Box Turtle Bulletin

NOM’s New Ad is Unimpressive

The National Organization for Marriage has released their new ad starring Carrie Prejean, Miss California. Let’s take a look at it:

When asked a question about same-sex marriage, a young contestant answers honestly.

Carrie Prejean: “I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. That\’s how I was raised and that\’s how I think that it should be between a man and a woman.”

She is immediately attacked.

Perez Hilton: “She\’s a dumb BEEP, OK?”

When a pro-marriage group expresses concerns about how same-sex marriage will impact religious groups, they are called liars and bigots.

Joe Solmonese: “It is no longer palatable in this country, OK, to be an outright bigot. If you want to deny us these rights you need to do it by lying and misrepresenting”

Gay marriage activists attack people for supporting marriage because they don\’t want to debate the consequences of same-sex marriage. They want to silence opposition.

Some of the nation\’s foremost scholars warn that gay marriage can create widespread legal conflicts for individuals, small businesses and religious organizations.

Please help support marriage with your donation.

Here are the problems I see with this ad:

1. It relies on old and trivial news. By now everyone has seen the little tiff between Carrie Prejean and Perez Hilton. And while some may sympathize with Carrie, it’s hardly the sort of incident upon which to base a significant political position.

2. It gives voice to NOM’s opposition. When your dear friend indignantly says, “she called me FAT!!”, it may not be admirable but the very first thing you automatically do is look to her waist to see if it’s true. So it isn’t wise to remind viewers that some consider NOM to be bigoted and untruthful; it places the association in their minds.

3. It has no point. The theme is “gay marriage supporters are bad because they called me names”. And seeking to demonize your opponent may not be the wisest choice when you’ve just reminded your viewer that you are being called a bigot.

4. It has no audience. The thought of “widespread legal conflicts” hardly seems threatening when compared to the Swine Flu or the economy. And most viewers won’t consider themselves or anyone they know to be likely impacted by “widespread legal conflicts”, whatever that may mean.

5. It has no authority. Most viewers have never heard of Douglas Laycock and while he may be a legal scholar, an uncredited allusion to a virtually nameless law professor is not likely to win the support of those waivering.

6. It is dishonest. Douglas Laycock actually supports marriage equality. His concern, as written, was that adequate religious protections be incorporated into Connecticut’s law to stop people like NOM from playing the victim. It doesn’t get much more deceptive than to quote your opponent’s mockery of you as though it were praise.

UPDATE:

Though NOM’s ad was pulled by Youtube, it has been reposted by Paul VillaReal at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA2yC8VAhzU

Miss USA contestant Carrie Prejean to star in anti-gay ad

Miss (anti-gay) USA contestant Carrie Prejean has agreed to appear in a television ad for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) as part of the its broader $1.5 million ad campaign against same-sex marriage. This is the same group that produced the histrionic “Gathering Storm” ad.

“She is attacked viciously for having the courage to speak up for her truth and her values,” reads a NOM press release. “But Carrie’s courage inspired a whole nation and a whole generation of young people because she chose to risk the Miss USA crown rather than be silent about her deepest moral values.”

Again, this is gay marriage opponents trying to win the case against gay marriage by sidestepping the actual issue; instead of arguing about gay marriage per se, they argue about consequences it will have — namely, curbing the ability or religious organizations to speak out. (Or in the case of Prejean, costing you — gasp! — the Miss USA crown.) Their language is decidedly Orwellian: this is not an anti-gay-marriage campaign, but a “religious liberty ad campaign.”

Also note that banning gay marriage would not have prevented the outcry against Prejean. In a public forum, she submitted her view and had it scrutinized. As I said in a previous post, some of these conservative religious groups seem to think religious freedom entails immunity from any sort of criticism; they want the marketplace of ideas to fall silent whenever something under the banner of religion is at issue.

One of the most powerful sections of the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision explicitly treats the charge implicit in NOM’s tactic: that allowing gay marriage infringes on religious rights.

Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring government avoids them… civil marriage must be judged under our constitutional standards of equal protection and not under religious doctrines or the religious views of individuals.

