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Tight Margins on Gay Marriage Prop Sends Californians Into the Streets
Statewide polls show that voters are split dead-even on Proposition 8 in California, which attempts to ban gay marriage. The issue has triggered well-organized campaigning from both sides as Election Day nears with intensified visibility in the last week. A "Yes" vote would support a ban against gay marriage. A "No" vote supports gay marriage.
Gay marriage was banned in California after the 2000 election, when more than 60 percent of voters passed Proposition 22. In May of this year, however, the California Supreme Court deemed that statute was in violation of the equal protection clause of the state constitution, making it legal for same-sex couples to marry. Proposition 8 is an attempt to overturn that court ruling.
In a surprise turnout in what is a heavily Democratic area of the San Francisco Peninsula, anti-gay marriage "Yes on 8" volunteers dressed in yellow t-shirts waved signs Saturday, covering intersections from Daly City to San Jose -- a forty mile stretch. Many of them stood along one of the main thoroughfares, El Camino Real, urging drivers passing by to support the ban.
Toli Fa, the public affairs director for the Yes on 8 "protect marriage" campaign in San Mateo County, said that the movement started several months ago with evangelical leaders meeting on a regular basis. Included in the group of supporters are churches of many denominations, but Fa said that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints provided a bulk of the funding for the statewide campaign.
In talking about how the permission of gay marriages would affect her, Fa said, "I'm not going to be called a bride anymore. Only Party A or Party B." Fa was less concerned with the rights of gay people who wished to get married. "Everybody has their rights," she said, brushing off the idea. "But they're trying to change it for the rest of us."
Most volunteers on the street came as part of church groups. One volunteer holding a poster admitted she came because of her church but that she didn't know much about the proposition. As a driver was pulling his vehicle out of a gas station driveway nearby, he shouted out the window for clarification: "If you're against gay marriage, which way do you vote on this one?" The volunteer shrugged and said she didn't know.
She may not be the only one confused, however. Campaign volunteers on both sides have acknowledged that it seems counterintuitive for voters to say "yes" when they oppose gay marriage and "no" if they support it.
"It's so interesting that people feel this is an attack on marriage," said Don Diltz, chairperson of the Peninsula No on 8 Campaign. "I think it supports marriage... if you don't believe in marriage for same-sex couples, then of course don't participate in one. But you shouldn't single out a class of Californians and treat them differently in the constitution. That is just not fair and not right. It's really against how we treat people in California."
One of the biggest controversies being played out on the airwaves is how this proposition would affect education in public schools. TV ads from the "Yes on 8" campaign tell viewers that children's education would be at stake.
"Our kids will be learning that princes can marry princes," Toli Fa said. Referring to Massachusetts, where gay marriage is legal, Fa said that parents there have lost control of what their children were being taught. See the "Yes on 8" ad:
"No on 8" ads counter that argument by having the California superintendent of schools say that is not the case. David Pine, a school board member of the San Mateo Union High School District, said that the educational code instructs teachers to mention marriage as part of the health course, and that there should be "some instruction on the benefits of marriage in supporting a strong family." The educational code permits parents to exclude their children from these family health lessons if they choose so. This is the "No on 8" counter-ad:
The strong showing of yellow-clad "Yes on 8" volunteers lined along El Camino prompted some opponents of Prop. 8 to immediately pick up some "No on 8" signs from the San Mateo County Democratic Headquarters and hold them on the street as well. "The Yes on 8 signs make you realize we're going to have to work really hard," said Pine.
Although Pine is convinced that San Mateo County will vote against Prop. 8, he said that he's not so sure about other areas of California, like the Central Valley. No on 8 campaign volunteers have met several times in the last week for phone banking sessions, and for a rally outside the Redwood City courthouse. Support for the "No" cause has come from various sources, including donations from PG&E, Apple Inc., Google, ACLU and several churches that are open to same-sex marriage.
In addition to moral disagreements, the two campaigns differ on who should have the authority to make the final decision on this issue. Toli Fa and supporters of the proposition are frustrated at the ability of a select number of judges to overturn the vote from 2000. "What happened to the voice of the people -- to have four judges turn that over? That's not their job," Fa said.
David Pine would argue that it is their job. "The justice system deemed [same-sex marriage] a constitutional right. What right do we have to overturn it?" Pine said.
On Election Day, Californians will vote for the second time on whether same-sex marriage should be banned. If voters and judges can continue to overturn each other's decisions -- and if the tight polls are any indication -- this moral battle can extend far beyond Nov. 4.
