Something smells
The Prop. 8 campaign is a big, rank pile of dung
It’s hard to imagine a campaign more despicable than John McCain’s presidential bid, what with its attempts to convince enough voters that Barack Obama is an Arab / Muslim / terrorist (as if two of those things are worthy of our fear and scorn). But, as they say, California often leads the nation, and here we’ve done the near-impossible—we’re home to one of the more malodorous dung heaps in recent history: the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign.
You’ve probably seen the TV commercial with the sweet, impressionable little girl running excitedly into the kitchen to tell her mother what she learned in school: “A prince can marry a prince, and I can marry a princess!” Mom is horror-stricken at first, then dumbfounded, as law professor Richard Peterson of Pepperdine University (which, by the way, is almost puritanical in its religious orthodoxy) enters the picture to scare the blood right out of the faces of Californians who don’t realize or can’t accept that they have gay friends, relatives and colleagues. Peterson tells us, essentially, that unless we pass Prop. 8, those unmoored perverts from the California Teachers Association will be teaching Johnny how to fall in love with and marry Jimmy.
The message from the Yes on 8 campaign couldn’t be more overt: Our innocent, sponge-like children must be protected from the depravity of homosexuality. Taken together with the Yes on Prop. 4 anti-abortion campaign, the religious right’s strategy is clear: When all else fails, rant hysterically about the slobbering sex fiends who are coming for the children.
Say what you want about the homophobes—at least their commercials are up front with the bigotry. So, it’s ironic that the foot soldiers in the campaign, the people who comment on blog posts and whatnot, play a childish, nonsensical game of political “I know you are, but what am I?” When their critics call out their bigotry, these minions invariably attempt to turn the tables, labeling us liberals as hateful, mean and intolerant of people who simply want to protect the sacred, time-honored institution of mixed-gender marriage, with its birds, flowers, unicorns and promise of the magical wonder of human reproduction.
Pardon us while we vomit all over the 40-percent-plus divorce rate and evidence of widespread rotten parenting.
Arguments with these people tend to become frustrating exercises in disconnected discourse. It’s clear that not all of them understand what Prop. 8 would do. Oh, they know that it would make it so gay couples can’t marry, but the whole constitutional-law thing gets lost in translation.
To recap: Earlier this year, the state Supreme Court ruled that the law created by 2000’s Prop. 22—which said that only mixed-gender marriages would be recognized—is unconstitutional. That means it violates one of our state’s (and our nation’s) overarching legal principles, the right to equal treatment under the law. We Americans are a libertarian bunch—we tend not to take rights away from people. But that’s what Prop. 8 would do; it would eliminate gay Californians’ right to equal treatment when it comes to marriage.
The pro-8 people dismiss those facts, arguing that marriage has always been limited to one man and one woman, and here come the homos, armed with their nefarious “agenda,” trying to ruin the whole concept of marriage (not to mention turn our kids queer).
First of all, attempts to point out that allowing gay people to marry has absolutely zero effect on anyone’s heterosexual marriage wind up fruitless—Yes on 8ers seem impervious to that logic. Secondly, they don’t seem to realize that throughout the centuries and across cultures, the institution of marriage has been subject to legal evolution.
What’s mind-blowing about all this is that we’re even entertaining this initiative here in 2008, more than 40 years after those activist justices on the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage once and for all.
None of us at CityBeat remember those battles, but we suspect there was talk of marriage being protected then, too.
The good news is that young people are overwhelmingly supportive of gay-marriage rights, so it’s just a matter of time before these purveyors of sickening rhetoric are pushed into the fringes of society, where they can wallow in their bitterness along with the racists. It’s funny—even their fear-mongering TV ad unwittingly bears a sweet nugget of truth and optimism: You know the little girl who so excitedly rushes to tell Mom what she learned in school? Look how radiantly happy she is about the discovery of a new possibility.
Write editor@sdcitybeat.com.
Comments
What is also mind-blowing is how Mayor Sanders, who eventually but laudably came down on the No on Prop 8 side is doing robo calls for Phil Thalheimer, a right wing Republican who has been a vigorous supporter of Prop 8. For the Republican establishment it seems to be business as usual even to the extent of supporting prejudice.
The problem with 8 is that because it's about an issue that gets people in the gut one way or another, it's pretty much impossible to see the other person's side. It's obviously no or obviously yes.
I'm in a minority that includes about 10% of the population. People like me have been mistrusted in many cultures for centuries. Up until recently, the public schools tried to re-educate people like me to make us become normal. We still have slightly lower life expectancy. What's my quirk? I'm left-handed. To me, homosexuality is nothing different, but obviously to many people, it's still something evil, like left-handedness used to be.
I've noticed how Prop 8 backers go into forums or YouTube to add comments that seem deceptive about the truth of Prop 8, as if they hope to get a yes vote from a confused voter.
Talk about telemarketing, this is a new level of scum!
One poster or several seem to allege that "Prop 8 won't take anything away." That's ridiculous, why have it otherwise if it's not going to do anything?
Then they try to claim that our Civil Laws are there Religious Laws, and we should all be ruled by their Religious Laws. That's a joke to right? They quote scripture, like adam and eve. Well, adam and eve where not married because the church never adopted marriage practices until around the 8th century, much like the adoption of other Pagan practices. They fail to mention adams first relationship, or where the myth was adopted from. Our Civil Laws are inherited Pagan Laws. Aside, from that quoting scripture isn't what our civil laws are about, our civil laws don't have anything to do with religious laws, they are both separate. Religion is personal and should remain personal, not forced on the rest of us, who practice other faiths or otherwise!
Then they're claiming the founding fathers where of their faith, yet they fail to mention that many of them were Deists who believed strongly in the separation of Church and State Laws nor did they advocate for any one 'god' theory. Many also fled Europe as a result of religious persecution, so why are we having this problem now? California joined the Union with the understanding of equal treatment under the laws, not to be ruled by religious fanaticism.
They're calling those of us against Prop 8 the bigots. Bigots are people that wish to take rights away from others purely for selfish reasons, treat other's as unworthy, and hateful reasons because people are different than them. That is bigotry!
One guy even goes as far as giving an analogy to the difference between Coke and Pepsi! How's that for an anti-Japanese or racist analogy? Just because people are different you can't condemn the love people have for each other or the need to have a marriage license used to prove property rights and heirs!
Are we not in a war to protect our borders from fanaticism? So, why are we dealing with people like this in our own country? Some of our business and other people are getting threats from the Prop 8 backers, talk about terrorism!
VOTE NO ON 8!
Thank you for this. You guys are the voice of reason in this county.