Box Turtle Bulletin

Yes on 8’s Appeal to Bigotry

I saw the latest advertisement in favor of Proposition 8 on TV last night and was struck by the change in message. Perhaps tired of newspapers running editorials accusing them of lying in their ads, this one made no pretense of presenting facts. It appealed purely to homophobic emotion.

Yes on 8’s New Ad

Transcript:

Same-sex marriage… have you really thought about it?
What it means when gay marriage conflicts with our religious freedoms…
Why it was forced on us by San Francisco Judges when gay domestic partners already have the same legal rights…
What it means when our children are taught about it in schools…
Have you though about what same-sex marriage means…
(small girl:) to me?
Think about it.
Voting Yes restores traditional marriage.
Yes on Proposition 8.

This ad makes no argument as to why same-sex marriage is not desireable to society. It simply asks the listener to dredge up any misconceptions, stereotypes, or animus that may be buried in their subconscience and let fear – not fact or reason – be their guide. It is an appeal to bigotry in its most naked form.

Proposition 8 DOUBLES its Newspaper Endorsements

As of today, Proposition 8 has the endorsement of twice as many newspapers as yesterday bringing its total up to two.

Previously we told you that the Paradise Post (circulation 8,000) had endorsed the proposition. Now we read that the Los Altos Town Crier has added its name to the list.

As for their reasoning… well, let’s just say that it demonstrates a shallowness of investigation into the facts and an ignorance of the role of the judiciary. They also seem startlingly unaware of actions taken by the legislature towards the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Yes on Proposition 8. We think it is time to stop the courts from making our laws. That’s why we elect a representative government. The ripple effect of letting the current court ruling legalizing gay marriage stand will be endless lawsuits, especially regarding tax-exempt status for churches and educational institutions.

With a circulation of 16,500, the supporters of Proposition have tripled the number of citizens that will read a supportive editorial on Prop 8.

Newspaper Endorsements

San Diego Biotech Companies Fear Prop 8

According to San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 executives of biotech companies in the San Diego area are seeking to get their trade organization to officially oppose Proposition 8. They fear that Massachusetts could steal away valuable researchers and highly skilled employees, appealing to their desire to live in a more tolerant environment.

“Our industry is vitally important to San Diego and we cannot allow other states become more appealing to our talented work force,” the executives said. “In today’s economy we cannot afford to lose the potential of a single job or company.”

Sadly, the appeal may be too late. The board of Biocom has already met on endorsements and did not take a polition on any propositions. However, a board member did indicate that Prop 8 is not welcomed by their industry.

“We are working at the cutting edge of biomedical knowledge and we should be as open-minded as possible,” Xanthopoulos said. “Biotechnology companies are supposed to be agile, flexible, creative, innovative and committed to thinking out of the box. All these things don’t line up with Proposition 8. They are exactly to the contrary.”

NorCal Radio Station Refuses to Run Yes on 8 False Advertising

Per the Eureka Times-Standard, KHUM radio decided not to run an ad supporting Proposition 8

“It really had to do with the content of the ad itself, and not the issue,” KHUM General Manager Patrick Cleary said of his decision not to run the advertisement. “I think they were saying that they were going to be teaching homosexuality in kindergarten. It was a fear-mongering ad, and we sent it back and asked them to re-submit a different one.”

This is not a decision that was without sacrifice

Trask said it is very rare for the station to turn down an advertisement, as KHUM has a tight operating budget and needs all the revenue it can get.

“We’re not really in the financial position to turn down advertising,” he said. “Generally speaking, when people approach us to buy advertising content, we sell it to them.”

They offered to run an ad that dealt with the real issues of the case and was not based on fear tactics and falsehood but the Yes on 8 Campaign had no interest in pursuing such advertising.

I wish that more media would place civic responsibility above profit and refuse to run advertising that is blatantly false and intentionally deceptive, no matter the campaign, candidate, or issue. But, if they did that, poor Yes on 8 would have none of their commercials on the air.

“Jailed” Swedish Preacher Campaigning For Prop 8

Proponent’s for California’s Proposition 8 have brought over a preacher from Sweden, who they say was jailed for preaching against homosexuality as a warning of what could happen in California if Prop 8 fails. However, a radio journalist from Sweden reports that the preacher’s back story isn’t true.

The New York Times reported on Monday:

[T]he “Yes on 8” campaign has brought over from Sweden a pastor named Ake Green, who a few years ago was sentenced to a month in prison under Sweden’s law banning hate speech, because he gave a sermon denouncing homosexuality. Mr. Green’s testimony was featured in a 90-minute “Yes on 8” satellite simulcast that was recently downlinked to 170 churches throughout the state.

