Joy Turns to Shock and Anger For many the joy of Obama’s Presidential victory was diminished by their shock and anger when Proposition 8 passed in California, overturning gay marriage in that state. The rage and pain for some of my gay and lesbian friends was visceral. They wanted to fight back. I support gay marriage. However, for me the larger question is: How can we encourage the arrival of social change? One gay friend argued with me vociferously when I referred him to an article by Lee Stranahan which recommends following Obama’s tactics: “What if instead of merely chalking up opposition to “fear and hate” they went in churches and communities and started engaging in conversations?

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Americans today are divided, polarized by political and cultural schisms that are wide, painful and deep. The nature of the issues that divide us are social, cultural, political and religious. In some ways it feels as if we are living in two different countries, depending on where you live and how you describe these schisms and how you vote. The simplest description of this division is to separate the country into the so-called red states and blue states, that is that people in those states vote overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic depending on how they feel about certain cultural or social issues. We can pretty much predict that most people who are pro-choice vote Democratic and most people who are against same sex marriage vote Republican. No surprise there.

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