SPLIT--> California's Proposition 8 on Same-Sex Marriage

[Irvine511]

I keep thinking about them. I had tears of joy in my eyes when she told me they had gotten married. Now, the tears are the opposite.

hopefully, you can explain to them that it's all very complicated.

 

[martha]

This isn't a simple or easy situation at all.

Really? What's so fucking hard about two people who love each other committing to one another for a lifetime?

I must be stupid or something, because I just don't see how my colleague's niece's marriage to another woman is hurting anything in your narrow, little, scared world.

Are you proud right now? Are you happy?

Please, tell us about your joy that marriages are invalid, and that the queers are finally put where they belong.

 

[indigo tree]

Count in another Californian who is shocked. I really thought Prop 8 would be voted down easily.

 

[martha]

hopefully, you can explain to them that it's all very complicated.

You know, Caron looked at me and told me that I needed to make sure this didn't happen. She was absolutely right. I did my best, but I still feel like I failed her and all the rest of the people now designated as not quite good enough for Constitutional protection.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

I think it's pretty clear that Michigan people are the wisest and most informed people in the Union. Go Michigan!

Joking aside, very disappointed on the outcome of this...

 

[yolland]

At the risk of sounding cerebral about something so tragic, I did find those county-by-county maps a real eye-opener. I had no idea CA was so divided on 'social issues' between the coast and the rest of the state.

But the tide is surely turning :

In 2000 the results of prop 22 which prevented California from recognizing same-sex marriages was 61.4% approval and 38.6% against.

Eight years later - 52% vs. 48%.

Well, there's something to take heart from.

I hope the results of this vote won't actually wind up legally invalidating all the thousands of new families formed since June, but it doesn't look good for them. What a devastating prospect for all those couples and in many cases, their children.

 

[toscano]

So the Obama get-out-the-vote effort hurt Prop 8 ??

"African-Americans voted for Proposition 8 by a 69 percent to 31 percent margin. However, 55 percent of white voters and 52 percent of Hispanics voted against the proposition"


CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Exit Polls: Gay Marriage in CA ? - Blogs from CNN.com

 

[martha]

Well, there's something to take heart from.

The problem is that this new bullshit is an amendment to the constitution.

 

[corianderstem]

Nevermind: Wolf Blitzer just delivered the shitty news to me.

 

[BAW]

Really? What's so fucking hard about two people who love each other committing to one another for a lifetime?

I must be stupid or something, because I just don't see how my colleague's niece's marriage to another woman is hurting anything in your narrow, little, scared world.

Are you proud right now? Are you happy?

Please, tell us about your joy that marriages are invalid, and that the queers are finally put where they belong.

I do believe they are proud and happy right now. Our innocent children will now be protected from hearing about gay marriage...oh wait, they probably asked a few questions about it when they noticed the big yellow signs everywhere, saw the endless TV commercials and most likely wondered what it all meant when their parents paraded them around on street corners with defense of marriage signs. Oopsy!

But hey, marriage in California will be stronger than ever! The divorce rate will no longer be 50-75% for first marriages and 65% for second marriages! Families will stay together and no one will ever get divorced! Single moms will cease to exist and every boy and girl will have a happy, healthy 2 parent (one man/one woman ) household!

 

[deep]

So the Obama get-out-the-vote effort hurt Prop 8 ??

"African-Americans voted for Proposition 8 by a 69 percent to 31 percent margin. However, 55 percent of white voters and 52 percent of Hispanics voted against the proposition"


CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Exit Polls: Gay Marriage in CA � - Blogs from CNN.com

This is probably true.


In a different election cycle it may not have passed.

 

[Irvine511]

YouTube - Anita Bryant: "At Least It Was A Fruit Pie"

 

[nathan1977]

Really? What's so fucking hard about two people who love each other committing to one another for a lifetime?

Read the flipping thread, Martha. Your world is just as narrow.

Are you proud right now? Are you happy? Please, tell us about your joy that marriages are invalid, and that the queers are finally put where they belong.

No, I'm not, and it's your bigotry that assumes I am.

 

[Miringeltje]

It baffles me that there is a state that has one city voting to try and make prostitution legal can also then do this sort of bullshit.

Granted, I don't know how the San Francisco vote did, but talk about contradictions within one state.