“He is a symbol of what is ahead,” said the Rev. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Church in the San Diego area, a leading organizer of the “Yes” ranks.

The Times report implied that Ã…ke Green was jailed for his beliefs. Anti-gay activists often assert that he was actually jailed for preaching against homosexuality. Swedish radio journalist Tor Billgren, who has covered the story, wrote to Box Turtle Bulletin to explain what really happened:

The Swedish pastor Ã…ke Green was sentenced to prison by the lower court, but acquitted by the two higher courts including the Supreme Court. He has NOT been jailed. The only thing the Ã…ke Green-case proves is that religious freedom is strongly protected, even in a country with hate speech laws such as Sweden.

You can find pastor Greens sermon on this supporter-site: http://akegreen.org/en-2-left/en-2-9.htm

The case proves that it is OK to preach that homosexuality is a “cancerous tumour in the entire society.” It’s also OK to say that AIDS is “a consequence of homosexuality.”

In 2007 the Supreme Court also acquitted a Christian blogger, who was prosecuted for a discussion on his blog, where a blog commenter stated that homosexuals should be hanged upon stakes as punishment and a warning. The commenter also wrote that the sooner a sodomite meets his hangman, the better. (When the homosexual is dead, he can’t commit any sins, hence it’s better for him to be dead…) According to Swedish law the owner of a blog is responsible for everything written on it, but he was acquitted, partly because of technical issues. The Supreme Court judged that the texts weren’t hate speech, but a religious and biblical discussion about homosexuality.”

As Tor pointed out, even in a country where hate speech laws are enforced, strong exceptions have been made to protect religious expression. In other words, religious leaders are perfectly free to hate as long as they wrap their hatred around religious themes.

American courts, on the other hand, have consistently struck down attempts to enact hate speech laws. Which is why the Klan has been protected by civil authorities whenever they want to protest on the courthouse square.

Anti-gay extremists who warn that advancement of equality for gays and lesbians mean that their freedoms will be curtailed are not being truthful. They are either woefully ignorant of the Constitution here in the U.S. as well as events abroad, or they are lying. Take your pick.

The Clear Facts about Proposition 8 and Schools

Writing for Jurist (a publication of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law), Douglas NeJaime, the Sears Law Teaching Fellow at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, explains in clear and easily understood language exactly why the claims by Yes on 8 about schools having to teach about gay marriage are false.

First, school curriculum is an intensely local decision. Local school boards, elected by local residents, create, revise, and implement curriculum. While public schools must teach core subjects and ensure that students attain a certain level of competence, they enjoy a tremendous amount of discretion. Nowhere is that discretion more expansive than in the domain of health and sex education. In fact, schools in California may decide to provide no such instruction whatsoever. If schools do offer sex education, the California Education Code requires that schools teach “respect for marriage and committed relationships.” But even this statutory provision is silent as to what that instruction should (let alone must) include. Instead, local school districts may include what they like, based on parental feedback, teacher input, and the decisions of politically accountable local officials. Some school districts have for years included material on lesbians and gay men, while many others have omitted such material. That variation will not change (and has not changed) in light of the ability of same-sex couples to marry in California. Schools will continue to exercise their broad discretion and will not operate under any new mandates. Furthermore, parents in California enjoy the right to exempt their children from sex education. This right to opt out will continue to exist, meaning that children won’t receive sex education (gay-inclusive or not) to which their parents object.

He also explains why the claims based on Parker v. Hurley (the King and King ad) are untrue.

At the onset of this campaign I was willing to believe that the Yes on 8 Campaign was sincere and that their ads reflected their beliefs. However, as more and more evidence builds up it has become increasingly obvious that they have abandoned all efforts at honesty and now are flat-out lying.

Education is not the focus of the ads because the supporters are unclear about the law or because they truly believe that schools will undermine parental and community control. As Marcos Breton revealed in an article about Yes on 8’s strategist:

In August, Schubert was excited at the subversive idea of using gay people in his ads – gay people who he claims oppose same-sex marriage. But he decided that was too risky.

Instead, Schubert found his inspiration at a Southern California focus group meeting in early September when an African American man – and Barack Obama supporter – reacted angrily to the idea of gay marriage being taught to kids in public school.

Ever since, Schubert has hammered at that idea in slick commercials with ominous music. “The things that people in politics don’t always appreciate is the power of human emotion,” he said.

Box Turtle Reader Writes

Ben in Oakland is a frequent commenter here on the Box Turtle Bulletin. He has also taken the time to pen a very compelling personal argument against Proposition 8. It is printed today in the Eureka Reporter:

We’re not a threat to anyone or anything. Nor is our marriage. We’re just Ben and Paul. And we want to stay married.

