a lot and nothing

So we had an amazing, excruciating trial, an agonizing wait, an exhilarating victory, a crushing stagnation in the form of the hold on the ruling, and now we have another wait, this one more frightening in a number of ways.

I feel I should say something about how my opinion on the court case changed between first learning about it (when I feared the worst) to the first rough summary of a day in court (when I was pessimistic and wary) to actually reading the details of the day (when I began to hope) to suffering through the history lessons and the dehumanizing arguments and general ignorant questions while getting more and more optimistic as the other side failed to produce any legal argument. Because that's what happened, and it's not documented here, so it looks like quite a jump from thinking the court case was a terrible idea to loving the ruling. It wasn't -- it was a very painful, wonderful process.

The reason I'm posting, then, is partly to clear that up, but mostly because, though Prop. 8 is unlikely to be resolved before 2012, we do have an election coming up, and I have to say something about the biggest part of it -- the gubernatorial race. As an advocate of equality, I have to say I'm terrified now -- as terrified as I was by Prop. 8 -- by Meg Whitman. I'm terrified by her anti-gay stance, I'm terrified by her anti-immigrant stance, and I'm terrified by her anti-feminist stance. As a student, I'm also terrified of her threats to cut back on education more ("cut waste" was how she worded it, but I can promise you, my school's long since done that.) California is desperate and the worst possible thing we can do in this situation is let the education system get weaker. Lower-quality and less accessible education -> fewer people qualified to do high-paying jobs -> less tax revenue in the future -> less funding for education -> even lower-quality and less accessible education -> the economy goes down the toilet at about warp 9. Oh, and a less educated populace is also one more likely to commit violent crimes, petty theft, and other such crimes, so we're also talking about a less safe society here.

So I'm currently raising funds for Jerry Brown, because (besides not being Meg Whitman) Jerry Brown has a great track record on LGBT issues (he signed the law legalizing gay sex in California in his last stint as governor, among other things) as well as on women's issues, other equality and representation issues, the economy, and the environment. And he understands the importance of education. And he's behind in the polls, because Whitman's filthy rich and has been spending a ton of money on dishonest and sneaky ads (though given how much she's been outspending him by, he's holding his own very well). So I figure this is the right thing to do, for myself and for California, at present.