Score one for the chickens of California. They organized. They strategized. They held townhall meetings and circulated pro-poultry pamphlets door to door. Then election night came. Would the people of California vote yes on Prop 2 to expand cages on chicken farms to twice their current size? Or would the people fall back on their poultry prejudices and keep them couped up on top of each other.
The chicken organizers held their beaks with bated breath on November 4th and watched the numbers come in. Then, out of the blue, pandemonium broke out. Feathers flew and they squawked and did that weird thing where they try to fly for a splitsecond and then come back to the ground, all in excitement–Prop 2 had passed!
In another strategy room the mood was not so cheerful. California’s gays and lesbians would find themselves sadly disappointed when California passed Proposition 8, barring them from marrying. In California? The state that was the last leg of the wild frontier, that housed San Francisco, a gay mecca? How could this happen? For answers, I went straight to the leader of “Chickens for Better Cages”.
Through an interpreter, he clucked that the cause had a fatal flaw.
“Look at what else was on the ballot–an historic Presidential election where we might have our first black President. You guys voted for him. So did blacks and minorities in unprecendented numbers. And there you have your fatal flaw. Those same minorities that voted for Barack and voted yes on Prop 2, looked at Prop 8 and said ‘no way’ cuz somebody from the other side came to their church the week before and put the fear of God into them about you guys. “
“What would you have done differently if you were heading the push against Prop 8?”
“Well, first of all, I wouldn’t have sent my chickens out to vote for the guy who would’ve attracted the wrong crowd to the polls, although you really didn’t have much choice there, did you? McCain seemed to want to pretty much leave you guys alone until he had to make nice nice with the religious right–then it all went to shit. I don’t know if I could’ve done anything differently. Maybe raise more money I guess–you guys were definitely outspent by Gary Bauer and his crew.”
And there you have it. On November 4th, 2008, due to forces largely out of anyone’s control, California voted no to gay pride and yes to poultry pride.
