October 21, 2008

• Where’s the Love?

  

  I went out to lunch today alone.  There were 2 people sitting next to me within earshot, and they were talking about the election.  Specifically they were talking about a Proposition 8, a measure on the ballot here in California that would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry, essentially defining marriage only between a man and a woman. 

  The two people I was eavesdropping on were coworkers, both in uniform, for a cleaning company.  The man, was trying to explain to the woman that one of the arguments conservatives were making in favor of Prop. 8 was wrong.  Specifically, that if the measure passes, first graders would be taught about gay marriage.  He was actually articulating it quite well.  Maybe he read this article in the LA Times on Saturday:

  Prop. 8 battle rages over whether gay marriage would be taught in schools

  Proponents
  say defeat of the measure would lead to such lessons. Foes cry
  fear-mongering and say there’s no mention of marriage in the ballot
  item. The reality is complicated.

  By Jessica Garrison, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
  
  9:23 PM PDT, October 18, 2008

  It
  was supposed to be a 90-minute excursion, a noontime field trip for a
  group of San Francisco charter school students and their parents to see
  the kids’ lesbian teacher marry her partner in a wedding performed by
  Mayor Gavin Newsom.
  
  But after the event was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle and
  picked up by cable television and the Internet, the first-graders at
  Creative Arts Charter School found themselves at the center of the
  hottest battle in the campaign over gay marriage: the question of
  whether failure to pass Proposition 8 would result in widespread
  classroom discussions of same-sex unions.
  
  Supporters of the constitutional amendment, under which marriage would
  be defined as only between a man and a woman, contend that if
  Proposition 8 does not pass, gay marriage will be taught in public
  schools. “We are already seeing that happen,” said Frank Schubert,
  campaign manager for Yes on 8.
  
  
  
  The opposing side insists that this is fear-mongering and notes that
  there is no mention of schools or curriculum in the language of the
  proposition.”They just made something up in order to scare people and change the
  subject,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center
  for Lesbian Rights.
  
  To buttress their case, Proposition 8 supporters point to a legal
  decision out of Massachusetts, where same-sex couples have been able to
  wed since 2004. After a second-grade teacher in Lexington read a book
  to her students that included two princes marrying, the parents of a
  child in the class sued the school district.
  
  
  
  The parents, devout Christians who oppose gay marriage, contended that
  the teacher had read the book to her class “for the express purpose of
  indoctrinating them into the concept that homosexuality and marriage
  between same-sex partners is moral.” This, they said, intruded on their
  “right to direct the moral upbringing of their own children.”
  
  
  
  A federal court dismissed the case, finding it without merit, and
  earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of
  the dismissal, letting the lower court’s ruling stand.The child’s parents will be featured in a new Proposition 8 ad that will begin airing this week.

   

  The new ‘Yes on 8′ ad on the left, the new ‘No on 8′ ad on the right.
  
  

  School districts and the California Department of Education, meanwhile,
  are getting a steady stream of calls from the media and parents wanting
  to know whether gay marriage will be taught in schools if Proposition 8
  is defeated.

  The answer, it turns out, is slightly more complicated than can be
  captured in the 30-second television advertisements put out by both
  sides. There is nothing in the state education code that requires schools to
  teach anything about marriage. Even the decision about whether to offer
  comprehensive sex education is left up to individual school districts.

  What state law does require is that districts that offer sex education
  “teach respect for marriage and committed relationships.”  Districts have taken different approaches. The Los Angeles Unified School District offers ninth-graders a “Life
  Skills” class that deals with a variety of issues, including personal
  identity and relationships. A district spokeswoman said marriage is not
  a specific part of that curriculum but could come up as part of
  classroom discussion.

  In Fresno, meanwhile, district policy is that teachers do not address
  the subject of gay marriage in the classroom; students who ask about it
  are told to raise the issue with their families, according to district
  officials.

