California's Prop 8

A postmortem and review of California’s Proposition 8 by Dick & Brian Barrett-Marugg

To sanitize an oft-repeated comparison: opinions are like … elbows. Everybody has them. The current debate in California about the Proposition 8 ballot measure banning same-sex marriage has proven to be a galvanizing force, driving elbows across the state and, in fact, across the country, to express their opinions in every imaginable forum from internet blogs to political campaign speeches; from talk radio to the editorial pages; from the pulpit to the street corner. Hysterical rants from both sides have replaced discussion leaving orphan both truth and justice. It’s time we moved past opinion and examined the FACTS.

Everyone may have an opinion but not every opinion can be validated. Opinions based on facts and conforming to an objective reality deserve serious consideration. Those based on emotion, misinformation, superstition, prejudice and ignorance have no place in the discourse.

As a gay and half of a same-sex married couple, I’m ashamed to say that my side of the debate seems to be doing little to defuse the situation. Attacking the Mormon and Catholic churches may feel good but it’s a battle the gay community doesn’t have the resources to win. Any benefit inuring from such attacks will be transitory at best and illusory at worst.

One device frequently used in both product and political advertising is issue substitution. A complex or unpopular issue is promoted by associating it with a universally accepted value or an apocalyptic threat. Lincoln didn’t go to war with the Confederacy to preserve the union because the industrial North couldn’t survive without the agricultural South. He did it to free the slaves. (Lincoln frequently spoke and wrote about both slavery and his strong belief in state’s rights. While he personally felt that slavery was wrong he strongly believed that the issue of emancipation was a matter for individual states to decide without federal interference)

An extreme example of issue-substitution was the now famous commercial that aired during the 1964 Lyndon Johnson/Barry Goldwater presidential campaign. A television spot created for Johnson showed a little girl plucking daisy petals while a narrator counted down from 10. The camera slowly zoomed in on the little girls face until the count reached zero and we saw a nuclear explosion reflected in the girl’s pupil. The obvious message was that Johnson, as a true American, valued childhood and innocence while his opponent would destroy them in a nuclear conflagration..

We didn’t go into Iraq for political or strategic reasons. We went into Iraq to bring freedom to the Iraqi people and peace to the Middle East. We didn’t shred the Constitution to increase the power of the president and promote the power of the Republican Party; we did it to defend the American people from the threat of terrorism and to protect democracy from the enemies who want to destroy it.

In 2004 during the presidential campaign, Vice President Dick Cheney warned the voters that the consequences of a vote for John Kerry would be devastating terrorist attacks against America. It wasn’t true and had nothing to do with the issues at stake in the election … but it helped Bush get reelected.

In each of these cases, the threat portrayed or the value supported had absolutely nothing to do with the issues or the candidates involved. These substitutions were sales tools and, in every case, they were effective tools that motivated Americans to support the issue being “sold”.

The only way to neutralize these tools is to force the debate back to the real issues involved.

The issues raised by Proposition 8 are complex and to insist nothing more is involved than the equal rights of an oppressed minority is to beg the questions bedeviling the opponents of same-sex unions. Such a stance does nothing to inform the voters … or allay their fears.

The arguments of our opponents may be invalid but the fear is very real and fear is a powerful, maybe the MOST powerful, motivator. This fear needs to be dealt with and not simply dismissed as bigotry and homophobia. Ad hominem attacks on the Catholic or Mormon churches, on Christianity, on the Knights of Columbus or on individuals who voted to pass Proposition 8 or donated funds to the Yes on 8 campaign are misdirected and counterproductive.

Supporters of same-sex marriage are angry and hurt by the results of the 2008 election in California, Arizona and Florida. Many of us feel betrayed by family, friends, neighbors and coworkers who failed to support us in sufficient numbers to protect our basic human right to marry someone we love. We resent, quite rightly, being denied the same benefits our heterosexual counterparts enjoy and take for granted. The gay community has been wronged and we want to express our anger and hostility against those we see as responsible for this injustice.

We have every right to these feelings. And now that we’ve had them, we all need to take a deep breath and get over it. We lost our rights because a very few ideologues and neoconservatives organized a compaign of misinformation and fear. And it wasn’t personal. For better or worse, it’s how elections are conducted. Our job now is to combat misinformation with fact. Whether the California Supreme Court overturns or affirms the legality of Proposition 8, gays will never be fully accepted in California or in America as long as we are regarded with suspicion and fear by even a small majority of the population.