The justices rightfully conclude that the government should not be involved in religious debates. This is important not only to maintain the separation of church and state, but also to protect religious organizations themselves: why are religious organizations looking to the courts and legislative bodies to resolve a theological issue? Allowing gay marriage is in fact a neutral position: it allows religious organizations that want to perform gay marriages to do so and allows those that do not to refuse to.

I Agree with the National Organization for Marriage

The State of Connecticut has enacted law to formalize the State Supreme Court’s decision which legalized same-sex marriage. At the last minute they accepted amendments which would codify the constitutional rights of religions to reserve recognition to those marriages of which they approve.

In response, the National Organization for Marriage, that wacky group of storm-fearers, released the following press release.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) applauds the Connecticut legislature which, in a surprise move today, adopted substantive religious liberty protections as part of what was expected to be a routine bill implementing the Connecticut court decision ordering same-sex marriage.

I agree with this paragraph. *

The language adopted by the State of Connecticut seems reasonable to me. It exempts churches, religious societies and other religious non-profits from “services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods or privileges” if the refusal is based on their objection to a marriage which is “in violation of their religious beliefs and faith”. It also exempts religious fraternal benefit societies (eg. the Knights of Columbus) to deny membership and insurance benefits. The third provision would exempt religious organizations from recognizing marriages for purposes of adoption, foster care and other social services provided that they don’t receive public funds for those services.

I have no objection to these provisions and I dare say that most gay folk are just fine with them as well. In fact, I don’t see them as any additional protection than was already guaranteed by the US Constitution.

If anti-gays wanted to drop all of their campaigns against marriage equality, in exchange I’d happily support language that redundantly gives their churches and religious organizations the same protections that they’ve always had. I’d make that deal in a second.

But I wonder why Maggie and crowd are so excited. This language, if adopted, would entirely neuter some of her scare stories. She can’t wail about church groups in New Jersey or Catholic Charities in Massachusetts if the proposed laws exempt these organizations. **

Were all states considering marriage to use this language, Maggie would no longer be able to claim that religious freedoms are impacted and would instead be forced to argue her real objections to civil equality: religious arrogance and personal animus.

– – –

* Of course the rest of the release is full of nonsense including the notion that there is “serious potential implications of same-sex marriage for traditional faith communities” and implying that supporters of marriage equality had previously lacked “willingness to accept broad conscience protections.” But we don’t really expect Maggie to be truthful, now do we?

** Ironically, Catholic Charities would not be exempted because they took state money for their adoption program.

The text of the amendment is below the break

Orson Scott Card Joins NOM Board

The National Organization for Marriage — the folks who brought you the much-mocked “Gathering Storm” ad — have taken on a real nutcase as the newest member of their board of directors. Joining the board and representing the LDS church is science fiction author and Mormon Times columnist Orson Scott Card. He replaces Matthew Holland, who is the son of a member of the LDS church’s Quorum of the Twelve, who recently stepped down from the board.

Last summer, Orson Scott Card called for the overthrow of civil government if California’s Proposition 8 had failed. Writing for the Mormon Times, he said:

Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down …

In 2004, Card tried to address the argument that same-sex marriage would somehow diminish his marriage. That’s an argument that many anti-gay activists have had a hard time articulating. Most would concede, “Well, of course it wouldn’t affect my marriage,” but Card was game to give the argument a go. Claiming to have “gay friends” of his own, this is what he came up with:

But homosexual “marriage” is an act of intolerance. It is an attempt to eliminate any special preference for marriage in society — to erase the protected status of marriage in the constant balancing act between civilization and individual reproduction.

So if my friends insist on calling what they do “marriage,” they are not turning their relationship into what my wife and I have created, because no court has the power to change what their relationship actually is.

Instead they are attempting to strike a death blow against the well-earned protected status of our, and every other, real marriage.

They steal from me what I treasure most, and gain for themselves nothing at all. They won’t be married. They’ll just be playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes.

He also thinks he understand why we want same-sex marriage. Raising the most-gays-are-gay-because-they-were-molested canard, he writes:

The dark secret of homosexual society — the one that dares not speak its name — is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

It’s that desire for normality, that discontent with perpetual adolescent sexuality, that is at least partly behind this hunger for homosexual “marriage.”

