September 6th 2008
Marriage Fight
P
roposition 8 on the California ballot in November seeks to protect the voice of 61 percent of the California people who voted in 2000 for Proposition 22, saying that marriage would remain the realm solely of a man and a woman and that all the possible gay, lesbian, transexual and God knows what else variations would not be deemed “marriages” by the state.
The pro-gay marriage groups know that if Prop 8 passes, gay marriage in California isn’t just ‘mostly dead,’ it’s dead dead, and they are fighting a much smarter fight this time. Let California Ring, a “no on 8″ committee, started the campaign with this ad:
It’s a brilliant piece of work because it avoids all the problems the gays had last time around by not showing a single gay person. Rather, it calls on straights to empathize with the heartbreak and frustration gay couples feel being denied marriage. There are some legal issues with the ad because it doesn’t identify itself as a political ad, but they’re a subtext to the theme.
A very high bar has been set for pro-8 groups by the wedding ad. They will have to explain just as compellingly why the nice gay couple shouldn’t be allowed to walk down the aisle, and hate and fear won’t work well as motivators, given the compassionate themes laid down by Let California Ring. Here’s how Protect Marriage - Yes On 8 tries to get people to vote for the proposition:
The Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage did not just overturn the will of California voters; it also redefined marriage for the rest of society, without ever asking the people themselves to accept this decision. This decision has far-reaching consequences. For example, because public schools are already required to teach the role of marriage in society as part of the curriculum, schools will now be required to teach students that gay marriage is the same as traditional marriage, starting with kindergarteners. By saying that a marriage is between “any two persons” rather than between a man and a woman, the Court decision has opened the door to any kind of “marriage.” This undermines the value of marriage altogether at a time when we should be restoring marriage, not undermining it.
My voting-age daughters, who are conservative on most issues, have trouble seeing what’s wrong with undermining marriage because their social influences have included much of the “post gay being controversial” worldview that permeates popular culture. The only argument that gains any traction with them is the historical one: No societies ever have done this, so we need to ask why, we need to consider it very carefully. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they both vote no.
It’s going to be particularly difficult for the Yes on 8 set now that No on 8 has this:
The American Civil Liberties Union reported donating $1.2 million to defeat Proposition 8, the ban on gay marriage, on the November ballot.
The $1.2 million donation is the single largest check written to the campaign, though Equality California, a gay-rights group, and the Human Rights Campaign, a similar group, have bundled more total donations. (SacBee)
I can’t tell by the way it’s written whether both Equality California and the Human Rights Campaign have bundled more than $1.2 million, or more than $2.4 million combined, or whether together they’ve bundled more than $1.2 million. Either way, No on 8 has quite a war chest, especially when you consider that the funding for Let California Ring is separate.
On the other side, Yes on 8 is being waged primarily by a religious coalition of Mormons, Catholics and Evangelicals who are working to get Hindus, Jews, Muslims and others on board. They plan later this month to hand out over one million “Yes on 8″ yard signs as their major campaign push. They have a lot of heart:
“This is a rising up over a 5,000-year-old institution that is being hammered right now,” said Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church, an evangelical congregation in La Mesa. Garlow said that, while he supported Proposition 22, he was not nearly as involved as this time around, when he has helped organize 3,400-person conference calls across denominations to coordinate campaign support for the proposed constitutional amendment.
“What binds us together is one common obsession: . . . marriage,” Garlow said.
He added that many people of faith, regardless of their religion, believe that “if Proposition 8 fails, there is an inevitable loss of religious freedom.” (LA Times)
But faith and yardsigns aren’t much more than a few fish and loaves in a basket, when compared to the multitudes of dollars and years of chipping away at the issue that are on the other side.
Hmmm. Well, that approach has worked before …
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Posted in Advertising, California, Gay Marriage | 10 Comments » | 
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September 7th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
September 17th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Comments
September 6th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Greetings:The problem with the homosexual rights political agenda is the homosex.One of their early victories, back in the ’70s, was getting the American Psychological Association to vote to remove homosexuality from its diagnostic manual. Subsequent victories include the smear tactics of “homophobia” and the banishment of any variants of the word “homosexual” from the media.The reason why homosexuality was proscribed was because of the effects of the homosex.If you think you can win arguments about homosexual behavior and “lifestyles” while excluding homosex from the discussion, I believe you are sadly mistaken.We are ensconced in the age of the tyranny of the minorities. These activist groups have become too practiced at manipulating legislators and judges to support their agenda. There is no group or individual responsible for protecting our culture as a whole. Each minority group comes after its slice or two of the cultural salami. Any guesses about what will be left?If you haven’t seen it already, google “Up Your Alley Fair” and see some different results of the homosexual rights agenda, that they and the media friends don’t think need to be brought to anyone’s attention. Not very pretty, not something most people would want to see on their block.
September 6th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
One this redefinition of rights question that is being claimed … I’ve linked to your post from this article … Right of Same Sex Marriage = Newspeak • Yes on 8 protects rights
September 7th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Prop 8 is a propostion stating that marriage should only be between a man and woman. I support prop 8 because that is the way marriage should be - between two people that can create children. Same relationships cannot do this. Everything in nature supports a male and a female being able to reproduce. This is the natural way - the way it is intended to be.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:48 am
As I mentioned on my own blog back in 2005, one of the big problems opponents of same-sex marriage (SSM) (and now, supporters of California Prop
face is the lack of an obvious, non-religious smoking gun.The vast majority of the arguments against SSM are based on religious tradition, and sometimes cultural tradition. To those who don’t believe in these traditions, or who have absorbed the doctrines of MulticulturalismTM, what one culture’s traditions say, or what one religion’s scriptures say, is taken as “one person’s opinion”. The other argument – that redefining marriage away from the “standard model” harms the culture that allows it – is much harder to make. As I said, there’s no smoking gun. When SSM is enacted into law, or legislated from the bench, nothing much happens. The sky doesn’t fall. The oceans don’t rise and cover our cities. Earthquakes, volcanos, hurricanes, tornados, and other disasters don’t happen any more frequently after the change than before. Barbarians don’t storm the gates. Life goes on as before.I believe the effects of enacting SSM into law will be slow, taking place over decades and generations. It will be on a par with the demographic changes Mark Steyn sees in America Alone. His thesis is that western countries are experiencing declining birth rates. In a few generations, these countries will be effectively depopulated. This is dismissed with the assertion that birth rates can easily climb again.Except it doesn’t seem to work that way.Likewise, major cultures that allow SSM are rare. Those who support SSM assert the reason for this rarity is that no one in recorded history was smart enough to think of changing the law to allow it, or enough of a leader to persuade the stupid masses to allow it. Those who oppose SSM suspect that it may be a factor that keeps cultures from becoming major, or even causes major cultures to become minor, or nonexistent. In a way, it’s a kind of natural selection. Cultures that are “fit” grow. Cultures that are less “fit” decline. Both of these can take years, decades, or even centuries. When a feature is held in common by all the “fit” cultures we can think of, it seems to me, it’s a feature we change at our peril.
September 8th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Harumph.So much for WYSIWYG
September 8th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Keep commenting, Karl - WYSIWYG or not. I’m assuming your harumph was directed to paragraph breaks, but the intent of the post remained very clear.
September 9th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Yup, mostly the paragraph breaks. I like to spare the readers having to wade through a huge block of text. On a minor note, the superscript codes on the “TM” after Multiculturalism went away. More irritating than disastrous, but before I hit the “submit” button, I did see them. I did I did I did I did!
September 9th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Great comments in this post, did somebody mention earchquakes