We all know that Kathy Griffin loves the gay community, but if there was any question about that, it was answered on last night’s episode of My Life on the D-List. Kathy decided that in order to fulfill her quest to make it to the A-List, she needed to become an activist, and what better way to do that than to protest Prop 8? Well, we can debate that, but her heart is in the right place. In any event, there were a few segments during the episode that resonated with me, so I wanted to discuss them here. (btw, I realize the reference may be a bit dated for this audience, but this entry title and Kathy's sign are references to the 1979 movie Norma Rae starring Sally Field).

First, and perhaps least insightful of my observations (though I don’t necessarily claim that any are particularly sage), I was surprised to hear one woman with whom Kathy spoke while she was canvassing against Prop 8 say something along the lines of, “I have no problem with gay relationships. They can have unions, which gives them the same rights as marriage.” Right? WRONG. Kathy, fortunately, was armed with the famous factoid that marriage provides over 1,000 federal benefits that civil unions do not. This made me wonder, though, how many people have this sort of misinformation? And if they had the correct information, would it have changed their votes? What a lovely illustration of the need to educate the public, no?

So, like every other person in our alphabet soup of a community this past week, I'm a touch infuriated.

The California Supreme Court has not struck down Prop 8. It stays, and we're showing our anger through protests and screaming and interviews on the nightly news. This is all well and good - but I have to wonder if maybe we should simply back off of gay marriage as a cause for a while.

More after the jump.