So this is just a small glimpse into the psyche of NOM’s newest board member. Maybe that explains the “Gathering Storm” ad. Scott may well have provided the script. Meanwhile, the parodies keep on coming:

Frank Rich on NOM’s “Camp Classic”

In Frank Rich’s outstanding column in the New York Times yesterday, he sees the National Organization for Marriage’s latest add — which he called a “camp classic” — as a historic turning point:

What gives the ad its symbolic significance is not just that it\’s idiotic but that its release was the only loud protest anywhere in America to the news that same-sex marriage had been legalized in Iowa and Vermont. If it advances any message, it\’s mainly that homophobic activism is ever more depopulated and isolated as well as brain-dead.

Rich notes that the latest news from Iowa and Vermont was, with the exception of the NOM ad, greated with a nationwide yawn. Fox News barely mentioned it, Saddleback Pastor struggled to remake himself into a Prop 8 non-supporter, Dr. Laura Schlessinger decided that committed gay and lesbian couples were a “beautiful thing,” and John McCain strategist Steve Schmidt gave a convincinly conservative argument for same-sex marraige. All of which makes for a very lonely week for NOM.

A Note from 2M4M.org

The webmaster at 2m4m.org left this comment a few minutes ago:

Today\’s the day we\’re trying to push the site to the media and public. Anything anyone can do to help spread the word is appreciated!

Let\’s take some wind out of NOM\’s sails.

Any chance BTB can make a new post letting people know that the site is fully-up and running after a long weekend of frantically coding it?

Chances are excellent. Here’s Two Men For Marriage, complete with their own blog.

There’s Something About Those NOM Commercials

… which reminded Swedish blogger Tor Billgren of “The Shining”. The dialog also “brought to mind “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Maybe Maggie Gallagher is a Stanley Kubrick fan.

Maggie Gallagher’s PR Advisor Must Hate Her

“Ah,” you’re thinking, “How tacky. Box Turtle Bulletin is now trolling for three-way hook-ups”.

But no. We haven’t turned into a sex site and actually 2M4M isn’t “two men for men” at all. It’s the name of the new initiative by the National Organization for Marriage: Two Million for Marriage.

Right on the heels of their much-mocked zombie ad sponsoring their Opus Dei buddy, NOM brings us their latest:

In just a few minutes, NOM President Maggie Gallagher and I will hold a press conference in Trenton, NJ, announcing an ambitious new nationwide “2 Million for Marriage” (2M4M) initiative.

C’mon. You’ve got to be kidding.

Surely her PR people are having a laugh at her expense. Can anyone really be in PR and not have at least done a quick google to see if your new acronym is going to engender giggles?

Although…. if I saw, “Hi, we’re 2M4M and we are against marriage”, it might make some weird sense.

But seriously, how is this even an accident. It’s not like M4M is new. They were using it in the personals columns before the first chat room ever lit up a green blinking curser on a solid black screen.

Who is Damon Owens?

In their delightfully campy ad currently running in several states, the National Organization for Marriage presents a spokesperson, Damon Owens. He tells us that “A rainbow coalition of people of every creed and color are coming together in love to protect marriage”, but he tells us nothing about himself.

And other than presenting his name with “National Organization for Marriage” underneath, we know nothing about his position or affiliation. He’s not listed on the NOM website as being on their lily-white staff or a member of their Board of Directors. In fact, a search on their website for “Damon” yields no hits at all.

Who then is this mysterious Mr. Owens?

Well an internet search reveals a bit about Damon Owens and his unique perspectives on marriage. An undated bio on the website of the National Black Catholic Congress tells us:

Damon Clarke Owens lives in West Orange, NJ with his wife Melanie and their five daughters. He is the Director of Natural Family Planning for the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ and the founder of New Jersey Natural Family Planning. He speaks nationally on marriage, chastity, Theology of the Body, and Theology of the Family. [more on that later]

And we also find that Damon Owens is a devotee of the spirituality of St. Josemaria, better known as the Opus Dei. A secretive Catholic organization mostly unknown before being dramatized as the fictional villains of The Da Vinci Code, the Opus Dei is a group that believes in the sanctity of good works (perhaps best defined by the advancement of Roman Catholic doctrine). The Opus Dei is also known for the far-right political associations of its members.

