Fight Against Gay Marriage Will Lead GOP Over a Cliff
By Patrick Sammon, President of Log Cabin Republicans
Republicans are making a huge mistake if they use results from California’s Prop 8 to justify a lurch to the right on social issues. Voters narrowly passed the proposition that rolled back marriage equality for gay and lesbian Californians.
Prop 8 passed because the “Yes” campaign changed the subject and scared voters with false information. It alleged threats to religious freedom and school curricula, despite the facts that no church would be required to marry a gay couple and each local school district controls its own curriculum. By distorting the truth, the “Yes” campaign played to decades-old fears that gay and lesbian people seek to “convert” children and are hostile to religious freedom.
Funding by the Mormon Church is the main reason Prop 8 passed. News reports say members of the LDS church provided at least $20 million of the “Yes” campaign’s $35 million, helping sway 70 percent of African-Americans to vote “Yes,” compared with 53 percent of Latinos, and 49 percent support from whites. It’s painfully ironic that a religious denomination that faced terrible discrimination spent $20 million to promote discrimination against gay and lesbian families.
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While I don't necessarily agree completely with your claim on the passage of Prop. 8, I do support your title statement, "Fight Against Gay Marriage Will Lead GOP Over a Cliff."
The assumption that African Americans voters proved vital to Prop. 8 is absurd. African American voters in California represented only 10% of California voters. The 2.3 percentage points that passed Prop. 8 could have come from any group, we should not lay blame to African Americans.
Also, I'm rather astonished that you didn't follow your title statement. Instead, you opted to cover Prop. 8 solely, with the persuasion that there aren't any gay-friendly mormons, blacks, latinos, and whites. This is not an issue limited by geography either. After all, we seem to have 49 other states in this country dealing with the same issue, some more Republican than others.
The Republican Party really needs a figure that is openly gay and positive. Harvey Milk considered himself a Republican for a long time. There are many conservative-minded homosexuals out there. If the Republican Party could grab one, it could use that face to represent an inclusive environment in the Republican Party.
I'm mildly ashamed that your article offered only blame and no forward direction. Here it is: let's get a gay Republican in political office. And no, not Charlie Crist, since he's still in the closet.
The main reason that Prop. 8 ultimately passed was because of visibility. Milk criticized homosexuals in the closet for hiding the truth to their loved ones. If everyone came out of the closet, he argued families would be wiser to the issue. More visibility in the issue would restructure the way families handle the issue. It's moved slowly since the advent of the word 'homosexual' in the late 19th century.
And finally, this is not merely a liberal issue. If anything, the GOP should promote more families while the country is in hard economic times. The GOP should promote more love in marriage. The GOP should promote more diversity of groups. The GOP should wise up to the realities facing a young America in 2008.
Michael Gross at the Advocate wrote a telling article:
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid65744.asp
I think you are entirely correct that the biggest reason that legislation like CA Proposition 8 can pass is a lack of visibility.
By this, I don't just mean parades, media appearances or literature. These are important, but they are no substitute for substantially personalising the issue—something that only gay individuals and their families can do.
Prop. 8 passed, largely, because to many people homosexual individuals are remote, and can to varying degrees be dehumanised. The propaganda spread by its opponents painted a picture of a militant community intent on eroding religious freedoms, pushing an explicitly sexual agenda down the throats of schoolchildren. In short, gay human beings were marginalised, and substituted with The Homosexual Lobby—which is as much a shadowy creation of the opponents of gay rights used to obfuscate actual advocacy as an actual political movement.
This is much more difficult to do when faced with a gay person, possibly one you have known for some time, and whom you know bears no animosity towards you or your family, and has every respect for your liberties. If we want our friends to help us, first they need to know who we are, to see that we're not monsters: we're the meek old man who lives next door, their daughter's best friend and confidante, the guy who cleans the bins, the lady who teaches their kids to solve quadratics. We're their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. We're normal, kind, ordinary people faced with a powerful enemies who want us, and our families, to look somehow less authentic, less worthy of protection and fellowship. If every gay man and woman had come out three months before the ballot to tell their friends and families that they meant no harm and just wanted to be accepted, loved and allowed to live happy lives, there is no way in the world that the scaremongering would have succeeded.
Those of you who are in the closet, be aware: the propaganda you have just witnessed against you depends as much on your fears as on the fears of those around you. Do not let them scare you; do not let them scare your family and friends with their doctrine of oppression. As Jesus put it in his most memorable sermon: "You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden. People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house." (Matthew 5:14–15) Don't lend your light to those who would do you harm; don't hide yourself under a basket for fear of being known. Stand tall and proud. You are just as good, just as worthy as anyone else. You deserve better than your own silence, and so do the people you love.
The next time this comes to ballot, let your friends know that when they cast their votes, they are not voting to protect their churches or children from insubstantial shadows of doubt, but from you, and people like you. Make sure they understand that the choice they make impacts you personally, and will continue to do so for as long as it stands. And most of all, do not hate them for whatever decision they make. Love them, be understanding of their fears, and be consistent that you don't want to take anything away from them. If they are going to come around, it is because they are good people at heart, not because you are angry at them.