Rosie O'Donnell, Wanda Sykes and the gay marriage debate

Rosie O'Donnell sees herself as a gay marriage pioneer -- and seems to have little time for those who believe she could have done more to oppose Proposition 8. According to The Times' Denise Martin:

Some reporters questioned why O'Donnell has been "oddly absent" from the uproar of California's passing of Proposition 8, which denies same-sex marriage. But the comedian scoffed. "This is nothing new for me. When I got married it was an act of civil disobedience as much as it was a love story. There is not any person in the country who doesn't know I'm for gay marriage. I'm not vocal enough? I got married before anyone else did. I've been living it and living it for a very long time."

Another comedian, Wanda Sykes, announced she's gay and is now protesting against the passing of Prop. 8. ABC News reports she might be a bridge between gay-rights groups and the African American community, which according to exit polls backed the ban on same-sex unions:

Living life in the spotlight -- as black and gay -- is twice as hard, according to other blacks who say they are stigmatized by society at large for their sexual orientation and again by their own homophobic culture. Sykes, who was unavailable for comment, is one of only a handful of black, gay celebrities to protest California's Proposition 8, the gay marriage ban that was passed with the help of a coalition of religious groups, many of them black.

--Shelby Grad

Photos: AP; LAT file

Comments

[Flex]

I agree with Rosie. She has stated before that she doesn't want to be married on only one state, she will rise up again when there is a challenge to the federal ban on gay marriage.

Maybe she feels that she she shouldn't have to fight for it. After all, anyone under 40 years old was born into the world after the civil rights struggle had been intergrated into society. We were born with equality surrounding us, except gay equality. Those protections were just there, and that is how I feel about gay equality. The rights should just be there! I am expecting prop 8 to be shattered to bits once the Supreme Court rules on it's validity. I'm looking forward to living my life with out the harassment of the religious right!

[LEADBONE]

What gay's have forgot is that their behavior is deivent. It is not normal nor is it accecpted by most Americans. Sexual oreintation does not make a Race. Being Gay is not a race of people, it is a group of people with a deivent behavior trying to make it seem NORMAL!!!.
This is NO WAY a civil rights issue.Black americans in California saw threw that. It is a Moral issue.PREIOD.

[Bodlon]

Of course it's a moral issue, Leadbone. All civil rights issues are moral issues. And you know what? It's never moral to discriminate against another human being, or take away that person's rights because she or he is different than you.

[Roger]

By the way, Leadbone, your spelling and grammar are majorly deviant! That fact only makes your argument seem even more ignorant that it is.

[mishi]

Hey Leadbone: African Americans weren't the only group voting for 8. The very religious voted for it, too, and though being religious isn't (usually) racial, those pious folks are quick to scream when they perceive their civil rights are being threatened. Also, support for 8 increased as a voter's educational level went down and (no offense, should you speak English as a second language) the presence of nearly a dozen spelling and grammatical mistakes in your short post suggests you're no PhD.

Rosie has NEVER been a pioneer in LGBT politics. She and Ellen were still in the closet and making "Lebanese" jokes long after millions of other Americans had come out - remember her "crush" on Tom Cruise? She not only came out 5 YEARS after Ellen did, she criticized deGeneres' coming out to Bill O'Reilly (!), saying it was "offensive." And, as far as I can see, she shuns real political work in favor of sponsoring pricey luxury cruises for lesbian moms. So - no surprise that she declined to fight while disingenuously praising herself as a brave pioneer.

[Kristin]

I think we should also give rights to adult men and women who want to marry their ten year old lovers. Who gives us the right to impose age limits on love? Many societies like Athens and others were totally fine with these types of relationships. Also, there are many adults who have fallen in love with their own children, and should have the right to marry them. These are all civil rights issues are they not? There need not be a limit to our freedoms.