Perhaps the most controversial practice of the Opus Dei is Mortification, self-inflicted pain intended as a gift or sacrifice to God. This may include the use of a celice, a metal chain with inward pointing barbs, or other discomforts. Mortification is practiced primarily among the celibate, about 30% of Opus Dei followers.

Owens is not, however, among the celibate. In fact, he goes in the opposite direction. As indicated in his bio, Owens is a practitioner and teacher of the Theology of The Body.

The Theology of the Body loosely refers to Pope John Paul II’s teachings about Catholic doctrine and how it applies to sexuality and family. But to Protestant ears such as mine, it seems to go much further than matters of behavior and spiritual conviction.

I hesitate to state with certainty, but it appears that the Theology of the Body hints, at least, that one knows God – or perhaps Christ’s relationship with the Church – through sexual complimentarity with the opposite sex. Because this seems startlingly like the beliefs of a fertility cult, I may perhaps be overstating their views.

[Jim Burroway provides additional context for understanding the Theology of the Body and, while foreign to my religious experience, it does appear to be well within Catholic orthodoxy. ]

In any case, Owens is hardly representative of “people from every creed”. Rather, he is affiliated with some rather extreme offshoots of the Catholic Church, and his beliefs about marriage are far from mainstream Christianity, much less the American populace.

No California Doctors Were Harmed In The Making Of This Commercial

She says she’s a “California doctor,” but she’s actually an actress playing one on T.V.

That about as accurate as things get on the “Crazy Dingbat Insane Ookie Spookie” advertising campaign unleashed by Maggie Gallagher’s National Organization for Marriage (NOM). In fact, that “California doctor” actress was one of many that had auditioned for the campaign. The Human Rights Campaign was able to obtain videos of some of the auditions for the ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRjVDZxho54 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwqNFBt33o4

According to the HRC, the ad is set to run eight times per day in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and California. Because the ad is slated to play in states where marriage equality is at the fore, it’s important to look not only at the bad acting on display in the ad, but the false information behind it.

“I’m a California doctor who must choose between my faith and my job.”
This California “doctor” refers to a case that has nothing to do with marriage. Last year, the California Supreme Court ruled that a doctor that offers artificial insemination services cannot pick and chose who to offer services to.

This was an important decision, and it should have been a no-brainer. Think of it: what if the decision had gone the other way. It would then have been legal for a doctor to refuse to treat any LGBT person for any illness, condition, or injury simply because doing so might have run counter to their “religious beliefs.” Is that how Maggie Gallagher and the National Organization for Marriage would have it?

“I’m part of a NJ church group punished by the government because we can’t support same-sex marriage.”
As we reported last December, this “New Jersey church group” story has become a new favorite falsehood in an attempt to scare people of faith. This “church group” actually refers to the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, which is not a church. It operates the Auditorium Pavilion, which was made exempt from state property tax in exchange for being open for public use and access. It is not a religious facility, nor are several other facilities built on land owned by the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association — including stores, restaurants, hotels, private homes and a beach boardwalk alongside a public beach.

The facilities were granted a tax exemption by the state of New Jersey on the provision that they be maintained as public accommodations. (Two chapels are tax exempt due to religious use, but they are not a part of the dispute.) The Auditorium Pavilion has been rented out to the general public for all sorts of events, including concerts, debates and even Civil War reenactments — none of which are religious in character. In March 2007, a lesbian couple was rejected by the Association when they tried to rent the Pavilion for a civil union ceremony. They filed a complaint with the State Division on Civil Rights and won. A state commissioner explained:

“When people hear the words ‘open space,\’ we want them to think not just of open air and land, but that it is open to all people,” said [Lisa Jackson, state commissioner of environmental protection]. “And when the public subsidizes it with tax breaks, it goes with the expectation that it is not going to be parsed out, whether it be by activity or any particular beliefs.”

