As we wait for the close of the polls this evening, hopefully bringing with it the news of a victory for all that is right and good and true in this country, it is time to reflect on the many small gestures that are happening all around us now…the small globes of light that will show us the way back to who and what we were as a nation, and what we will be once again. We have forgotten who and what we are.
The eighty-something African-American woman who, last week, with tears in her eyes and trembling hands, was helped by her great-grandson into a voting booth in North Carolina so that she could vote for the very first time in her life.
The everyday citizens holding massive, organized neighborhood bake-a-thons and setting up tables with free homemade cookies, cupcakes, and hot coffee for all the hundreds of people waiting in line for hours in the bitter cold to cast their votes in this historic election. Just because.
The countless volunteers who have given so much of their time and passion to ensuring that people are able to participate in a free, fair, and just election.
Another such moment happened September 19th, 2007 in the city of San Diego. Jerry Sanders, the Republican mayor of that fair city by the sea, held a press conference to announce that, after much soul-searching, not only had he reversed his long-held public opposition to same-sex marriage, but that he would immediately be signing a City Council resolution in support of the rights of gays and lesbians to marry in the state of California. He has also recently announced that he officially opposes Proposition 8.
Sander’s statement and decision was unprecedented: a prominent Republican mayor of a major metropolitan American city has now officially and publicly thrown his full support in opposition to Proposition 8 — a proposition of hatred, intolerance, and discrimination whose sole purpose is to change the California constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry.
Sanders, with his wife, Rana, standing by his side, stepped up to the podium and delivered a poignant and emotional speech that not only went against everything his party and quite sizable (and moneyed) political constituency stands for (surprisingly enough, despite being a laid back beach community, San Diego is a well-known Republican stronghold), the Republican mayor of the sixth largest city in the country did what is perhaps the bravest, most amazing thing I have ever witnessed a politician do:
Because of his love for his openly gay, 25 year old daughter, Lisa, and his profound hope that she be afforded the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities of marriage should she so choose, he set aside his own personal and political interests, and at great cost to himself, voted with his heart:
“I have close family members and friends who are a member of the gay and lesbian community. Those folks include my daughter Lisa, as well as members of my personal staff.
I want for them the same thing that we all want for our loved ones—for each of them to find a mate whom they love deeply and who loves them back; someone with whom they can grow old together and share life’s experiences.
And I want their relationships to be protected equally under the law. In the end, I couldn’t look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationship—their very lives—were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife Rana.”
So shines a good deed in a weary world.
By the way, if you can get through that video unmoved, please take a moment out of your busy schedule to unfriend me now, as you and I got nothin’ further to talk about, baby.
Also, please join me in contacting the office of Mayor Jerry Sanders to thank him for his courage and to let him know that, despite the great personal and professional cost to himself, he made the correct choice by taking a stand on behalf of equality and social justice.
He needs to be told that even if we lose this battle, we have not lost the war. The fight for equality for all Americans, regardless of their sexual preference or orientation, will go on.
And most importantly, he needs to be told that in the future, when the sort of hate, intolerance, and discrimination put forth by this proposition and all who support it, is, alongside slavery and racism, but a sad, shameful footnote in the great story of America, that he will be judged by history to have been a good and decent man who, for the love of his daughter and all those like her, risked much to do the right thing.
The Office of the Mayor of San Diego:
JerrySanders@sandiego.gov
(619) 236-6330
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