Reflections on the passage of Prop 8 by Jennifer Roback Morse
What does this victory mean?
The people of California want to wrest control of the legal definition of marriage from the judiciary.
The people of California are deeply troubled by the idea of small children being taught about homosexuality in the schools without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
The people of California do not want dissenters from the gay-marriage ideology to be treated as if they were racists.
The people of California want religious groups to be free to operate within their own value systems. People don’t want to unleash discrimination suits and other forms of legal harassment against religious bodies which hold that marriage is between a man and a woman.
It doesn’t mean:
Over five million Californians are bigots.
Gay couples will have their homes raided, (contra the outrageous anti-Mormon advertisement.)
Gay couples will lose their domestic partnership benefits.
Gays are second-class citizens.
Why does the victory of Proposition 8 matter?
A coalition of ordinary people pushed back against the gay lobby and its allies. Those allies include all the major newspapers, Hollywood, the judiciary, the governor, the attorney general, and academia. These allies did not hesitate to abuse their power. For instance, Attorney General Jerry Brown rewrote the title of the proposition in a way that cost us 5 to 10 percentage points in the polls.
But Proposition 8 proponents got more than it bargained for: ordinary citizens are sick of being pushed around. They aren’t going to take it any more.
The coalition of religious groups who worked for Prop 8 will not dissolve the day after tomorrow. Passing Proposition 8 required an unprecedented level of interfaith cooperation. Evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons, and Jews all worked together. I could feel mistrust melting away as we worked together to protect natural marriage. The solidarity we created will continue long after this particular election.
Interracial solidarity was strong on the marriage issue. Blacks and Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8. Los Angeles County voted for Prop 8. That wasn’t Hollywood and Beverly Hills talking: it was the urban minority communities. They don’t seem to feel the need to be politically correct. Pro-marriage advocates of all races met and worked together, and will continue to do so.
The public is much more aware of the promotion of homosexuality in the schools. People will be monitoring the content of school curriculum in a way they had not done before. And since they now have the experience of being successful cooperating with others and promoting their views in the public square, they are much less likely to back down. If the gay lobby could have contained itself and lain low for a little longer, they might have been able to slip a lot of things past the public. Those days are over.
The public was disgusted by the grotesque bullying tactics of the No on 8 coalition. Although the anti-Mormon ad was produced by an “independent” group, no one from the official campaign condemned the ad. The media gave very little attention to the vandalism against Yes, but publicized the few isolated incidents of vandalism against No. But this media spin can’t work when the incidents are happening in your own neighborhood, under your own noses, to people you know. The No campaign should have distanced itself from people who were keying cars, egging houses and spray painting graffiti on churches. But it didn’t.
In short, the success of Proposition 8 is the success of a broad-based coalition of citizen activists who cared passionately about the meaning and future of marriage. The Protect Marriage campaign had literally a hundred thousand volunteers and over 70,000 donors. What Proposition 13 meant to the cause of citizen-generated tax reduction measures, Proposition 8 may mean to the cause of defending and defining marriage.
The judges who created same-sex marriage awakened a sleeping giant. And we won’t be going back to sleep any time soon.
— Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. is the founder and president of the Ruth Institute.
Her Website is great, packed full of information and facts. I hightly recommend checking this out.
Proposition 8 from a black lesbian’s perspective
I read this great article in the opinion section of the LA Times Sunday. The article was written by Jasmyne A. Cannick. She talks about why gay rights are not the same thing, and should not be equated to the Black Civil Rights Movement. I agree with her whole heartedly and commend her for taking the time to write this article.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cannick8-2008nov08,0,3669070.story
By Jasmyne A. Cannick
November 8, 2008
I am a perfect example of why the fight against Proposition 8, which amends the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriage, failed to win black support.
I am black. I am a political activist who cares deeply about social justice issues. I am a lesbian. This year, I canvassed the streets of South Los Angeles and Compton, knocking on doors, talking politics to passers-by and working as I never had before to ensure a large voter turnout among African Americans. But even I wasn’t inspired to encourage black people to vote against the proposition.
Why? Because I don’t see why the right to marry should be a priority for me or other black people. Gay marriage? Please. At a time when blacks are still more likely than whites to be pulled over for no reason, more likely to be unemployed than whites, more likely to live at or below the poverty line, I was too busy trying to get black people registered to vote, period; I wasn’t about to focus my attention on what couldn’t help but feel like a secondary issue.