Ben doesn’t argue about schools or churches or the falsity of Yes on 8’s latest wacky claim. He talks about his life and his marriage and what it means to him and his family.

Gay people and straight people are pretty much alike, including such matters as romance, family, marriage and religion. And why shouldn’t we be? We’re your relatives and friends. We’re you. Are we not human enough, not citizens enough, to grant us the right to marry? We want for us and our families exactly what you get from our government: the same respect and equality before the law that you demand for yourselves. That’s it. Our lives and families are as valuable as yours. You don’t have to approve of gay people or be a part of our lives. We aren’t attacking your families, faith or civil rights, nor preventing them from being legally protected. Can you say the same about yourselves?

We want to take nothing from you. We want only the same rights and protections that you have. Nothing more — and nothing less.

There are dozens and dozens of newspapers across this state. And a well written opinion – or even a letter to the editor that appeals to the reader in a personal way – can make a difference in a vote. And often papers, especially local or smaller circulation papers, are happy to include a thought provoking piece that they don’t have to fit into a deadline.

Ben has very generously offered to let our other readers steal his work or take what they can use if they will only help spread the message. Please consider if you can either write your own letter – or borrow Ben’s – and help change a heart and mind.

San Diego City Council Opposes Proposition 8

The Union-Tribune reports

The San Diego City Council voted 6-2 on Monday to oppose Proposition 8, the Nov. 4 state ballot measure that would institute a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages.

In September of last year, the city voted to file a friend of court brief with the state Supreme Court to overturn the prohibition on gay marriage. At that time it was expected that Jerry Sanders, the city’s Republican mayor, would veto the vote. But instead he tearfully expressed his love for his lesbian daughter and his support for marriage equality.

Council of Churches Ad

The Santa Clara County Council of Churches is so committed to the Christian principle of justice and compassion that they ran a full page ad in the San Jose Mercury News giving their brothers, sisters, neighbors, and parishioners the following message:

As people of faith,
We believe that all people are made in the image of God.
We believe in loving, faithful and committed relationships.
We affirm everyone’s right to the freedom to marry.
We urge you to..
VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 8.
Don’t eliminate marriage for anyone.

The ad was signed by 23 member churches. There is also an accompanying videowith statements from ministers from Unitarian Universalist, Disciples of Christ, MCC, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist and Jewish congregations. The Council is also running phone banks for No on 8 out of local churches.

Too often anti-gay activists coopt the name Christian or Religion in the same way they seek to control the word Marriage. It is encouraging to see people of faith willing to stand up for principles that are inclusive and based on love, compassion, and a deep desire to treat their neighbor as they want to be treated and declare to the world that neither faith nor Christianity is any barrier to equality and decency.

Prop 8: The End of the World

If California’s Proposition 8 fails, it’ll be Armageddon, and all that — according to Charles Colson and Tony Perkins:

“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.”

“We’ve picked bad presidents before, and we’ve survived as a nation,” said Mr. Perkins, who has made two trips to California in the last six weeks. “But we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage.”

Why the doom and gloom? Prop 8 proponents are now raising the scare tactic that Prop 8’s passage will mean that churches that refuse to marry same-sex couples will be sued, or ministers will be jailed if they preach against homosexuality.

This, of course, is not possible in the United States because of the First amendment. Christian Identity churches are free to preach White Supremacy and anti-semitism, and fundamentalist protestant extremists are free to call the Pope the Anti-Christ. Nobody gets thrown in jail for any of that. And the Catholic Church has been free to refuse to marry anyone who has been divorced, no matter how many divorce papers or civil marriage licenses a couple can waive in front of the priest.

Mormon Childhood Neighbor Update

Earlier in the week I’d posted about mailing a two sentence note to my Mormon neighbor at my childhood home. I have an update for y’all — Yesterday I got word from my mother that her yard sign has come down (we hope it was voluntary and not simply a result of vandalism).

Yes on 8 Campaign Desperate, Disgusting, Abusive of Children and Families

The Yes on 8 Campaign must be feeling desperate as a result of a recent poll showing that the initiative is behind. Their behavior has become erratic, verging on criminal, and truly reprehensible.

On the 23rd we reported that the highest level of leadership in the campaign had engaged in efforts that might well fall under the legal definition of blackmail or extortion. On Friday, Ken Mettler, the head of the Bakersfield area Yes on 8 Campaign was videotaped punching and kicking an opponent to the initiative. And now the campaign has engaged in activity that should give any parent pause.

In their newest television ad, the Yes on 8 Campaign focuses on the field trip that some San Francisco children took to celebrate their teacher’s wedding. It goes without saying that they distort the story; dishonesty is the hallmark of the Yes on 8 efforts. And although this lack of integrity is worthy of indignation, what truly reveals the immorality of their efforts is that they chose to exploit images of the children that attended.

