We have less than 24 hours before voters across California head to the polls to cast their ballots for the most important election in generations. That means we have less than 24 hours to protect the freedom to marry by persuading every single person we know to vote NO on Prop. 8.
Every vote matters in the fight against Prop. 8. All the polls in the past week have shown a statistical tie on Prop. 8 - and we're counting on the millions of Californians who believe in equal rights to be the tiebreaker. The right-wing extremists behind Prop. 8 are filling our airwaves and mailboxes with lies and intolerance.
It's up to each of us to fight back with our own words and from our hearts. Now is the time for you to take action - here's what you can do:
1. GET THE MESSAGE OUT Call, email and text your friends and family. Explain to them, in your own words, why you're against Prop. 8 and ask them to vote NO.
2. VOTE The only way we're going to defeat Prop. 8 is at the ballot box, and every vote will make a difference.
We have less than 24 hours to stop discrimination from being written into our constitution.
It's up to us now.
Tomorrow, please join me, President Clinton, Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, Arnold Schwarzenegger and countless other leaders, organizations and voters just like you in doing everything we can to defeat Prop. 8.
To learn more, please visit www.NoOnProp8.com
Follow Gavin Newsom on Twitter: www.twitter.com/GavinNewsom
For the uninitiated, Newsom is the San Francisco playboy Mayor who was elected with Willie Brown's political machine and Gordon Getty's money.
He was so unpopular with SF progressives that he nearly lost the election to Green Party candidate, Matt Gonzales, even though he outspent Gonzales 10 to 1. Newsom was so unpopular with the GBLT community that he was booed at the Annual Gay Pride parade.
Being a shrewd Pol, Mr. Newsom, decided to woo SFs large and wealthy gay block by co-opting gay marriage. The GBLT community abandoned progressive instincts in favor their own special interests. Newsom used the issue to garner publicity while simultaneously establishing a political base.
No one has more at stake in seeing that Proposition 8 fails than Newsom. His political career depends on it's outcome. The grandstanding, so clearly encapsulated in the Yes on 8 "LIKE IT OR NOT" ads reveals of Mr. Newsom's true motives in supporting marriage rights.
In 2004, when Newsom started issuing same sex licenses in SF, there was a documentary crew recording every move. Coincidentally, the director of this documentary is his brother-in-law. Not surprisingly, the poster for this documentary features not a gay couple, but rather a large picture of Mr. Newsom and the American flag.
So, when Mr. Newsom pleads us to vote NO on Prop 8, be aware that he's really pleading for us to keep his political career alive.
Considering your position on Prop 8, I was surprised to find out that you vehemently oppose Prop K on the San Francisco ballot. Prop K would decriminalize prostitution in the City.
Please enlighten us sir. Is it legalized prostitution, a la Amsterdam and Nevada, that you abhor, or is it merely the wording in Prop K that you find problematic?
Could it be sir, that you are intolerant?
In fact biblical marriages, were mostly based on trading a daughter to a man to give his land and earthly belongings to.
Maybe we should go back to that. They still pick for you in other countries. The parents choose on what they can get out of it for you. That is totally better than gays getting married and living their own personal lives. Bartering your kids.
You know what it is? Offensive.
Laws that outlaw "any form of homosexual coupling", as you put it, were on the books in 15 states as recently as 2003. Even in California, anti-sodomy laws were in effect until 1976. So by your own argument, comparisons between same-sex marriage and interracial marriage do, in fact, work.
We urge you to make sure to vote tomorrow, on Nov 4 and vote No on Prop 8 that would change the California Constitution to take civil rights away from two consensual adults to marry.
We leave you with some words of Gavin Newsom:
(This one is an hour long talk Gavin gave at Google, long, but inspirational and well worth watching. If you lose interest in the middle of the Q&A just listen to the last few minutes to learn why this means so much to so many people)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhCZJOLAq3E
We read a recent study that correlates people's opinions of homosexuals with the number of gay people they know. Well, living in the Bay Area for many years, we happen to know quite a few. We can tell you, they are no crazier than at least other people living in the Bay Area! :) Among many of our friends, we have witnessed Sheila and Meg's struggles to adopt their two wonderful daughters in India. Our friends Chris and Tim just got married. They also recently bought a house in San Francisco, which we think they would lose without Chris' salary. Chris is Canadian and while many of us enjoy being together with our spouses, Chris might have to go back to Canada, because the federal government would not recognize their California marriage. Unless you act and show with your vote to the whole nation that you recognize people's constitutional rights, who are different than you and tell the rest of the nation. All the polls suggest that this is a very close race and YOUR VOTE COUNTS.