It’s time to set aside our disappointment over the election results. It’s time to get past the anger and resentment. Demonizing the majority of voters who are trying to block same-sex marriages serves no purpose other than to provide a somewhat perverse temporary satisfaction. Few people can be persuasive when they start by insulting their audience.

The majority voters who passed Proposition 8 are not unfeeling monsters. They are not homophobic. They are not bigots. They are simply ignorant and frightened.

It’s our job to persuade with the tools of truth and reason. We need to combat ignorance with knowledge, superstition with science and fear with facts. Science is on our side. Reason and logic are on our side and history is on our side. It remains to be seen whose side the California Supreme Court will take.

State Supreme Court rejoins Prop. 8 Battle
by Bob Egelko, San Fransisco Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, November 20, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO -- The state Supreme Court plunged back into the same-sex marriage wars Wednesday, agreeing to decide the legality of a ballot measure that repealed the right of gay and lesbian couples to wed in California.

Six months after its momentous ruling that struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage, the court granted requests by both sponsors and opponents of Proposition 8 to review lawsuits challenging the Nov. 4 initiative.
The vote was 6-1, Justice Joyce Kennard dissenting.

However, the court refused, 6-1, to let same-sex marriages resume while it considers Prop. 8's constitutionality. Justice Carlos Moreno cast the dissenting vote.

Approved by 52 percent of voters, Prop. 8 restored the definition of marriage - a union of a man and a woman - that the court had overturned May 15. Kennard and Moreno voted with the majority in that 4-3 ruling.
The court agreed Wednesday to review two arguments by opponents of Prop. 8: that the measure exceeds the legal scope of a ballot initiative by allowing a majority to restrict a minority group's rights, and that it violates the constitutional separation of powers by limiting judicial authority.

The justices also asked for arguments on whether Prop. 8, if constitutional, would nullify 18,000 same-sex weddings performed between when the court's marriage ruling took effect in mid-June and Nov. 4. Attorney General Jerry Brown, who will defend Prop. 8 as the state's chief lawyer, contends those marriages are legal, but sponsors of the initiative disagree. The justices asked for written arguments to be submitted through Jan. 21. The court could hold a hearing as early as March, and a ruling would be due 90 days

The battle is joined and the final decision is far from certain. While it’s beyond the scope of this writing and the ability of this writer to analyze the legal issues being argued before the court, I have to confess a certain disappointment that Justice Kennard dissented from the majority’s decision to grant a review of the proposition’s constitutionality. The fact that one of the 4 justices who originally voted to strike down California’s ban on same-sex marriage now believes the passage of Prop 8 doesn’t warrant judicial review is not a hopeful sign.

Whatever decision is reached, it isn’t going to change any hearts or minds. It will only change the law. Hearts and minds are what WE have to change.

Let’s take a look at some of the issues presented by the Yes on 8 supporters.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS A MATTER OF CHOICE:

A CNN reporter interviewed an African American demonstrator at a Yes on 8 rally and asked him to distinguish the battle for gay rights from the struggle for equality faced by the black community over the past 60 years. His answer was revealing. “I was born black.” he said. “Homosexuals choose to be that way.”

Most informed Americans (and Canadians and Europeans) know that isn’t true. Unfortunately, too many Americans are uninformed.

CBS anchor and debate moderator Bob Schieffer asked a question during the 3rd presidential debate between President Bush and John Kerry in 2004. Read the answer given by the President of the United States (emphasis added)

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President, let's get back to economic issues. But let's shift to some other questions here.
Both of you are opposed to gay marriage. But to understand how you have come to that conclusion, I want to ask you a more basic question. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?

BUSH: You know, Bob, I don't know. I just don't know. I do know that we have a choice to make in America and that is to treat people with tolerance and respect and dignity. It's important that we do that.

If the country’s President who is arguably the most powerful and influential man in America doesn’t know whether or not sexual orientation is a matter of choice, we haven’t done OUR job? Where was the outcry from the gay community at this display of ignorance? Where was the outrage? We were content, as a community, to smirk at the comment and write it off as just one more example of Bush stupidity. We’re outraged now because the voters in California are ignorant. Why are we surprised? What did we do in 2004 to enlighten them?

THE FACTS:

After years of debating the factors that influence sexual orientation science has yet to provide any satisfactory and final answer to the question of causation. The biologist leans in the direction of DNA and evolution, the psychologist looks for triggers in the social environment and the family. The fundamentalist Christian insists that sexual inversion is the result of nothing more complex than a Jesus deficiency in our diets.