The first problem with Proposition 8 was the issue of marriage itself. The white gay community never successfully communicated to blacks why it should matter to us above everything else — not just to me as a lesbian but to blacks generally. The way I see it, the white gay community is banging its head against the glass ceiling of a room called equality, believing that a breakthrough on marriage will bestow on it parity with heterosexuals. But the right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both black gays and black straights. Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?
Maybe white gays could afford to be singularly focused, raising millions of dollars to fight for the luxury of same-sex marriage. But blacks were walking the streets of the projects and reaching out to small businesses, gang members, convicted felons and the spectrum of an entire community to ensure that we all were able to vote.
Second is the issue of civil rights. White gays often wonder aloud why blacks, of all people, won’t support their civil rights. There is a real misunderstanding by the white gay community about the term. Proponents of gay marriage fling it around as if it is a one-size-fits-all catchphrase for issues of fairness.
But the black civil rights movement was essentially born out of and driven by the black church; social justice and religion are inextricably intertwined in the black community. To many blacks, civil rights are grounded in Christianity — not something separate and apart from religion but synonymous with it. To the extent that the issue of gay marriage seemed to be pitted against the church, it was going to be a losing battle in my community.
Then there was the poorly conceived campaign strategy. Opponents of Proposition 8 relied on an outdated civil rights model, engaging the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People to help win black support on the issue of gay marriage. This happened despite the warnings of black lesbians and gays that it wouldn’t work. While the NAACP definitely should have been included in the strategy, it shouldn’t have been the only group. Putting nearly a quarter of a million dollars into an outdated civil rights group that has very little influence on the black vote — at least when it comes to gay issues — will never work.
Likewise, holding the occasional town-hall meeting in Leimert Park — the one part of the black community where they now feel safe thanks to gentrification — to tell black people how to vote on something gay isn’t effective outreach either.
There’s nothing a white gay person can tell me when it comes to how I as a black lesbian should talk to my community about this issue. If and when I choose to, I know how to say what needs to be said. Many black gays just haven’t been convinced that this movement for marriage is about anything more than the white gays who fund it (and who, we often find, are just as racist and clueless when it comes to blacks as they claim blacks are homophobic).
Some people seem to think that homophobia trumps racism, and that winning the battle for gay marriage will symbolically bring about equality for everyone. That may seem true to white gays, but as a black lesbian, let me tell you: There are still too many inequalities that exist as it relates to my race for that to ever be the case. Ever heard of “driving while black”? Ever looked at the difference between the dropout rates for blacks and for whites? Or test scores? Or wages? Or rates of incarceration?
And in the end, black voters in California voted against gay marriage by more than 2 to 1.
Maybe next time around — because we all know this isn’t over — the gay community can demonstrate the capacity and willingness to change that America demonstrated when it went to the polls on Nov. 4. Black gays are depending on their white counterparts to finally “get it.”
Until then, don’t expect to make any inroads any time soon in the black community on this issue — including with this black lesbian.
Unbelievable!
This comment was posted on one of my earlier entries. I had to give it own place on my blog. This is just so unbelievable.
The idea that our public school administrators are unbiased observers in this election or in our children’s moral education is a farce.
TODAY in our town, a prop 8 sign that was too close to school property was destroyed by two Conejo Valley Unified administrators. It was caught on camera.
http://beetlebabee.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/school-board-vandalism
There’s no way they can say that they are unbiased in this debate. The ferocity and cruelty shows through. This is who runs our schools. This is the face of tolerance. As much as I would like to believe that this is a rarity, 200,000 stolen, defaced, destroyed and vandalized signs proves otherwise.
Thank you beetlebabee for bringing this out in the open.
Tired of the lies!
I am so tired of the “No on Prop 8” lies and manipulations. I tired of the media’s liberal biased view. What happened to neutral journalism? You know when just the facts were presented as facts, without all the half truths and biased spins. This is totally ridiculoius.
FACT: Marriage is between 1man and 1 woman. The purpose of marriage is to create families. Traditional marriage is protected because it benefits society.
FACT:Interracial marriages are between 1 man and 1 woman. The purpose of interracial marriage is to create families. Interracial marriage is protected because it benefits society.
FACT:Same sex marriage is between 2 men or 2 women. These unions can not create children that are genetically unique to the two people involved.
How does same sex marriage benefit society?
How can you compare interracial and same sex marriage? You can’t, they are not the same. The gender makeups involved in these relationships are different.