  Hilary McLean, spokeswoman for Jack O’Connell, the state superintendent
  of public instruction, said she was unaware of any district that had
  changed its curriculum as a result of the California Supreme Court’s
  May ruling allowing same-sex marriage.

  Still, recognizing how politically potent the issue is, the Yes on 8
  campaign has made it the center of its television advertising campaign. “Mom, guess what I learned in school today?” a little girl says in one spot. “I learned how a prince married a prince.”

  As the girl’s mother makes a horrified face, a voice says: “Think it
  can’t happen? It’s already happened. . . . Teaching about gay marriage
  will happen unless we pass Proposition 8.” In response, the No on 8 side put out an ad called “Proponents of Proposition 8 Are Using Lies to Scare You.” As television screens flicker Big Brother-like in the background, a voice says: “Prop. 8 will not affect teaching in schools.”

  To counter that, the Yes on 8 side issued a blast e-mail last week
  titled, “Who Is Really Lying,” which accused the No on 8 side of
  wanting gay marriage to be taught “at the youngest possible age.” In San Francisco, Newsom said he didn’t know the schoolchildren would
  be attending their teacher’s wedding, and a spokesman for the mayor
  said he does not endorse the idea of children leaving school to go to
  weddings — no matter who is getting married. “First-graders should be in class during the day,” said Nathan Ballard, communications director for Newsom.

  I myself have never been a huge proponent of gay “marriage” per se.  I’m more concerned with equal rights, and could personally care less whether same sex couples call it a marriage or a civil union.  That said, if Prop. 8 does pass, it would set back years of advances in gay rights.

  The fact that blue collar workers are discussing this at lunch I think is positive.  Even my own family here in California has questions about this issue, and they’re far from being homophobic.  The fear tactics in use here though are really quite absurd.  Gay marriage won’t be taught in schools.  And even if it were, reading a book about two princes marrying, will not make a child gay.  You can’t make a child gay.  That’s not how it works.  And by the ninth grade, kids these days certainly have this stuff figured out.  Unfortunately, I feared all along that this issue would be damaging in a presidential election year.  This article by Farhad Manjoo on slate.com confirms my worst fears.  Here are a few excerpts.

  Obama vs. McCain vs. Gay Marriage In California, the presidential race is taking a back seat to gay marriage.

  By Farhad Manjoo Posted Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2008, at 4:00 PM ET

  No one doubts that Barack Obama will win California by a double-digit margin
  this year. In some northern counties, he may well hit 90 percent. Yet
  politics in this nonswing blue state still defy prediction.
  California’s 2008 ballot is a thicket of closely contested, closely
  watched social issues. And on some of the biggest questions, blue
  voters—in one case, the very same voters that Obama is counting on—look
  ready to swing red.

  Among other state initiatives, Californians will vote on a measure to
  ban gay marriage; to require parental notification for abortions for
  minors; and to institute a program of rehabilitation, rather than
  incarceration, for nonviolent drug offenders. Even the beasts have a
  stake in the election: Proposition 2
  requires that cows, pigs, chickens, and other farm animals “be allowed,
  for the majority of the day, to fully extend their limbs or wings, lie
  down, stand up and turn around.” (The New York Times has come out in favor of the measure, while a number of local papers, including the Los Angeles Times, oppose it on grounds that it’ll damage the state’s huge agriculture industry.) In surveys, a large majority of voters say they’ll pull the lever in the animals’ favor.

  But on the question of whether human beings will be allowed to lie down
  and extend their limbs with whomever they please, Californians are much
  more uncertain. In 2000, residents voted overwhelmingly
  to ban same-sex marriage. The state Supreme Court struck down that
  initiative this spring, saying such a ban required a change to the
  state constitution, and gay couples up and down the coast have been
  marrying ever since. Now comes Proposition 8, which would enshrine a
  ban on same-sex marriage into the California Constitution.