[Zach]

Kristin, children cannot consent to a legal contract like marriage, so that's a non-issue. You'd have to change all laws of consent, and that's not going to happen. You seem to think "civil rights" is the right to get whatever you want, so people can demand anything (or deny anything as the Yes on 8 people have done) because they simply WANT to. That's not the case, it's about fairness in provisions under the law and protection from discrimination.

[SFimporter]

Flex, are you serious? You state that it's not NORMAL to be Gay? Is it NORMAL to bleach your hair, get breast enhancements, hair extensions, liposuction and drive a gas-guzzling SUV?

Normal is relative.

We're fighting to protect the rights of American families. The government should be encouraging the stability that same-sex marriage equality would bring.

[Lorian]

Kristin, you are being intentionally offensive. Clearly you understand that children cannot give informed consent to a sexual or marital relationship, and just as clearly you understand that relationships of mutuality between two adults who both give their consent cannot be considered the same as pedophilia by any measure. Therefore, the only conclusion I can draw is that you are being intentionally provocative and rude by drawing this spurious "comparison."

[Mike]

Wow, Kristin, you are totally right! Let's drag a non-sequitur into this discussion about children that are underage getting married to adults.

Call me crazy, which you probably will, but I don't think that the idea of two consenting adults in a relationship with each other is exactly parallel to a non-consenting CHILD having a sexual relationship with an adult. I mean, when I was 14 I totally thought that I should have a driver's license already, but for some CRAZY reason the police did not agree at all! Major bummer!!! I mean, I knew I could totally drive so why wasn't I allowed to?

And I don't know about your town, but not too "many adults" I know have 'fallen in love with their own children.' You seem to be a product of that environment because your mind sure thinks in the most CREATIVE WAYS! You crazy, storyteller you!

In all seriousness, Kristin, please, please, please finish getting your GED as soon as possible so you can finish bagging my groceries.

[Brian]

God...Kristin, "Leadbone"... same ignorant, ridiculous foot stomping, childish rhetoric ... Why don't you both get an education... or would that threaten your ignorance?... A persons sexuality is not a "behavior" or a choice, moral or otherwise... and comparing same sex marriage to pedophilia is so played out... one has nothing to do with the other... Your same arguments and mentality "God wants...God said... " and "If this than what next" crap is exactly the same stuff Archie Bunker types used against interracial marriage... and history will show you both as something to look back at, laugh at, and be embarrassed by too...

[mishi]

Kristin: I think your argument is idiotic. And you know what you're doing. We're talking consenting adults here. You know it, I know it, the whole round world knows it. But then, yours is the usual "slippery slope" bull that we have to put up with from homophobes; apparently, there need not be reasonableness limits on bigotry.I could do the same thing as you're doing: since the Bible condemns not only homosexuality but divorce, shouldn't we also have a constitutional anti-divorce amendment?

Rather than getting all snarky, can you give me one logical, documented, non-religious reason why two consenting unrelated adults of whatever gender(s) shouldn't get married? That might raise the level of debate beyond kindergarten.

[Nubby]

I'm sitting here reading my copy of the constitution and I don't find gay rights in there anywhere. As for civil rights, slavery was a civil rights issue, the right to vote is a civil rights issue. I don't see where who you want to sleep with is a civil rights issue. The constitution spells out freedom of religion, speech and of the press, freedom to own a gun, the right to a speedy trial, the right to vote is not prohibited based on your race or gender. Gee, it's just in there. Nope nothing about special rights for being morally deviant.

[Lorian]

Nubby, maybe you missed class the day that marriage as a civil right was explained. Remember Loving v. Virginia?

[Tim]

Hey Nubby, what does your copy of the Bill of Rights say? If you look closely you'll notice the word "all" in there, and despite the Religious Right's frequent attempts to redefine the traditional meaning of that word as "us and them", or rather "us versus them", every test of inclusion in our nation's history has been in the affirmative - "all" means "ALL". Every individual is to have the exact same set of rights and protections as INDIVIDUALS, irrespective of race, creed, color, gender, ability, sexual orientation, and every other characteristic the Religious Right seeks to turn into disqualifiers. So when you prattle on about marrying your own children - or pets - what you're actually doing is demonstrating the moral bankruptcy of your position. Since no one falls for that "love the sinner, hate the sin" garbage anymore, why don't you just come out of the closet and admit that your religion requires you to have an enemy and we're the easiest target? Oh, and by the way, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution defines your "religious rights" as the freedom to worship as you choose in the church of your choice. Period. Gay marriage will not hinder you from doing so.

