Texas Proposition 2

I owe the kids a quarter. I sat down at the table to eat a late dinner. My wife had just gotten back with sandwiches from Subway. It's about 7:30 PM on Friday and I decide to pull up the Secretary Of State's web site and get the returns on Proposition 2. Before I can even navigate to the site, the msnbc home page pops up with a big bar across the top - "Breaking News: Texans approve ban on 'same-sex' marriage" or something to that effect. That's when I said it. The 'D' word, and not quietly under my breath, but in a loud exclamation that shocked my wife and kids.

I am not gay. You might have gathered this from the mention of my wife above. I do have gay friends, but that isn't why I oppose this proposition. Quite simply, it is wrong. It is hate.

When I was growing up, my parents tried very hard to instill in me a sense of right and wrong. At times I could see that it was very hard for them, because the racism that they did not want me to learn had been such a prevalent part of society when they grew up. I once overheard my dad chastising my mom when the merest hint of a racial stereotype had crept into something she had said or done. I was so proud of my parents. For many many years after that I would swell up with pride when I thought of that. My parents loved me so much that they fought to raise me better then they had been raised, to become an adult without that evil seed of hate for someone different from myself.

It's 11:09 now. With 82.42% of the precincts reporting, Proposition 2 has passed by 76.14% to 23.86%. Over 3 to 1. My state, the state that I was born and raised in, has decided that hate is the right way to go. And my parents, those divinely inspired people who taught me that hate is wrong, sit there with the majority. And I don't know which is worse. The disappointment from hoping, expecting even, to win, or the loss of something that you hold dear. Something that you have cherished throughout your adult life.

Maybe I do know which is worse.