A specific cause of homosexuality hasn’t been found. The past 60 years have seen a number of research projects and studies conducted on the nature-nurture controversy and, while none of them have provided any final, conclusive answers, they have contributed to the present consensus among researchers that there may not be a single biological or psychological cause.

Our sexual attractions and orientation appear to be the result of an interaction of a number of genes at a number of different locations on the DNA strand which are influenced and activated under as yet unknown environmental conditions. Of special interest to researchers are chromosomes 7, 8, and 10 as well as on the sex-determining chromosome 23.

A study conducted by Simon LeVay, a neurobiologist at the Salk Institute reported a difference in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that develops at a young age, between homosexual and heterosexual men. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings with larger sample groups but preliminary conclusions from this and numerous other studies add support for the idea that sexual orientation is innate and outside the individual’s control.

An interesting question raised by evolutionary biologists has led to some surprising results in an Italian study by Andrea Camperio-Ciani of the University of Padua. If homosexuality is genetic its continued survival in the gene pool depends on the gene or genes being passed on through our offspring. Since homosexuals don’t normally reproduce, evolutionary forces should have selected against the trait and homosexuality should have become extinct. How do we account for the preservation of human homosexuality through hundreds of thousands of years of evolution?

One possible answer may have been predicted by the graffiti exchange on a New York subway car where someone had scrawled “My mother made me a homosexual”. Beneath that, another tagger had written, “If I give her the yarn will she make me one?” Camperio-Ciani’s research may confirm that our mothers really did make us homosexual.

The research team in Italy explained how genes apparently linked to male homosexuality survive, despite gay men seldom having children. Their findings also undermine the theory of a single "gay gene". The researchers discovered that women tend to have more children when they inherit the same - as yet unidentified genetic factors linked to homosexuality in men. This fertility boost more than compensates for the lack of offspring fathered by gay men, and keeps the "gay" genetic factors in circulation. These findings represent the best explanation yet for the Darwinian paradox presented by homosexuality: it is a genetic dead-end, yet the trait persists generation after generation.

Research by Paul Vasey, a psychologist at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, and his graduate student, Doug VanderLaan, provides preliminary support for the Italian team's results. The scientists studied homosexual men in Independent Samoa, known locally as fa'afafine ("in the manner of a woman"). They found that the mothers of fa'afafine produce more offspring than the mothers of heterosexual men in that society.

The bottom line: homosexuality may be just one of the consequences of strategies for making females more fecund (offspring-producing).

Whether our sexual orientation is genetic or behavioral or a combination of both is irrelevant to a discussion of gay rights. What is relevant is that neither gays nor straights have any choice in the matter. I would love to have a chance to ask the African-American from the Yes on 8 rally to tell me the exact moment in time when he “chose” to be straight. He could explain in detail the factors that influenced his choice and how much thought he gave to the ethical, religious and social consequences of his final decision.

I’d also like to ask him how much success he believes he would have today if he was told he would have to change his orientation and become homosexual. Does he believe he could become gay through a simple exercise of will? Maybe he could manage it if he went into psychotherapy? What if he underwent electroshock treatments? Would accepting Jesus as his personal savior make the conversion easier?

I’d just like to know what he thinks.

We, in the gay community, need to do more than just say orientation is not a matter of choice. We need to remain educated about the research that’s being done and we need to open a dialogue with the uneducated and ignorant, not to hurl invective and insult but to calmly present the facts and dispel fears and misgivings. Ignorance is curable. It’s only stupidity that goes right to the bone … and the voters are not stupid.

RELIGIOUS OBJECTIONS TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

The greatest obstacle standing in the way of gay acceptance by the larger heterosexual majority is religious ideation and among developed countries, America is regarded (unfavorably) as “the most religious”. When the 2004 American National Elections Studies polled people about whether they consider religion to be an important part of their life, or not, 77% said it was "important," 22.5% said it was "not important," and .5% said they "don't know."

Christianity, in one or another of its permutations is the religion of most Americans and Christianity has never been welcoming to homosexuals.

Just for the record: the founders of our nation never intended to form a “Christian” or even a religious nation.

The Founding Fathers were actually religiously-diverse; easy labels in either direction do not apply. They were, collectively, no more “Christian” than they were “Deist” or “Unitarian” or any other assignation one might use. Not only did the religious views of the Founding Fathers vary from one to another, many were eclectic thinkers, and offered, at various times, different views about religion, both over time and according to their audience.