Measure K (decriminalizing prostitution in San Francisco) didn't pass Yes - 42 % No - 58 %

Prop 8 in SF : 77% no - 23 % yes

 

[Doozer61]

i am too stunned to even comment

 

[phanan]

 

[phillyfan26]

Read the flipping thread, Martha. Your world is just as narrow.

No, I'm not, and it's your bigotry that assumes I am.

Does one have to be a bigot to believe you are a bigot?

 

[toscano]

Does one have to be a bigot to believe you are a bigot?

It's the bigot-standby.

Using their "logic", calling the KKK bigots makes YOU a bigot.

 

[Irvine511]

i am too stunned to even comment

 

[Irvine511]

Does one have to be a bigot to believe you are a bigot?

i think that nathan is one of the smartest and most eloquent posters in here.

and i think that he's used his smarts and eloquence to convince himself that he isn't prejudiced against gay people.

 

[anitram]

I am honestly ashamed for and embarrassed on behalf of everyone who voted Yes. Their children and/or grandchildren will be quite embarrassed someday, and I guess we can rest knowing that.

I have a number of gay friends. What any of their activities in the bedroom have to do with my fucked up heterosexual relationships are completely and utterly beyond me. I will never understand the deliberate causation of hurt, sure seems Christian to me.

 

[phillyfan26]

i think that nathan is one of the smartest and most eloquent posters in here.

and i think that he's used his smarts and eloquence to convince himself that he isn't prejudiced against gay people.

He has taken a tremendous amount of time to figure out a way to explain a rationale for wanting to bar gays from marriage.

 

[Diemen]

I will never understand the deliberate causation of hurt, sure seems Christian to me.

No, no. They just hate the sin, not the sinner. If the sinner would just reject the sin and leave their deviant lifestyle behind, none of this would ever need to happen!

 

[AliEnvy]

Craziness.

A giant leap forwards and monumental leap backwards all in one day.

In California of all places - go figure.

 

[Irvine511]

not over?

Proposition 8 foes refuse to concede
By Aurelio Rojas

Published: Wednesday, Nov. 05, 2008

Opponents of a ballot measure to ban gay marriage refused to concede this morning, despite vote totals that show supporters of Proposition 8 with a 400,000-vote advantage.

Kate Kendall, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said 3 million to 4 million ballots remain uncounted statewide.

"The fact is depending on the turnout model we are looking at millions of votes yet to be counted," Kendall said. The race is too close to call. People's fundamental rights hang in the balance."

Secretary of State Debra Bowen is expected to issue an estimate of the number of uncounted ballots late today or Thursday. It could take days to process all of them. Proposition 8 supporters declared victory early today, saying their model shows them with an insurmountable lead.

Proposition 8, the most passionately debated and costliest measure on the ballot, was ahead 52 percent to 48 percent with 92 percent of precincts reporting.

Frank Schubert, manager of the Yes on 8 campaign, declared victory shortly after midnight -- but opponents called that declaration "presumptuous."

"We had more than 100,000 (supporters) walk precincts for us, and they have delivered a great victory," Schubert told supporters.

But Dennis Mangers, co-chairman of No on 8 Northern California Committee, said the outcome of the measure was still in doubt.

"We're absolutely astounded they would be so presumptuous," Mangers said. "I firmly believe that when I wake up in the morning I will find the voters of California said 'no' to discrimination."

While supporters of the measure cited strong voter support in the Central Valley and in pockets of urban areas, opponents noted that half the vote not been tallied.

They pointed out that Alameda County, for example, had yet to report any of its votes, while a third of the precincts in Los Angeles County were still uncounted.

Mangers said that even if opponents lose, they will pursue legal action to challenge the measure.

"We will never surrender our constitutional right to marriage," Mangers said, adding that supporters of gay marriage are prepared to go to the ballot again.

Tuesday's vote on the constitutional amendment came eight years after voters approved a referendum with the same 14 words: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California."

That measure, Proposition 22, won resoundingly, 61 percent to 39 percent. But in May, the state Supreme Court ruled that it violated the state constitution's equal protection clause.

Since then, an estimated 17,000 same-sex couples have been married in California, the only state besides Massachusetts and Connecticut to recognize gay unions.

Religious conservatives argued gay marriage is contrary to biblical teachings and cast Proposition 8 as the decisive last stand for traditional marriage.

In television ads blanketing California, the Yes on 8 campaign expanded its argument beyond the question of whether gay couples should be allowed to marry.

