Me and the husband marching with the queer married folk, SF Pride 2004
According to an article in today’s San Jose Mercury News, a poll taken by researchers across California reports that Asian Americans are soundly against California’s Proposition 8, a referendum designed to end same-sex marriage by putting in an amendment in California’s constitution. Their findings conclude that 57% of those polled (out of 1100 Asian Americans) would be voting against the proposition.
On the one hand, it’s very encouraging to hear these results, especially since there has been a push by most California Asian American politicians as well as Asian American LGBT groups to get the word out against putting something in the state constitution. However, I’m wary about getting too excited about this, especially given that there’s a strong movement by conservative Asian American Christians to vote for the proposition. Just last Sunday, there was a rally in San Francisco’s Chinatown to get Chinese Americans to vote for Prop 8, and while there were groups such as Asian Equality there to counter-rally and demonstrate against it, it does send a disturbing message. (I happened to be in San Francisco Chinatown at the same time of the rally, but gave it a WIDE berth so that I wouldn’t get caught up in the hoopla — for obvious reasons.)
Also, the term “Asian Americans” is so amorphous that it limits a lot of people who’d be able to participate in these surveys because of their lack of fluency in English and American culture, and so it helps to not read too much into this. I think it does help that since the same-sex marriages that have happened in 2004, the Asian and Asian American media has done a lot to dispel many of the misconceptions and stereotypes of queer Asian Americans (and I’m proud to say that I played a small role in that).
But of course, there is rhetoric by those who are for the proposition, such as Bill Tam, a San Francisco (!!!!) native who’s leading the drive to get the proposition passed, and who’s quoted by the Merc as saying:
“We hope to convince Asian-Americans that gay marriage will encourage more children to experiment with the gay lifestyle and that the lifestyle comes with all kinds of disease,” he said.
Experiment?! Uh, Mr. Tam, most of us who are queer don’t experiment — we already know, we just want to confirm. And obviously, Mr. Tam has never bothered to look at all the efforts that Asian Americans have done in San Francisco to prevent the spread of HIV and other STDs all over San Francisco and nationwide, especially by groups such as API Wellness Center.
Anyway, regardless of your political beliefs, if you are an American citizen and can vote, please do so. And if you’re for Prop 8, please don’t tell me.