For those who have difficulty accepting the idea of America’s founding fathers as free-thinkers and Deists who had no intention of forming a “Christian nation”, the following quotes from Thomas Jefferson should be provide some enlightenment.

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82 (non-capitalization of the word god is retained per original)

"[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1779), quoted from Merrill D Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings (1984), p. 347

Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the "wall of separation between church and state," therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved ... the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries. Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists (1808). This is his second use of the term "wall of separation," here quoting his own use in the Danbury Baptist letter. This wording was several times upheld by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause: Reynolds (98 US at 164, 1879); Everson (330 US at 59, 1947); McCollum (333 US at 232, 1948)

On November 4th, 1796 our new nation signed a treaty with Tripoli known as the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary. This treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate on June 7th, 1797 and signed by President John Adams on June 10th, 1797. Article 11 of that treaty deals directly with the question of whether or not the United States is a Christian nation.

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

Christians like to argue that the United States is a Christian nation but their argument isn’t supported by history and it’s contradicted by the documented statements of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Payne.

For 300 years, religious leaders have only grudgingly accepted Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation” mandated by the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Historically the most egregious violations of human rights have been incorporated into our social and legal systems at the behest of America’s religious majority. Christians have been obsessed with a desire to criminalize “sin” as defined by their particular set of beliefs. Within my lifetime, “blue laws” on the east coast criminalized select business owners who opened for business on the Christian “day of rest”. Homosexual activity was a crime punishable by a fine and, in some jurisdictions, by long prison sentences. Miscegenation was a crime throughout the South and African Americans were forced by law to use separate drinking fountains and restrooms, eat in different restaurants and attend different schools. One judge summed up the justification for these abuses in a miscegenation prosecution in 1959 when, after finding the defendants guilty and sentencing them to a year in prison, he declared from the bench “The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix”.

The pernicious attempts by the Christian majority in America (and the Mormon minority) to elevate whatever they define as “sin” to the level of a criminal offense is obvious and ongoing in many, if not most of the central issues facing us today, from gay marriage, assisted suicide, abortion, medicinal marijuana, gambling, and the death penalty. Millions of dollars have been spent by misguided Christians to pass legislation what would force our schools to teach the myth of creationism in science classes. As 2008 draws to a close, unmarried heterosexual Americans who live together in Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia are violating state laws prohibiting "lewd and lascivious" cohabitation and can be fined or even imprisoned for the offense.

The goal of religious America is to control every aspect of our lives and force us all to live according to the Christian values (read: religious precepts) contained in the bible. The success of their efforts to secure the passage of Proposition 8 in California is only the most recent example.

Let’s take a look at each of the statements and arguments made to the voters and published in the 2008 California Voter Information Guide by the Yes on 8 proponents which was mailed to every registered voter in the state just before the election.

Proposition 8 is about preserving marriage; it’s not an attack on the gay lifestyle.

It would help us understand what the Yes on 8 supporters are trying to say if they would provide their definition of “marriage” as well their definition of “gay lifestyle”. We’ll talk later about the evolution of “marriage” but I would be curious about which type of “marriage” these traditionalists wish to preserve. The institution of marriage wasn’t formalized and incorporated into the Christian church until the 13th century and even then it was regarded with less than enthusiasm by Church leaders who regarded women as “unclean and evil”. Male children couldn’t be baptized earlier than 40 days after birth and it took 80 days for female babies to be purged of contamination that came from contact with the menstrual blood of their mother.

Perhaps the Yes on 8 supporters want to use the more recent American model adopted by the early Mormon Church. While civil law prohibits having simultaneous and multiple wives, that particular family structure is at least “traditional” and is still widely practiced by members of some fundamentalist offshoots of the Mormon Church.

And if we’re going to consider polygamous marriages, it would be the worst kind of sexism not to give some thought to polyandrous families consisting of one wife and several husbands.

And how about the unions that were called “Boston Marriages” and were popular 200 years ago which involved two women pooling their resources and living their lives together, sometimes as platonic partners and other times as sexual life-partners.

Let’s not forget the serial monogamists who have multiple consecutive marriages. With a 50% divorce rate, Americans clearly prefer this configuration over any other.