[Born Free]

GeeeZUS! My mom tells the story of when I was five years old and I asked for dishes and a broom for Christmas. My father spends an hour explaining there are 'boy toys' and 'girl toys' and boys like 'boy toys' like trucks and footballs and girls like 'girl toys' like brooms and dishes. After he was done and he re-asked me what I wanted for Christmas, my mother tells the story that my response was, "I want a set of boy dishes and a boy broom."

Tell me I wasn't born gay. Loardy! And if I was born gay then God made me that way and damn it, I deserve to get married.

[Tiara]

As a black lesbian I am disgusted by the constant use of religious piety to finalize legal discrimination. I may only be seventeen, but I at least know enough about religious (especially Christian) use of the Bible to justify sexism, slavery and homophobia. I refuse to let the beliefs of those who truly believe in an amendment to gay marriage( specifically bible selective literalists) validate me. Have we as a nation forgotten the propensity to justify ignorance, stereotyping, eugenics, heteronormativity, et cetera with some form of deity?

I have a Muslim father, a Christian mother, and I am an Agnostic lesbian. I am the product of slavery/colonization, Darwinian sexual selection, psychological junk science and criminalization being criticized. Millions of AMERICANS and I are not going to crawl into a corner and die because the majority of one states' voters decided that we are not worthy of legal protection and validation. We will validate ourselves and we will get the 1000 or more rights monogamist straight couples receive. Our straight parents and friends will be there as well. Believe that this only makes us stronger.

[mishi]

If we can please ignore Nubby's ignorance of the Supreme Court, Kristin's willing ignorance of "consent," and Leadbone's ignorance of just about everything, and go back to the original topic...

I've already to confessed to real ambivalence re: Rosie. She seems more adept at showboating and cruise-shipping than engaging in any sort of sustained political work. Her self-aggrandizing statement in the above article just added to my skepticism.

Rosie, darling, you have most assuredly NOT been "living it" (if you're referring to living a truthful life) for "a very long time." You've been out for just six years, being closeted till the fairly ripe age of 40, and having called those who urged you to come out earlier "gay Nazis," truly offensive under the circumstances. Your getting married was not "civil disobedience," a term which implies risking punishment to protest unfair laws. You got safely married in SF City Hall, fer goodness sake, and did not "get married before anyone else did," seeing as how 3300 other same-sex couples had beat you to the punch...and that just in SF. So why the heck couldn't you lift a finger to help what you define as a major issue for you? And, having not done so, couldn't you refrain from dubbing yourself the Queen of All Things Lesbian?

What do you other LGBT folks think?

[Meret]

If Black culture is so much more insidiously homophobic than others why is it that the election data is as follows:

Prop. 8 found support among 81 percent of white evangelicals, 65 percent of white Protestants, 64 percent of Catholics and 84 percent of weekly worshipers. Don't trust exit polls.

African-Americans are less than 7% of the state population, do the math. Many more Whites voted and they put this over, not Blacks. Someone dug into the data and found that we're just now learning is that the exit poll was based on less than 2,300 people. If you take into account that blacks in California only make up about 6.2%, we get roughly 224 blacks who were polled. 224 blacks to blame an entire race!

The truth is, I have heard that Prop 8 passed because of Republican support. 82% of Republicans admitted to supporting the proposition. They were not the ones who came out to vote for Obama.