It is one thing to criticize the decisions of the parents and the school’s administation. It is quite another to plaster the face of children across the television screens of all California households and present them for ridicule.

The parents are furious.

They are sickened to find that their own children are being used as a prop to advance a cause which they do not support. And they have requested that Yes on 8 take down the ad that uses the video of their children. (ABC7)

“I’m horrified that her image is being used this way and I want it taken down,” said Jennifer Press referring to the new ad. Her 6-year old daughter Lucy was part of a field trip to City Hall two weeks ago to see her teacher married to her same sex partner. Now pictures from that field trip have made their way into a Yes on Prop 8 ad.

Laura [Hodder], whose son Ben is also in the ad, told reporters Sunday, “You can’t use children’s images in political statements like this. No one asked us to use our children. No one talked to us about this. And I feel like my children are being manipulated.”

From their press release

“We are absolutely outraged that you have chosen, without permission, to shamelessly hijack the images of our innocent children to promote a cause that we in no way, shape or form support. It is even more maddening that you have willfully and calculatingly edited the images of our children, with menacing music in the background, in a way that is completely contrary to their nature and harmful to them.”

Ah, but these “good moral people” who believe that “parents and not liberal schools should be the protectors, guardians and ultimate teaches of their own children” seem to have no respect for parents when they don’t support their anti-gay agenda. They have told these parents that they have no intention of stopping the exploitation of their kids.

“The images of the children wouldn’t be in the public domain if they hadn’t called the press and publicized it. It’s been on national TV.”

Now, I don’t know what legal recourse these parents have. Whether they have any ability to stop Yes on 8 from making the face of their son or daughter into the mascot of the Yes on 8 Campaign is something for better legal minds than mine.

But I do know evil when I see it.

And choosing to subject a very young child to ridicule and notoriety against the expressed wishes of their parents is unquestionably evil. I did not think that the Yes on 8 Campaign could stoop lower than their extortion efforts, but this new act of theirs is beyond contemptious.

I hope and pray that Californian parents are disgusted by this abuse and through it come to recognize the Yes on 8 Campaign for its true nature: selfish, evil, arrogant, and mean.

Marriage Amendments Tearing LDS Congregations Apart

According to a recent Salt Lake Tribune article, the church’s marriage campaigns are taking a heavy toll on local congregations.

The Mormon Church’s campaign to pass so-called “marriage amendments” in California and Arizona is the most vigorous political campaign they have ever waged. LDS leaders have tapped into every resource: their member’s income data from tithing rolls, phone trees, e-mail lists, and other appeals. With continued urging from among the highest prophets of the church, many LDS members consider their calls a directive from God and a test of their faith.

Those who disagree with the church’s stance on these propositions say that they are made to feel unwelcome in their wards. Some have avoided church services during the election campaign, and some have resigned, while others face excommunication. Others still are actively opposing their church’s activities because they believe the church’s active campaign mocks their church’s theology.

Even some of those who favor the ballot measures are put off by their church’s zeal:

“I do expect the church to face a high cost – both externally and internally – for its prominent part in the campaign,” said LDS sociologist and Proposition 8 supporter Armand Mauss of Irvine, Calif. He believes church leaders feel a “prophetic imperative” to speak out against gay marriage.

“The internal cost will consist of ruptured relationships between and among LDS members of opposing positions, sometimes by friends of long standing and equally strong records of church activity,” Mauss said. “In some cases, it will result in disaffection and disaffiliation from the church because of the ways in which their dissent has been handled by local leaders.”

Apple’s Tasty Contribution

On their website, Apple Computers is listing the following news:

No on Prop 8
October 24, 2008

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

Thank you, Apple!!!

Lee Baca Opposes Proposition 8

Los Angeles County’s Sheriff Lee Baca, a Republican, has announced his opposition to Proposition 8:

The gay men and lesbian women of the law enforcement community are some of the most responsible and virtuous people I know. To deny them their ability to further responsible lives outside of the job is inconsistent with the core values of public service.

Republicans Against 8 is reporting

Other prominent California Republican elected officials opposed to Prop. 8 include Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, San Diego City Councilmember Jim Madaffer, Redondo Beach Mayor Mike Gin, Laguna Beach Mayor Pro Tempore Cheryl Kinsman, Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine, Laguna Beach Councilman Kelly Boyd, Laguna Beach Councilwoman Elizabeth Pearson, Cathedral City Councilman Chuck Vazquez, former Assemblyman Jim Cunneen and Los Angeles Businessman Steve Soboroff.

People from all walks of life and all political persuations are coming together to oppose this effort to write discrimination into our Constitution.