The many and diverse forms that the institution of marriage has assumed throughout history … and even in contemporary America … give lie to the existence of any such thing as a “Traditional Marriage”

It would also be helpful if we know exactly what this “gay lifestyle” is that Proposition 8 isn’t attacking. There are gays in committed, monogamous relationships. There are gays in “open” non-monogamous relationships. There are single gays and gays in straight marriages. Gays are parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, sons and daughters. There are gay musicians, teachers, politicians, plumbers, soldiers, philosophers, artists, policemen, burglars, doctors, lawyers and nurses. There are gay liberals, conservatives, moderates, Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians.

Which of these lifestyles are the Proposition 8 forces not attacking?

Proposition 8 doesn’t take away any rights or benefits of gay or lesbian domestic partnerships. Under California law, “domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits” as married spouses. (Family Code § 297.5.) There are NO exceptions. Proposition 8 WILL NOT change this.

The No on Proposition 8 side has never claimed that Proposition 8 would modify or diminish the law establishing domestic partnerships so using this as an argument for the measure’s passage is a disingenuous. They could as easily and truthfully claim that Proposition 8 doesn’t in any way modify the animal cruelty laws contained in the state’s Civil Code.

Family Code 297.5 that establishes domestic partnerships in California is to gay civil unions what Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is to the right of gays to serve in the military. It’s a half measure that enshrines discrimination. It’s not enough. The Code seeks to create a separate classification for gay unions analogous to heterosexual marriage. In the process, it is forced to resurrect the Separate but Equal concept that was completely debunked by the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education. Separate is NEVER equal.

[Proposition 8] restores the definition of marriage to what the vast majority of California voters already approved and human history has understood marriage to be.

The passage of Proposition 22 that the resulting addition of section 308.5 to the California Family Code in 2001 was found by the California Supreme Court to be in violation of the California Constitution. The fact that a majority of Californians voted for the initiative is immaterial. We live in a democratic republic (as opposed to a democracy) and under our form of government, the rights of a minority are not supposed to be subject to “the Will of the People”. Had they been given a vote in 1865, the majority would have seen to it that African Americans remained slaves. Had the people been allowed to vote on the 1964 Civil Rights Act that was the result of an Executive Order by Lyndon Johnson (a Texan), segregation would still exist in the South.

As discussed earlier, a thorough examination of human history reveals there has never been one single, enduring definition of marriage in any time or in any culture that justifies the title of “Traditional”.

It overturns the outrageous decision of four activist Supreme Court judges who ignored the will of the people.

To characterize the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage as “outrageous” is to express an opinion and one that I must respectfully disagree with.

A dictionary definition of “activism” is: “vigorous and sometimes aggressive action in pursuing a political or social end”. Every Supreme Court decision ever handed down, whether on a state or federal level, has been the result of “activist” judges aggressively pursuing a political end whether the decision that resulted from their deliberation was conservative or liberal. The goal sought is the preservation of the rights of all Americans and the equal application and the equal protection of law to every citizen. To accomplish this end, Supreme Courts exist to review lower court decisions and ensure that the decisions of these lower courts are in keeping with established case and Constitutional laws in force at the time. Supreme Court justices are charged with the duty of aggressively upholding those decisions that conform to the established principles of law and overturning those decisions that do not.

This decision of the California Supreme Court can not be characterized as any more nor any less “activist” than any other decision of a Supreme Court in the United States.

Under our form of government, the “Will of the People” doesn’t control when it comes to questions of human rights. A law passed by a majority of Americans that denied the rights of African Americans and reduced them to second class citizenship (their de facto legal status in this country until 1964) would, quite rightly be declared unconstitutional and overturned. In the same way, a law prohibiting Asian Americans from driving a motor vehicle, outlawing marriage between left-handed people or criminalizing the remarriage of divorced Lutherans would quickly be thrown out. It doesn’t matter what the “majority” of Americans voted for or the reasons for the popularity of these restrictions. Our nation was founded on the concept of equal rights for all people and the equal protection of law.

Gays are entitled to the same marriage rights enjoyed by non-gay citizens.

[Proposition 8] protects our children from being taught in public schools that “same-sex marriage” is the same as traditional marriage.

Protecting children from some nebulous, undefined threat is a concept being introduced to steer the argument away from the real issues being voted on. It’s conceivable that at some age-appropriate point, the subject of same-sex marriage could come up during a classroom discussion. It’s hard to imagine any child who lives in the real world of playmates and classmates, television and the internet will be ignorant of the fact that there are gays in the world and that they are free to marry each other in many developed countries. If the subject of same-sex marriage does come up during a classroom discussion, it’s equally hard to imagine any child suffering the resulting psychological damage that seems to be envisioned by the Yes on 8 proponents. Absent any hard data to support the contention that such discussions with children will result in harm, the assumption must be regarded as false.