One blogger states that if you look at all the data, you'll see numbers for first time voters. They rejected Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. These first time voters were overwhelmingly for Obama, 83-17. Without Obama, Prop 8 would have passed by a much larger margin. http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=California_Proposition_8_(2008)
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html

[Roger]

Tiara, at seventeen, you're smarter, more analytical, and way better informed than the average middle-aged American. Who knows, maybe one day I'll get to vote for you for President!

[A]

God has made us in His image. Why so much hatred for a Creator who loves his creatures?God is the one who created marriage in the first place through Adam and Eve. As people are we so disobdient that we can't see who we are? It sounds like so much hatred on this message board. Is the sodomite community willing to listen to the voice of God? Repent (turn from your own ways to God's ways). Give your hearts and soul to the Lord. Thank you for reading and listening to my comments.

AJ

[Brian]

Yes AJ... God created us in his image... so God is gay ... thanks for clearing that up....

...also ... it is scientifically impossible for the entire population of the planet to have come from two people. If you believe that it did then you also believe that incest is the natural way of procreation... kind of eclipses your gay problems... I love how selective your kind is when it comes to the bible... You only take what you want to use as a tool to justify your hatred... and blindly deny the rest. Go picket the Red Lobster for selling shellfish *abomination*!!

[Austonian]

To AJ:

Ah yes, the Bible. Isn't that the same book that was quoted to support slavery? Isn't that the same book that was quoted to support keeping interracial marriage illegal? Isn't that the same book that was quoted to stop women from voting? Isn't that the same book that was quoted to support segregation? The Bible has been used for centuries for evil purposes. I choose to believe the passages that talk about love and compassion, but that's just me.

[Franc]

LEADBONE, the only thing that's deviant is YOUR SPELLING. Why is it all Right Wing Religious Fanatics also can't write a coherent sentence with a coherent thought or spell a two syllable word correctly. Could it be because they are IGNORANT!

[Heat the 916er]

Why can't ya'll just be gay and leave it alone. No one has taken your right to be gay, you just don't get a stamp with it. Maybe we should legalize drugs for everyone who wants to get high they have the right!

[Bradley]

Those who supported Prop-8 were mis-lead, or homophobic... or both.

It's so sad that so many people are scared of gay marriage.

It's only a matter of time before it's ruled unconstitutional.

(also: the gays have money... and a lot of it)

[Thoughtful]

Wait, Kristin isn't so far off. We seem to be ok with giving condoms at school to our underage children. We seem to be ok with LGBT support groups on campuses of high schools for 14-year-olds to partake in. We seem to think that abstinence education is just plain stupid. We obviously recognize and allow minors to be able to determine and act upon their sexuality, so what's all this crap about being unable to give consent just becuase the other party is an adult? Why on earth should it make a difference? Are we now discriminating based on age? You can't have it both ways, folks. Everyone wants rights, and the line is going to continue to grow. The people have a right to vote on what they want to be acceptable in society.

[Lorian]

"Thoughtful":

The laws governing consent of minors are well-established and need be no different for gay minors than for straight minors. When an adult of a given age (as specified in laws governing age of consent, state-by-state) has sexual contact with a minor of a specified age, it is classified as statutory rape (I'm betting you know this already and were simply BEHAVING as though you were oblivious in order to cast aspersions upon gays...).

GLBT groups in schools are set up to help adolescent glbt kids meet their social and community support needs (not as "sex clubs," as you seem to imply). Giving condoms to teens is another issue (one of which I approve far more than I approve of teen pregnancies and teens acquiring STDs).

But the point is, there is nothing about support groups for GLBT youth, or the provision of safe places for GLBT youth to socialize (rather than get beaten up by their peers at an unfriendly straight school dance) which carries any implication of "marrying one's children," as Kristin pretended.

Minors can give consent to interaction with other minors as governed by laws of consent. They cannot give consent to sex or to marriage with an adult. Again, your disingenuousness triggers my gag reflex.