The state of New Jersey didn’t challenge the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association\’s beliefs about homosexuality. It only held that a public facility must remain open to the public — and that means all of the public.

“I’m a Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools teach my son that gay marriage is OK.”
This refers to David Parker, the Massachusetts parent who sued his local school district when they provided students with a book called Who’s in a Family? The book illustrated various family constructions: single parents, mom-dad-kids, grandparents, mixed-race families, and same-sex parents. Parker complained to the school district, demanding that the district change its curriculum to accommodate his religious belief that any discussion of same-sex parenting must be excluded — including any conversations about children of gay or lesbian parents.

Now this is a difficult requirement for the school district to meet. After all, there were children of gay and lesbian parents in those same schools. Should teachers pretend that their parents don’t exist? Should the district bar those parents from school functions? Should kids be prohibited from talking about their families?

The school district found Parker’s demand to be impossible to meet. And besides, they weren’t teaching that “gay marriage is OK,” just that it happens and some of the children from those families attend school, and other kids in school shouldn’t treat them badly because of it.

That didn’t satisfy Parker, who sued the school district in Federal Court. In February 2007, U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf dismissed the lawsuit. Parker appealed, but the three judge appeals panel unanimously upheld Judge Wolf’s decision:

“Public schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them,” the court said in its ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.

So there you have it. Three claims, three lies. That’s a remarkable achievement for a group that wants to stand for truth.

Delightfully Crazy Dingbat Insane Ookie Spookie Ad from National Organization for Marriage

Well, it’s happened. Maggie Gallagher’s head has now exploded. That’s the only thing that could possibly explain the decision by National Organization for Marriage to produce and run their latest ad.

It’s called A Gathering Storm and its purpose is described as:

The centerpiece of the new initiative is a $1.5 million nationwide ad campaign launched today highlighting the threat that same-sex marriage poses to the core civil rights of all Americans who believe in marriage as the union of a husband and wife.

What it really is, of course, is an over-the-top cheesy horror flick reminiscent of what one might see late at night on the Chiller Network.

The “threat” is identified by three speakers with three scare “stories”:

• “I’m a California doctor who must choose between my faith and my job.”
• “I’m part of a New Jersey church group punished by the government because we can’t support same-sex marriage.”
• “I am a Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools teach my son that gay marriage is OK.”

Ooooooooh. Scary!!!

I so very much wish I had the funds to run an identical ad with only a slight change. After warning about gay marriage coming, I’d have my B-movie horror victims say

• “I’m a California doctor who has learned how to reanimate dead flesh. Now the zombies are out to get me.”
• “I’m part of a New Jersey church group punished by the government because we won’t give up the secret to the mummy’s curse.”
• “I am a Massachusetts parent helplessly watching public schools turn my son into a blood-sucking vampire.”

and end the whole thing with a maniacal laugh, “It’s all because of gay marriage. Mwaaa-haaa-haaaaaaa”

But that may not be necessary. This Halloween night fright is nearly a parody of itself.

And to add even more comedy to the story, Gallahger and her buddies were so careless that they allowed the audition tapes for this nut-job ad to get onto the internet.

Hop on over to Good-As-You and watch one bad wanna-be actor after another blunder their way through this wacky script. But you’ll have to provide your own lightning, screeching doors, howling wolves, and other eerie effects.

HRC adds four anti-gay voices to its wall of shame

The Human Rights Campaign has added four entries to its list of anti-gay voices at endtheLies.org. Here are the names, with quips:

America Forever, a Utah-based group, has been faxing hateful flyers denouncing marriage for lesbian and gay couples to businesses in Vermont, where marriage equality legislation is currently under consideration in the state legislature. The group claims that marriage for lesbian and gay couples would trample on the rights of children and that “HRC of the homosexuals is the most powerful lobbying group in the world.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if the HRC were in fact the most powerful lobbying group in the world? Maybe, maybe not, but this is certainly not the case. Why the insistence on using the medical term “homosexuality”?

