Commentary: Did you see all the signs opposing California’s same-sex marriage measure? Neither did I

After 20 years in the same house, I started to feel as though I no longer belonged on my street. It was 2008, the year of Barack Obama’s first campaign for president, but also the year of Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in California.

I was covering marriage equality for the editorial board, writing several times a week about everything from gay couples’ parenting rights to the economics of same-sex weddings.

Then I would head home and, on the last leg of my commute, enter a different world. Driving down my quiet street in Laguna Beach felt more like running a gantlet than coming home. Most of the yards along the way were dotted with bright yellow and blue “Yes on 8” lawn signs with an image of an apple-pie conventional family that looked like it was from the 1950s instead of the 21st century: mom, dad, son, daughter, the females wearing dresses. “Restore Marriage,” the signs said, as though the advent of same-sex marriage had somehow eliminated all other weddings.

The preponderance of such signs was uncommon in Laguna Beach, once known for its large gay population and the first openly gay mayor in California. The city’s open attitude was a big part of why we’d moved there.

On the surface, mine was just another suburban household in a California ranch house: mom, dad, three kids, two dogs and a cat. But inside, our family values were vehemently opposed to what we saw on our street. We were suddenly outsiders in a place where we’d always felt at home.

People who consider it their right to force their religious beliefs on others are not just discomfiting to members of a religious minority like me; they’re frightening. We’re already seeing an expansion of that way of thinking on abortion, with terrible results.

When my family moved onto the street, there were three same-sex households, but they were long gone by 2008. Early in the Proposition 8 campaign, one neighbor came over with pro-8 pamphlets; we informed him that although we saw him as a good guy with whom we’d always gotten along, we would all be better off if he never tried that again.

A little more than half of California voters ended up supporting Proposition 8, outlawing same-sex marriage in the state. The measure was immediately challenged in court, and in 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the defendants in the case had no legal standing, which meant that Proposition 8 was blocked and same-sex marriage could continue.

But marriage equality in California was never vindicated on its merits, just on a technicality. The text of the measure was unenforceable, but the dead words remained in the California Constitution, a dead weight on our collective conscience.

Until now.

On Tuesday, Californians defeated the reactionary measure in a more meaningful way by passing Proposition 3, which guarantees marriage rights without prejudice. They rejected Proposition 8’s message of hate and intolerance, removed its language from our Constitution and officially renounced the lack of understanding and acceptance the state’s electorate showed in 2008.

Of course, times have changed in more ways than one. The young children of Proposition 8’s day are now voting adults with more expansive ideas about sex and gender.

This year, no one on that street put up any lawn signs — about anything. Maybe it was an attempt to remain friendly despite our differences at a time of great stress. Maybe it was a détente. Maybe they had changed their minds about same-sex marriage or were just too busy with gardening.

Or maybe they came to realize that there was no point in stirring up bad feelings over a measure that, according to polls, was sure to pass. This time, it was narrow thinking that was out of step with the mainstream.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings legalizing same-sex marriage — in California and, two years later, nationwide — allowed it to become common. A generation grew up seeing that marriage equality helped many and harmed no one. Although the original defeat of Proposition 8 was unsatisfying, it was still worth celebrating, both for the happiness it would bring and for the generation that just voted with the benefit of the knowledge that many voters lacked 16 years ago.

On that day in 2008, I took out a rainbow flag I had bought and hung it from the roof out front. Its message: Yeah, we don’t fit in here, but we’re OK with that, and we’re not going anywhere.

I still live in that house today.