[Lorian]

Heat:

The issue is not whether we have the "right to be gay." Clearly, we do. The issue is whether or not we have the right to protect our spouses and children with the more than 1000 civil rights and protections which come with federal recognition of our marriages. Taking away our right to marry at the state level reduces the chance that we will ever be able to protect our children on a level comparable to the protections received by the children of straight parents.

These are CIVIL rights and have nothing to do with whether or not a church will recognize us as "married," nor do they have anything to do with the acquisition of a "status symbol." I don't know too many gay couples who are worried about status symbols. Mostly we are concerned that we can adequately provide for our family's needs and well-being, particularly if one parent dies.

That's a good part of what CIVIL marriage was created for -- protecting families in the event of an adverse happening.

Belittle us if you want, but don't forget that it is our innocent children you are hurting by voting to withhold basic civil rights and protections from our families.

[Lorian]

One more thing, "Thoughtful":

You state that "The people have a right to vote on what they want to be acceptable in society."

So, if the people voted to reinstate slavery, you'd be fine with that? You think that it is acceptable to have ANY GIVEN THING be part of what our country considers "acceptable," just because it passes a popular vote? Banning interracial marriage is okay, so long as the majority of the country thinks it's acceptable? What about a popular vote on whether you should be able to practice your personal religious beliefs?

See, the thing is, we have constitutional protections of civil and religious rights because the general population does not always "do the right thing" where minorities are concerned. Therefore our constitution and our courts are tasked with protecting minorities from the will of the majority as expressed in the popular vote. Popular votes are great for deciding issues which affect us all equally. When it comes to civil rights and the protection of minorities, not so much.

[JR]

Rosie didn't protest Prop 8 because it was in her contract with producers of her new show not to be involved in any controversial topics i.e. Prop 8.

[Sara]

The votes were made in CA. 8 passed.
Not happy with the winning vote?
The people made their choice.
Why point fingers as to why it passed?
Don't hate right?

[mishi]

Yes, "Thoughtful," the question may in fact be where you draw the line. For many years, the line was drawn at interracial marriage, not because of any compelling reason, but because of prejudice. "I don't like it" is not a compelling reason to abridge someone's rights. Neither is "God this God that Adam and Eve blah blah blah."

Look, the problem with abstinence education is not that it's "Stupid." It's that a number of major studies have shown it to be ineffective. LIkewise with same-sex marriage. An oft-raised argument is "It's vital for kids to have parents of two genders," but inconveniently, the vast preponderance of research shows that kids in same-sex households do at least as well as those with male-and-female parenting.

(By the bye - and I'm assuredly not advocating for changes in the current laws, but... - you might want to know that the age of consent in the many countries is in fact 14, or even, in places from Spain to South Korea, even lower.)

As I said to Kristin, rather than use the "Next thing you know, people will be marrying their dogs" argument, it would be helpful if you could come up with a single reason - one based on empirical evidence and not on personal dislike or a desire to impose purely religious standards on others - why same-sex marriage is harmful. (For example, gay marriage is legal in Canada - has that led to any increase in pressure to lower the age of consent?) Since you're so "thoughtful," I'm sure you can come up with SOMETHING.

[Lorian]

Sara:

There is nothing "hateful" about demanding equal civil rights and protections for our children and families. We should be contented to be treated as second-class citizens, when we contribute just as much to society as any individual or family? I don't think so. Don't try to "repaint" this as pettiness. I need equal civil rights so that my children will have equal protections as compared to children of straight parents.

You decided that families like mine, children like mine are less worthy of the protections we grant in this society by way of civil marriage. YOU trivialized the issue when you voted. I will not allow you to trivialize my response. This is about caring for my family -- caring for my two little children. My family deserves the same rights and protections as your family.

If you want to make playground taunts ("WE won! YOU lost!!! na-na-na-na-na-na!") just be aware that you are behaving badly in an issue where you voted to take away the hope of future equal protections from children.

Do I hate you? No. I am deeply saddened that you apparently cannot think past your own life situation to consider the needs and rights of others.

[Chris]

Can I just say how much I absolutely adore Lorian?!