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In Long Beach the other night I drove through the intersection of Seventh and PCH, at which protesters had signs on each side of the street: one side for, the other against, Proposition 8. What's sad is that no one on the anti-Prop.8 coalition is making more vocal the fact that this has nothing to do with homosexuality; this is about writing discrimination into the Constitution. One of the more effective ways to sway those on the fence about this proposition is to liken it to other forms of legislated discrimination that eventually may affect them. The Constitution never was intended to strip rights from individuals, and the fact that anyone so callously could advocate that a law be written to make another group of tax-paying citizens "second-class" citizens is beyond comprehension. While not all pro-Prop. 8 people can be educated or moved, one of the best ways to confront someone who is leaning toward supporting irrational legislation is to remind that person he or she could be on the receiving end the next time around.
thank you!
If Proposition 8 passes, the California Courts will just say it is unconsititutional and then we will start all over agian with another proposition. I am so disgusted with all the propositions. But 8 takes away people's rights. I'm not Gay but I do not support Proposition 8.
Certain parts of California are more "red" than others, too.
For instance, here's a sampling of snapshots to and from my kid's schools, every single day.
*sigh* Not exactly the friendliest place to for liberal democrat to live, I guess.
http://louiselarsen.blogspot.com/2008/10/yard-signs-in-orange-county-ca.html
Yuck, that's the unfortunate aspect of "Life Behind the Orange Curtain". :-(
My husband and I were married after 30 years. Finally. Our two daughters and two grandchildren and we are happy we may finally enjoy marriage--not gay marriage or straight marriage, but marriage under California law.
For now.
Prop 8 would actually change the constitution to cut gay and lesbian people out. The California Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection clause of the constitute means what it says, that All People Are Created Equal and must be treated equally. Sound familiar? Prop 8 seeks to limit Equal Protection: equal for everyone except....
The constitution that includes all Californians is anathema to the hate-filled of California. But surely there will be enough Christians who will refuse to cut their neighbors out of the constitution?
I pray.
Two days ago, in the Bay Area, I saw signs saying 'Yes on 8 = Religious Freedom." The Yes on 8 folks are taking the position that their religious freedoms are being attacked by recognizing the rights of all to be married. It just goes to show that there really needs to be some sort of intelligence test for people to be allowed to vote.
Yea the reason it says "religious freedom" is because their pastors/priests/whatever church clergy would have to perform a marriage for homosexual couples even if their church is against it, because that is the law. That is why they want to have religious freedom- to practice what they want w/o the government forcing them to do something against their beliefs. It's not about an "intelligence" test. look at it from another angle...
Now you know that's silly--and false. Marriage is already in force in California, and no church, synagogue, or other religious institution is required to perform gay weddings.
Marriage in California is a civil--a state--contract, administered in each county through the County Clerk.
Churches are ALLOWED to officiate that contract if they wish, and register the marriage through the County Clerk's office, but churches are NOT required to do so. No church is forced to marry anyone--at all. Churches don't even have to perform heterosexual marriages.
Who told you such tripe. And why did you believe it? There is no such law.
You need more than 50% +1 to change a constitution - or at least you ought to.
- 'Princes can marry princes and princesses can marry princesses'?
Now that comes as a shock! If every American prince(ss) is going to do that, very soon there might be no Americans of royal blood left!
- 'I will no longer be called a bride' !
And I guess you will be forced to wear a pink wedding dress as well, with 'partner B' dressed in a rainbow striped tuxedo I suppose?
Homophobia, like every other phobia is defined as an irrational fear. Explaining to kids that gay people can marry, just like 'normal' (excusez le mot) people, is hopefully a step in taking away that irrational fear.
Equality for All
Pleeeeeassse don't let this pass
>_
"In talking about how the permission of gay marriages would affect her, Fa said, 'I'm not going to be called a bride anymore. Only Party A or Party B. ... Everybody has their rights,'" she said, brushing off the idea [that gays and others might see her as batshit crazy]. ""But they're trying to change it for the rest of us.""
Wow, I've never read a more meaningless, insipid, pointless, unfounded, and *selfish* argument against gay marriage--and I've seen lots. Some people are so concerned about a fairy-princess idea of bridehood that lasts for maybe two rosey weeks plus the honeymoon after the wedding, that they would want to keep any number of current and future couples from standing up and professing their love? That's a desire that demonstrates a bravery that we should applaud in this world that so despises this kind of love--and we should reward that with equal rights and equal protections.
Fa should grow up. society needs to grow up, and quit this terror of the 'gay agenda,' and be prepared to play nice and SHARE the shallow concepts of love and marriage that some folks cling to. Maybe then more people will be able to do something beautiul with them.
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