is exactly what we saw on Election Day.
California youth split 61 to 39 percent toward "no." Asians split evenly 51 to 49 toward "no." Whites as well split evenly 51 to 49 percent toward "no." Neutrality. So, it's not that blacks single-handedly defeated Proposition 8. It was the neutral split between the youth, the neutral split between the rest of everyone else-in addition to the strong conviction of African-American voters-that all contributed to the passing of Proposition 8.
However strongly I disagree with anti-gay convictions, I never blame someone for having a strong passion or belief. In other words, we should not blame a single racial group for a strong conviction. Instead, we should all blame ourselves for not having a strong enough conviction to be more clearly heard, to more thoroughly spread the word and to more effectively campaign for equality for all.
Instead of pointing fingers, we should take this defeat as a signal that the battle is far from over and we must work that much harder to gain acceptance and justice for all our gay brothers and sisters.
Michelle Sohn
Trinity '11
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