State law may require teachers to instruct children as young as kindergarteners about marriage. (Education Code § 51890.) If the gay marriage ruling is not overturned, TEACHERS COULD BE REQUIRED to teach young children there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage.

Most advocates for gay marriage and opponents of Proposition 8 will agree completely that marriage (in one of its permutations) is “an essential institution of society”. That is exactly why members of the gay community in this country believe they are entitled to the same rights conferred by marriage that the rest of Americans enjoy.

The argument that the passage of Proposition 8 will “protect” marriage is somewhat puzzling. What exactly will Proposition 8 protect marriage FROM? My spouse (at least until the Supreme Court renders a decision in March) and I have lived as an openly gay, if rather boring couple, in a residential neighborhood in Duarte, California for the past 25 years. Neither of us are able to name a single “traditional” family that has been affected for better or worse by our example. Somewhere in the city there may be such a family whose shock and dismay at the sight of our relationship has led to such a breakup but no one has ever told us who or where they are.

As an example of anecdotal evidence, the above certainly doesn’t prove that “traditional” marriages won’t suffer if Proposition 8 fails to become the law in California but until the Yes on 8 proponents can provide more specific information about the form that suffering would take than their argument is incomplete and unconvincing.

The “best situation for a child” is most emphatically NOT simply to be raised by a married mother and father” unless that statement includes a number of qualifiers. The best situation for a child is to be raised in a loving home where he or she is protected and secure and knows that he or she is loved … whether the family in that home is a traditional heterosexual couple, a committed and loving same sex couple, loving grandparents, foster parents or a loving single-parent. To take the unqualified position that the “best situation for a child” is to be raised by a married mother and father” is an example of ignorance that is almost too infuriating and ridiculous to justify a response.

The above argument is an example of issue-substitution that is both untrue and unworthy of serious consideration. There is nothing in California’s Education Code that requires teachers to teach young children ANYTHING about gay marriage or to discuss differences between “traditional” marriages and same-sex unions. Anyone who believes otherwise should READ the referenced Education Code section 51890.

Exactly what problems do the Yes on 8 forces anticipate in this code section and why do they think anything in this section or anywhere else in the Education Code could “mandate the teaching of young children that there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage”

Their fear is unfounded. Unfortunately, neither the education codes nor any of the other laws enacted at a state or federal level require that our children be educated about either marriage or sexuality. The forces of religion and superstition, sworn enemies of any knowledge that doesn’t genuflect to religious dogma, have conspired to suppress the teaching of anything about human sexuality that deviates from biblical orthodoxy. School districts that prepare real information about marriage or sexuality and try to present it in a structured classroom setting are required to get written permission from parents before giving any of this information to the children. Students whose parents object to this instruction must be allowed to opt out and so they often remain largely uninformed about the real threats to their health and lives from STD’s like AIDS and HIV, gonorrhea chlamydia, hepatitis, herpes and syphilis.

Objecting parents insist that the subject of sex is too sensitive and important to be discussed in the classroom and that it is their job, as parents to educate their children about sex and morality. Unfortunately, in America, many parents are as uninformed or misinformed as the children they need to educate.. The religious-inspired social stigma attached to the subject of sex often makes parents too uncomfortable to have frank discussions with their children about sexuality and the topic is never brought up.

The majority of young people in our society learn about sexuality on the street, from television and movies and from ubiquitous social networking sites like YouTube, FaceBook, and MySpace. The role models for our young are people like Britney Spears, Perris Hilton and Ana Nicole Smith.

It’s time we stepped into the 21st century and joined with other developed nations in requiring schools to provide education about both sexuality and marriage. If, as the Yes on 8 proponents claim, marriage is an essential institution of society, than American society is in serious trouble. The divorce rate in America is over 50%. Over half of the couples who pledge “until death” don’t understand the responsibility they are assuming, or the realities they will face as a married couple, and they don’t seem to appreciate or care about the magnitude of the commitment they are making.

When two people marry, they are entwining their destinies. Their lives are no longer their own but are irrevocably pledged to each other. “I” dissolves and is forever replaced by “We”.

Physical beauty and sexual attraction are the smallest part of the marriage equation. Marriage isn’t about sex any more than airline flights are about the peanut snack packs distributed enroute. Marriage is about companionship and emotional support. It’s about two people who want to share and build a fulfilling and emotionally satisfying life together. It’s about caring for each other when youth and vitality inevitably give way to age and sickness and infirmity.