  Early polls
  showed the measure tanking. Liberals were buoyed: Not only were they
  going to win the White House; they would also see their neighbors
  repudiate the 2000 vote and embrace an unmistakably libertine (if not
  strictly “liberal”) social policy. But over the last month, proponents
  of Proposition 8 have pulled in more campaign cash (40 percent of it from Mormons) and launched an aggressive TV ad campaign. Now the anti-gay-marriage measure looks likely to pass. Says Yvette Martinez, political director of No on 8: “I think maybe we got a little complacent.”

  There’s an interesting demographic wrinkle to the debate over Proposition 8. Obama has come out against the measure—but
  his supporters are another matter. The Democrat is expected to bring a
  surge of black and Latino voters to the polls on Election Day. This spells trouble for gay marriage; in some surveys
  (PDF), minority voters have expressed much greater support for banning
  same-sex marriage than have whites. Chip White, a spokesman for the pro-Proposition 8 campaign,
  stopped short of saying that Obama’s presence on the ballot will help
  the measure. But he did point out that the campaign plans a big push in
  minority communities, especially through churches and other religious
  networks. “Traditional marriage initiatives have historically been
  supported by African-Americans,” he says. “We think this one will be no
  different.”

  Late last month, the Proposition 8 campaign hit on what seems to be its
  most effective argument against gay marriage: that if the court’s
  ruling stands, kindergartners will be “indoctrinated” into the gay
  lifestyle. They’ve pushed the message in a couple of goofily creative TV ads
  now blanketing the airwaves. The more outrageous spot features a girl
  who comes home from school to show her mother a book her teacher has
  given her—King & King,
  a fairy tale about a young prince who doesn’t show much interest in
  getting together with a princess. “I learned how a prince can marry a
  prince and I can marry a princess!” the girl in the ad tells her
  mother. An announcer declares that under California law, schools are
  required to teach kids about marriage, and that even if parents object,
  “teaching children about gay marriage will happen here unless we pass
  Proposition 8.” The Proposition 8 slogan: “Protect Our Children.
  Restore Marriage.”.

  The first time I saw these ads, I thought Proposition 8 was sunk: Is
  this the best the anti-gay marriage side can muster? An obviously
  tangential “Think of the children!” campaign? What’s more, the ad is misleading: Although state law offers health-education guidelines for school districts to follow, it does not mandate a curriculum, and it explicitly allows
  parents to pull children out of any health classes they may find
  objectionable. In the summer, when the Proposition 8 campaign attempted
  to add language about schools teaching gay marriage on the statewide
  ballot pamphlet, a Sacramento Court found the claim “false and misleading.”…

  From afar, California is often seen as a liberal haven. Sure, Bill Clinton won the state by 14 points
  in 1992, and ever since, the state’s electoral horde—55 votes, 20
  percent of the threshold necessary to win the White House—have been a
  lock for Democrats. Yet between 1952 and 1988, the Golden State burned bright red,
  voting for a Democratic presidential candidate only once (Lyndon
  Johnson in 1964). Nixon and Reagan—homestate boys—won handily, and in
  1988, George H.W. Bush eked out a respectable margin.
  And voters here have a history of passing conservative ballot
  initiatives. Yes, we’ve legalized medical marijuana and funded stem
  cell research; but we have also severely restricted property taxes, denied medical services to illegal immigrants, prohibited affirmative action at public universities, and forced sex offenders to wear GPS tracking devices.
  Californians have twice rejected measures to require minors to inform
  their parents before seeking abortions, but polls suggest that the
  proposal will pass this year….

  Fact: Not one word in Prop 8 mentions education, and no child can be
  forced, against the will of their parents, to be taught anything about
  health and family issues at school. California law prohibits it, and
  the Yes on 8 campaign knows they are lying. Sacramento Superior Court
  Judge Timothy Frawley has already ruled that this claim by Prop 8
  proponents is “false and misleading.” The Orange County Register,
  traditionally one of the most conservative newspapers in the state, says this claim is false. So do lawyers for the California Department of Education.  Spread the word!
  

  

  • 2:25 am
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