Same-Sex Marriage Debate Makes Me Wonder -- Do Bigots Live Here?

Many of you Silicon Valley Moms may have seen the giant photo of my neighborhood featured on the cover of the Local section of the San Jose Mercury News yesterday. The title of the article summed up what is happening in our little neck of the woods in San Jose, "Same Sex Marriage Debate Growing Ugly in San Jose and Beyond". This all started a few weeks ago when the Mormons in our neighborhood planted lawns signs for "Yes on Proposition 8" on the same day, in what appeared to be a move coordinated or encouraged by their church. I drove home from wherever I was with the kids and felt sick to my stomach when I saw that our otherwise-very-nice next door neighbors had put one up. My first thought was "This could get ugly". And now it has.

You see, while I may appear to be a typical Silicon Valley Mom (2 kids, nice husband, part-time job that I can do from home), inside me beats the heart of a raging civil rights activist. Maybe it's because I share a birthday with Martin Luther King, Jr. Or maybe it's because I chose to study social justice at Berkeley. Whatever the reason, when it comes to rights and issues of equality for all people, I am, in the words of a famous female politician, "a pit bull with lipstick". (Well only on the days when my life with the toddlers allows me time to put on the lipstick, but you get the point.) So I started making phone calls, sending emails and doing everything else I could to see where I could get a "No on 8 - Equality for All" sign and support the campaign. I finally went down to the Democratic Party Headquarters in San Jose and picked up a few lawn signs for "No on 8" and convinced some open-minded neighbors to put them up.

In my blissful ignorance, I thought that might be the end of it. Then another Mormon family around the corner put up what must be the world's largest "Yes on 8" banner on their house. And someone else clearly decided that was the last straw. So they parked their giant SUV out front and wrote on the windows "Bigots Live Here" with an arrow pointing to the house with the banner.

A neighbor who attends a church that flies the rainbow flag and bills itself as having a policy of "Open Doors, Open Minds" called yesterday to tell me about the SUV. In the last few weeks, our neighborhood has been all abuzz about politics getting local -- and serious -- in our quiet little corner of Silicon Valley.

Did I forget to mention that the giant banner and the SUV are both right across from our local elementary school? Apparently some parents are upset that they have to explain the bigotry accusation to their kids. The family who put up the banner has been quoted in the newspaper as being shocked and saddened by the "hate" they see in the message on the SUV.

What they don't mention is the hate that some of us see every time we confront yet another bright yellow "Yes on 8" banner or lawn sign. What those bumper stickers and signs say to me is that even in the United States of America some people believe they are "more equal" than other people. It is a painful reminder of decades-old battles for civil rights and equality under the law that this country fought -- and for which many people died -- in the 1950's and 1960's. Remember how the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the notion that it was all right to provide "separate but equal" schools for black and white children? So now people want a constitution in California that says that although all people are equal, some are actually less equal and and should have unequal rights than the rest of us. What if the group that was being excluded from having the right to marry was Black people, or Asian people, or Hispanic people, or Mormons? Would the "Yes on 8" campaign succeed then?

Having that giant banner and the SUV parked in front of our local school provides parents with a great opportunity to start talking to kids about what we stand for in the United States and what values we hold here in California. Parents could teach their children the notion that protecting the rights of minority groups -- even ones who you might have no personal affinity for -- is fundamental to what this country is about.

This is an original post to Silicon Valley Moms Blog.

Erica also blogs on politics, parenting and random bits of research that catch her eye at www.wellthoughtoutspot.blogspot.com.