This is what we should teach in the schools. And this is what too many Americans fail to understand.

We should not accept a court decision that may result in public schools teaching our kids that gay marriage is okay. That is an issue for parents to discuss with their children according to their own values and beliefs. It shouldn’t be forced on us against our will.

To see the fallacy of this argument, substitute the words “black equality” for “gay marriage”. Try changing “gay marriage” to “racial integration”. The subject of human rights is NOT an issue for parents to discuss with their children according to their own “values and beliefs” except in the very limited sense that parents have a legal, if not moral right, to indoctrinate their children with any myth, fable or antisocial value they hold dear. Creationist parents may teach their children that the world is 10,000 years old and that man was created by the divine snap of an omniscient finger. They can claim that evolution is a lie. Parents can try to teach their children that medical science is an arrogant affront to the will of God and healing can only be accomplished through prayer. Segregationist parents have a right to poison their children’s minds with vicious lies about racial superiority and the inferiority of blacks, Mexicans, Asians and one-armed paper-hangers. Regrettably, parents today have the power and the legal right to fill their children’s heads with all kinds of religious, racist and superstitious garbage. What these parents DON’T have a right to do is insist that their whacky beliefs be taught in our schools. They don’t have a right to withhold traditional medical care when their children face life-threatening injury or disease. They don’t have the right to force blacks to drink from separate drinking fountains. What these parents don’t have a right to do is prevent my partner and I from enjoying the same rights and benefits as every other American. Basic human rights is ABSOLUTELY something that should be forced on Americans … with their agreement if possible, and against their will if necessary.

CALIFORNIANS HAVE NEVER VOTED FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE. If gay activists want to legalize gay marriage, they should put it on the ballot. Instead, they have gone behind the backs of voters and convinced four activist judges in San Francisco to redefine marriage for the rest of society. That is the wrong approach.

The entitlement of all, or any Americans, to basic human rights is not a proper subject for a voter referendum. Either we all have the same rights or none of us have any rights at all. The voters of California have been duped by the propaganda of religious interest groups and the forces of bigotry, prejudice and fear into choosing to restrict the rights of a particular class of American citizen. By doing so, they have undermined the ideals of our nation’s founders and placed themselves on a slippery slope that poses a very real risk to the freedom of every American and to our very form of government.

LEGALIZING GAY MARRIAGE WILL LEAD TO HUMAN/ANIMAL UNIONS

On his September 14 radio show, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly insisted that the secular progressive movement "would like to have marriage abolished ... because it is not diverse enough." He explained, "That's what this gay marriage thing is all about." O'Reilly then warned of the possibility of "poly-amorphous" marriage, in which "you can marry 18 people, you can marry a duck."

O’Reilly must have been talking to Jerry Springer. In May 1998, The Jerry Springer Show was planning an episode titled "I married a horse". The show was ultimately not aired by many stations on the planned date, apparently due to concerns about the acceptability of broadcasting an episode in which a man admitted to a long term emotional and sexual relationship of this kind. The man and his horse later participated in a British documentary on the subject.

Rebutting O’Reilly’s argument is hard to do with a straight face but since it was seriously offered we need respond to that extremely tiny portion of the American population that subscribes to such nonsense. I’ve said earlier that there is no place in the debate for ad hominem attacks but O’Reilly is the exception that proves the rule.

In the early days of its history, the Mormon Church which was a powerful advocate of Proposition 8, not only allowed a man to take multiple wives, it demanded polygamy, believing that plural wives were a requirement demanded of any man wishing to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Fundamentalist Mormons broke away from the main church when Wilford Woodruff, the church's fourth president, issued a public declaration (commonly called the Manifesto) announcing the official discontinuance of the practice in 1890. These spinoff congregations still exist and polygamy is still practiced in parts of Utah. The issues of polygamy, polyandry, and bigamy have nothing to do with same sex marriage and their introduction into the debate is a red herring designed to divert our attention from the real issues at stake.

And Bill’s concern about man/duck unions is overblown, to say the least. Think about every friend you have and everyone you know or have ever known. Try to come up with the name of even one of them who expressed a desire to form a long-term emotional or sexual relationship with a duck … or any other domestic or wild animal. Perhaps social pressures are forcing large numbers of our population to conceal their predilections for animal “husbandry” and they have remained “in the closet” because they fear ostracism. They may exist but their existence is unsupported by any scientific studies or research projects that I am familiar with. Absent any scientific data to the contrary, we have no choice but to regard Bill’s argument as ridiculous and to regard Bill O’Reilly, Jerry Springer and others of their ilk as irrelevant morons who have nothing to contribute to an intelligent discussion of same-sex marriage.