Vote, and don't give up!
Obama/Biden '08!
Prop 8 proponents are unhappy, because the previous proposition 22 that passed in the 2000 elections was overturned by "activist" judges. The fact is, it was the California Supreme Court, not a bunch of "activist" judges, that decided Proposition 22 was against the California Constitution. The high-court had a 6-1 majority in Republican appointees when it passed the decision. It was hardly activist and we find it disconcerting to dismiss a decision of the California Supreme Court to enforce state constitution when the judges were simply doing their jobs.
Proposition 8 would be an equivalent of trying to change the US Constitution, after the Supreme Court decided in 1967 that banning interracial marriages would be unconstitutional.
On another note, we would like to remind you that people that we know, who are perhaps still alive, grew up with prejudice against different races. We think, it will be also historic to look back in perhaps 20 years and study how the society thought and why.
No, actually it would be equivalent to trying to change the California Constitution,... duh...
What do we think about this?
First, emotionally, it is an extreme shocker to know that matching the race of your spouse to yours was a legal issue, until 1967, in some parts of the country. That is less than half a century ago and within most of your lifetimes. Even in California, you couldn't legally marry another race until 1949. Wow!
Second, the decision Loving v. Virginia, 1967, didn't grant a black person the right to marry, or a white person the right to marry, or a hispanic person the right to marry; it granted them the right to marry of their choosing. Too often, we hear the argument that homosexuals aren't taken away their right to marry, they just can't marry the same sex. Well, I don't think the Loving v. Virginia was about that and this argument, goes against the rationale of Loving v. Virginia. Back then a very high percentage of people (I think it was 70-80% - as stated by Gavin Newsom) of the population were against interracial marriage, but the court decided. People didn't talk about activist judges then, but they were outraged.
The rest of the nation continued miscegenation (interracial marriage) laws until the Supreme Court decision of Loving v. the State of Virginia, 1967. The Court agreed, reiterating that marriage is one of the basic civil rights of man, and that the state has no business dictating which races may or may not intermarry. The decision had to do with the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution that says:
"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Here is an excerpt from the Loving v. Virginia decision:
"To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
Dear friends and family,
Sorry to send you this mass e-mail it's a gross last resort, but this race is too close and too historic to ignore. G. and I would like to ask a few minutes of your time to let you know about our views on Proposition 8 and why we are so committed to this civil rights issue.
Proposition 8 would change the constitution of California to limit marriage to being between a man and a woman, taking away rights that people have had for months and months. This would be the first time our constitution (or the constitution of the U.S) that would take away people's rights, rather than expand them. Prop 8 is heavily funded by the Mormon church and other out of state donors, such as the CEO of Blackwater and other people who helped elect Bush in 2000 and 2004.
The ad on www.noonprop8.com website, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson reminds us:
"It wasn't that long ago that discrimination was legal in California," the ad says.
"Latinos and African Americans were told who they could and could not marry." In fact this was true until 1949.
Ironically it will probably be the same Latinos and African Americans, who are mostly socially conservative, who will decide the fate of Prop 8.
History will be VERY kind to you.
Namaste my brother.
I think those of you that feel that way are selfish, hateful, destructive fascists. I think if there is a benevolent, all knowing and understanding God, he/she would view your approach to the quarter billion gay and lesbians on the planet as reprehensible, grotesquely hypocritical, and diametrically opposed to anything remotely spiritual.
Just as citizens of Utah singled out Mormons to prohibit their practice of polygamy. ZThis is what Demcratic societies do, majorities decide what minority rights are beneficial, and which are not.
California electorate repeatedly approved providing gays with significant rights and priviliges ( most of which I support). But many Californians are now bulking at the marriage for gays as something socially unacceptable.
As Mason said to Dixon:" We've got to draw the line somewhere."
Yes on 2, Yes on 8, No on 11.
Oh, and a point of history - the citizens of Utah did not decide that polygamy was unacceptable. Doing away with the practice was a precondition for Utah joining the union, and hey presto, the LDS President had a convenient revelation that overruled the Mormon scriptures' clear support for plural marriage.
the constitution states that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
NOT DOGS.
i suggest you get your *ss back into school and brush up on political science.
(apparently, you were daydreaming in high school when this was taught to you the first time).