Lost rights in California

“Keep your magic undies off my civil rights!”
- A sign at an anti-Prop 8 protest rally outside the LA Mormon Temple

Lost in all of the cheering, crying, celebration and happiness that Barack Obama put an end to the Bush era was the fact that California voted to repeal civil rights extended to group of citizens who were doing no harm to anyone. Proposition 8 outlaws marriage between two individual who are in love, committed to each other, but who happen to be of the same gender. Up until Tues two people in love could marry. Now a lack of physiological difference would disqualify two otherwise healthy happy loving people from getting married.

Even sadder is the fact that across the country, two other ballot propositions outlawing equality in marriage rights also passed.

What happened in California?

The “No On 8” campaign got complacent. They let the other guy frame the debate. The “Yes on 8” campaign (heavily funded by out of state money from the Mormon church) hit the airwaves first with an effective ad featuring a doe-eyed little moppet excitedly telling her mother that today in school she learned a “prince can grow up to marry a prince or a princess can marry a princess!” The look of concern on the mother’s face played over a doom laden male voice warning that Prop 8 would mandate gay marriage be taught in public schools.
The “No on 8” ran a very weak ad featuring the Secretary of CA Education saying that CA Ed code mandated no such thing. Unfortunately his own website showed that the CA Ed code did.

Ooops.

“No On 8” went down and went down big time.

The “No on 8” forces made several basic errors:

1) Never become complacent when it comes to people’s fear and ignorance – especially running against a group that has no qualms about stirring those fears up to win.

2) Get your facts straight. You would think watching Sarah Palin drive off the bridge to nowhere would have given “No On 8” the heads up to check their facts.

3) Don’t fight your battle on the other guy’s ground. Rather than running ads saying the “Yes on 8” ads were wrong they should have run adds that showed gay couples and PFLAG members talking about what marriage meant to them.

4) Know who is supporting the other guy and why. Blacks and Hispanics voted overwhelmingly in favor of 8.


The last point is where the “No On 8” forces really blew it. In 2004, Karl Rove made inroads into the black electorate by going to black churches and playing on the fear of gay marriage. Black churches are socially conservative on this topic as are Hispanics. That history was there for all to see. “No On 8” did not understand that the heavy black and Hispanic turnout for Obama would also be a heavy turnout of constituency that has historically been against marriage equality. So Californians were treated to the ironic sight of blacks using Scripture as the basis to discriminate against a class of citizens, just like whites used Scripture for so many years to justify slavery and segregation.
Now much ink is being spilled on how the marriage equality votes split along generational lines. In five years, the thinking goes, the majority of the electorate will be of the generation that overwhelmingly supports marriage equality, so just wait and things will change.

This sounds a lot like what black civil rights workers were told in the fifties and sixties – “Don’t be impatient given time we will give you your rights.”

Gavin Newsome tells the story of an elderly man coming up to him on the street in support of Newsome implementing equality of marriage rights in SF saying “Thank you for what you did for my daughter.”

Time to get impatient.