SAME SEX COUPLES AND CHILDREN

On June 26th, 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in Lawrence v Texas that struck down laws criminalizing sodomy, stating that a majority's moral views cannot justify an infringement on individual rights

The decision in Lawrence v Texas was the result of a lawsuit brought by two gay men who said the state of Texas deprived them of privacy rights and equal protection under the law when they were arrested in 1998 for having sex in a Houston home.

A neighbor had reported a "weapons disturbance" at the home of John G. Lawrence, and when police arrived they only found two men having sex. Lawrence and another man, Tyron Garner, were held overnight in jail and later fined $200 each for violating the state’s Homosexual Conduct law. The neighbor was later convicted of filing a false police report.

All sodomy laws in the US are now unconstitutional and unenforceable when applied to non-commercial consenting adults in private.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Conner summed up the feeling of the court.

“A law branding one class of persons as criminal solely based on the state’s moral disapproval of that class and the conduct associated with that class runs contrary to the values of the Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause, under any standard of review.”

In dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia bemoaned the fact that the court's decision "leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage." If morality cannot justify a ban on gay sexual intimacy, Scalia asked, "what justification could there possibly be for denying … marriage to homosexual couples?"

The answer is obvious. None at all.

Most objections to same sex marriage are bible-based or rooted in societal prejudice that has no place in a nation founded on the principles of equality and equal protection of law.

The one objection that is at least worthy of consideration is that homosexual couples are unable to provide a suitable environment to care for and raise children.

As a gay man and a supporter of same sex marriage I can be expected to have a bias on the subject of adoptions by same sex couples and I DO have a bias. I believe that children fare no worse and probably no better regardless of whether they are raised by a same sex couple or a traditional mother and father. This belief conforms to the findings of the majority of empirical studies conducted by the American Psychological Association as well as a number of books and studies published by researchers, educaturs and educational institutions in this country as well as in Europe and Australia.

The 2000 U.S. Census showed that in California, half of married couples and one-third of gay couples are raising children. (The latter figure is 28% if limited to one's "own" children, a census term that includes biological, step and adopted children, but climbs to 32% when unrelated children, such as foster children, are included.) More than 70,000 children in California are being raised by gay couples.

Exhaustive studies of children raised by same sex parents and comparing them to children raised by opposite gender parents have failed to show any difference when evaluating possible stigma, teasing and social isolation, adjustment and self-esteem, opposite gender role models, sexual orientation, and strengths. Researchers found no differences in intelligence, type or prevalence of psychiatric disorders, self-esteem, well-being, peer relationships, couple relationships, or parental stress. The sexual orientation of children in the two groups was statistically identical with 90% developing as heterosexual and 10% as homosexual.

On only one parameter did the results of the studies consistently differ between the two groups: the children of same sex couples were found to be less aggressive, more nurturing to peers, more tolerant of diversity, and more inclined to play with both boy's and girl's toys, more adventurous and more willing to experiment with same sex relationships. This increased tolerance, while decried by Christian fundamentalists and Focus on the Family radicals, is arguably a positive finding and one that contradicts the claims of opponents of same sex marriage.

More research needs to be done and more studies conducted. In spite of the number of papers that have been published representing the conclusions reached by the major, legitimate psychiatric and psychological agencies in this country and Europe, there is still much we have to learn.

But, if the available data on the subject is insufficient to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that same sex parents are as qualified (or even more qualified) to care for children than their opposite gender counterparts, it certainly offers an almost overwhelming body of data pointing to the conclusion that a child’s welfare is not endangered or compromised if he or she is cared for by a loving, gay couple.

The California voters and the gay community have both been victimized by a campaign of lies, half-truths, innuendo and misdirection. The question facing the gay community can be expressed in two words:

What now?

The answer to that question won’t be found in angry diatribes or invective-filled rants. Justice will never be achieved by the resigned acceptance of what is being called “the Will of the People”. We can bemoan our fate and whimper “If Only… ”. “If Only” doesn’t change things. “If Only” accomplishes nothing.

Our job and our emphasis must be on the words “Next Time”

Dick & Brian Barrett-Marugg

Duarte, California