Memo to California

Or, specifically, to those Californians who just voted to snatch marriage rights away from a gay population that had had it for several months:

What the fuck is wrong with you?

You're supposed to be this bastion of progressive ideals, California. You're supposed to be our version of Texas. You're the biggest blue state in the country, for god's sake.

Granted, that reputation has always been a bit overblown--you do contain the most conservative county in the United States, and you gave the nation Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bob Dornan. And two of your last three governors have been Republicans.

But still. You're California. And you were, until yesterday, at the vanguard of the great civil rights issue of our time.

And it didn't have to be that way. Last summer, "no on proposition 8" was leading by a whopping 17 points. Clearly you had no problem back then with letting your gay neighbors have basic civil rights.

But then, the Mormons showed up.

The Mormons, politically last seen stopping the Equal Rights Amendment from making it into the federal constitution. Thanks a fucking lot, Joseph Smith. I'm starting to think we ought to just let them have polygamy on the condition that they stay out of everyone else's damn business until the end of time. That, or we just let Utah secede and try to forget it's there.

But even at that, you did not have to listen to them. I mean, let me get this straight: you're all for letting your gay neighbors continue to have the same rights you have, but then a bunch of out-of-state busybody religious assholes in magic underwear show up and start shrieking "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!11!1!!1" and you actually find this persuasive?

I repeat: what the fuck is wrong with you?

I guess I should have expected it. You are, after all, the same voters who, five years ago, tossed out a governor you'd reelected less than a year earlier, in favor of Conan the Barbarian, whose entire campaign consisted of cheesy movie and SNL quotes.

It would seem that your entire political memory consists of whatever ad you saw on TV ten minutes before you went to the polls. Whether it made any fucking sense or not.

Give Governor Conan his due, though. He was against this. Maybe I underestimated him. But I think it's more likely I overestimated all of you.

There's also the sheer idiocy of a ballot initiative process that allows constitutional amendments to be introduced by absolutely anyone and pass by a simple majority vote. The entire point of constitutional government is to prevent passing whims of the electorate to be enshrined in stone if they cross certain lines, and to protect vulnerable minorities from the tyranny of the majority. You know, like protecting, oh, say, gay people from the panicky whims of idiots who listen to Mormons.

I know you're incapable of thinking long-term, or you wouldn't be so malleable, but I assure you, you had an opportunity to be thought of as a visionary state on civil rights, and you threw it away to join the historical company of the Jim Crow south. Congratulations.

Seriously. What the fuck is wrong with you?