When they started allowing interracial marriages, because they were unconstitutional, paperwork and licenses did not need to be changed because the basic requirements for a marriage license did not change: one man + one woman, not related, over 18, not already married.
It’s very basic. Please vote YES on prop.8 , restore the definition of marriage. No one is loosing any rights. Registered Domestic Partners have all the same rights and privileges as married spouses under the law (California family code 297.5).
YES on Prop 8
Marriage has never been a Fundamental right for ANYONE, homosexual or heterosexual
I came across this post. I don’t think I could have said it any better. Please enjoy!
One of the most prevalent arguments I have seen in recent weeks against Proposition 8 is that the amendment is wrong because it would treat people separately but equal. Those who are against Proposition 8 argue that being able to “marry who you love” is a fundamental right, and the “separate but equal” treatment violates that right.
This argument against Proposition 8 not only mischaracterizes the issue, but does so in a way that is calculated to put supporters of traditional marriage on the defensive. The right to marry has never been an unfettered right. Even today, we maintain important restrictions on the right of individuals to marry. (For example, not permitting marriage between close relatives or prohibiting someone from being married to two people at the same time).
There is nothing in the text of either the California or United States Constitution that explicitly provides that same sex marriage is a “fundamental right.” Nor is there anything in our nation’s history or traditions that establish same sex marriage as a “fundamental right.” Only three states, Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut, even allow same sex marriage and all three states only recently “discovered” this right after their Supreme Courts ruled in closely divided decisions (4-3 votes in all three states) that such a right existed.
While, as a society, we may want to add individual rights, those rights are not necessarily “fundamental rights” and, in a democracy, weighty decisions such as creating new rights should be decided by a vote of the people—not judges.
The “separate but equal” argument is also misleading because Proposition 8 does not treat people separately. If Proposition 8 passes, no one will be prevented from marrying. Individuals in California will be free to marry so long as they marry someone of the opposite gender and so long as the marriage does not violate other long-standing regulations governing marriage in California.
Those who persist in arguing for the “fundamental right” to “marry who you love” face an additional hurdle. If everyone has the right to marry who you love, why wouldn’t three women who love each other be allowed to marry? What about polygamous marriage? Shouldn’t consenting adults in these types of relationships have the right to marry?
If same sex marriage is permissible because an individual has the right to marry whomever he or she loves, the only intellectually honest reason for prohibiting these types of extreme alternative marriages is that they are not socially acceptable. But once you accept that society has a right to limit some marriage relationships , you recognize society’s right to also define marriage in a way that benefits society as a whole. That is exactly what Proposition 8 does. That is why I’m voting for it.
SOURCE: http://prop8discussion.wordpress.com/2008/10/20/separate-but-equal/
For more info, you might also be interested in this video from the What is Prop 8? website:
What civil rights really mean
I found a great blog post that explains very plainly why same sex marriage is not a civil rights issue. This post also uses facts to back it up. Kudos to you Cudweeds!
Here is an excerpt to get you interested:
……..This movement would like us to believe their agenda is a Civil Rights issue. Many buy into this because they are uneducated about what Civil Rights really mean.
According to the Supreme Court, three things must happen to qualify a class for Civil Rights protection.
1) History of discrimination evidenced by a lack of ability to obtain economic mean income, adequate education or cultural opportunity. Evidence shows us this is clearly not the case. What do the facts say?
a. Homosexuals have an average annual income of $55,430, over $20,000 more than the general populous.
b. More than 3 times as many homosexuals as average Americans are college graduates.c. 3 times as many homosexuals as average Americans hold professional or managerial positions
2) Protected classes should exhibit obvious, immutable or distinguishing characteristics, like race, color, gender, that define them as a discrete group. This is obviously not the case with homosexuals.
3) Protected classes should clearly demonstrate political powerlessness. All we have to do is watch the news or view the current debates in the halls of Congress to find this criteria is not met either.
It is clear that none of this criterion is met! So what then do we find to be the truth if we peer beyond this smoke screen? The issue is really one of the attempt to legitimize and normalizing their BEHAVIOR through public law! ……..
Here’s the link:
http://cudweeds.wordpress.com/2008/03/10/lesbian-gay-day-of-silence-are-you-kidding-me/
Some very good videos in support of Prop.8
These videos do an excellent job of explaining Prop.8:
I’m not Catholic but I found this video very inspiring:
Here are a couple of videos I thought were funny, but they do a great job of illistrating their point:
I just like this video:
Using My Voice 