Rejection of the measure, they charged, would ultimately lead schools to incorporate same-sex marriage into lesson plans. They said churches refusing to marry same-sex couples would lose their tax-exempt status.

Opponents of the marriage ban dismissed those claims as scare tactics.

Unmarried same-sex couples in California are accorded most of the civil rights heterosexual couples enjoy. But No on 8 forces said banning same-sex marriage would be tantamount to resurrecting long- discredited "separate but equal" policies and laws that barred African Americans and others from marrying whites.

The campaign generated more than $73 million in contributions from every state and more than 20 foreign countries. It set a national record for a spending on a state ballot initiative based on a social issue, according to the Associated Press.

The Yes on 8 campaign – whose chief contributors were members of the Mormon and Catholic churches – raised more than $28 million.

Opponents, led by gay rights groups and labor unions, including the California Teachers Association, raised more than $32 million.

Democratic Attorney General Jerry Brown, in a move initiative supporters called prejudicial, changed the ballot title after the state Supreme Court overturned the gay marriage ban.

In a setback for opponents of gay marriage, a Sacramento judge left intact the ballot title and summary stating that Proposition 8 "eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry."

Political analysts predicted the new language would make passage of the measure more difficult because voters are generally reluctant to take away existing rights.

After trailing by wide margins in early polls, the Yes on 8 campaign narrowed the gap with TV ads that argued schools would promote gay marriage if the measure failed.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who in 2004 gained national attention when he issued a directive to city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, became the face of the marriage ban campaign in mocking ads.

During the campaign, Newsom, a potential Democratic candidate for governor in 2010, officiated at the marriage of a lesbian teacher and her partner.

 

[yolland]

The problem is that this new bullshit is an amendment to the constitution.

I know, but those numbers did at least show that attitudes are changing. The constitution can and will be amended again.

"African-Americans voted for Proposition 8 by a 69 percent to 31 percent margin. However, 55 percent of white voters and 52 percent of Hispanics voted against the proposition"

I'm a little confused by those figures, as they contradict their own exit poll results:

white voters (63% of total) -- 49% yes, 51% no
black voters (10% of total) -- 70% yes, 30% no
Latino voters (18% of total) -- 53% yes, 47% no

White men actually voted 51% yes; it was white women's 53% no vote that tipped white voters against Prop 8. Black women, on the other hand, were actually more conservative than black men here, 75% yes to black men's roughly 60% yes. The Latino gender split more resembled the white one (men 54% yes, women 52% yes).

To some extent this reflects the already-known-to-pollsters tendency for gender issues to be more fraught in minority communities; what is rather surprising is the extent to which black women proved more conservative here than black men, as well as the fact that nonwhites earning over $50,000 were actually 5% more likely to vote yes than nonwhites earning under $50,000. Unfortunately, there were no breakdowns of racial minorities by religion, nor any breakdowns of African-American voters by age (Latinos under 30 did vote 59% no--again, there's something at least to take hope from).

So, yes, high minority turnout for Obama (African-Americans were 4% more of CA's electorate than in '04) may have been a decisive factor, despite Obama's own stated opposition to Prop 8.

 

[martha]

Read the flipping thread, Martha. Your world is just as narrow.

Because I include gay people in it?

No, I'm not, and it's your bigotry that assumes I am.

If you're not happy, what will make you happy? If you're not happy when all along you've been wanting these results, when will you be happy?

 

[Harry Vest]

craziness.

A Giant Leap Forwards And Monumental Leap Backwards All In One Day.

In California Of All Places - Go Figure.

Exactly!!!!
What The Hell Is With That?????????????

 

[martha]

California can be very schizo.

 

[namkcuR]

I am 24.

In my lifetime, the legal right of African-Americans to marry has never been questioned.

In my lifetime, the legal right of an African American to marry a Caucasian has never been questioned.

In my lifetime, the legal right for African-Americans to have all of the same civil rights as anyone else has never been questioned.

In my lifetime, the legal right for African-Americans to be able to vote has never been questioned.

In my lifetime, the legal right for women to be able to vote has never been questioned.

At one time or another in our history, all of these things were questioned by people who were fighting the tide of change, fighting to delay the inevitable.

The goal is that the children of my generation, decades from now, when they are in their twenties, will be able to say, 'In my lifetime, the legal right for gay people to marry has never been questioned.'