National Organization for Marriage (NOM) created an anti-marriage equality radio ad playing in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. NOM’s website falsely and outlandishly warns that “religious groups may be denied the use of parks and other public facilities, unless they endorse gay marriage.” The three targeted states are all considering pro-LGBT equality legislation.

I have never understood the fundamentalist Christian persecution complex, which seems to interpret anything in society not in line with its worldview to be an instance of oppression that invariably means a Christian Holocaust is coming.

Elaine Donnelly, President of the Center for Military Readiness, claims that allowing lesbians and gays to serve openly in the military will sanction “inappropriate passive/aggressive actions common in the homosexual community” and “the ensuing sexual tension will hurt discipline and morale.”

Is this woman afraid that soldiers sent into battle can’t withstand a catty remark or two?

Hawaii State Minority Leader, Rep. Lynn Finnegan, voted against HB 444, a Hawaii civil unions bill. She said, “If we push to have government certify or make legal a union or marriage between the same sex, I believe that we push what is accepted to what will be promoted.”

When will politicians understand that accepting gay people does not mean there will be more gay people; it will just mean that they aren’t confined to the closet.

Californians Against Hate: Mormon-Established “Front Group” Handled Early Prop 8 Finances

Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate has been leading the legal battle to force the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS) to reveal its full involvement in California’s Yes on 8 campaign as required by state law. Karger filed a supplemental complaint on Wednesday with California’s Fair Political Practices committee charging that the Mormon church failed to reveal its earlier involvement in Prop 8, particularly through a front organization they had set up called the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) in the summer of 2007. This front group is similar to one the LDS church set up in Hawaii ten years earlier.

Karger charges that while early donations by several prominent Catholic doners were reported as required by law (Including hotel owner Doug Manchester [125,000], Terry Caster and his family who own A-1 Self Storage [$283,000], car dealer [Robert Hoehn [$25,000] and the Knights of Columbus [$250,000]), none of the early Mormon contributors are listed. Karger asks:

Did they do polling as they did in Hawaii? Did the Church incur legal bills as they did in Hawaii? How about travel expenses, as in Hawaii? What about staff time, as they reported after the fact in California? These expenses should be easy to identify as a part of the current investigation.

The Mormon Church engages in extensive record keeping. All requests for funds are assigned an 11 digit Cost Center Number (i.e. 123-4567-899). Cost Center records should be readily available for 2007 and 2008, which would show all the money spent to create NOM. Additionally, the Mormon Church maintains records on its “Historical Material Management System” (HMMS).

Mormon Elders M. Russell Ballard, Quentin L. Cook and L. Whitney Clayton were all working on California’s Proposition 8 and their files and records should be able to substantiate these charges.
The Mormon Church should have disclosed all non monetary contributions made during the relevant reporting periods.

Documentation related to the LDS church’s activities have been uploaded to a new web site established by Fred Karger at Mormongate.com.

Karger filed his original complaint on November 13, 2008, charging that the LDS church had failed to report its monetary and non-monetary contributions to the passage of Proposition 8. The following day, the Mormon Church spokesman Scott Trotter responded through the LDS-owned newspaper, the Deseret News, that the allegations were “false” and that the complaint had “many errors and misstatements.” But on January 30, 2009, the Mormon church revealed that it was they who had lied about their financial involvement in the Prop 8 campaign.

San Diego Journalist Whines About Marriage

San Diego Union-Tribune journalist, Craig Gustafson, just can’t understand why the San Diego County Clerk isn’t joining Ann Barnett in her anti-gay parade. You can almost hear the whine in his voice.

San Diego County, known for decades as a bastion of conservatism, is proceeding with gay marriage ceremonies Tuesday even though officials don’t necessarily have to.

Why, there’ve been 220 complaints!!! And the Clerk is a Republican!!! And the County voted by 63% in 2000 to ban gay marriage!!!

But County Clerk Greg Smith isn’t willing to cut off all marriage to spite gay couples.

Many urge the county to avoid gay nuptials in a similar fashion to Butte and Kern – at least until voters weigh in on a constitutional amendment in November that would ban gay marriage.

Smith, a Republican, has no such plans.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

Someone should punish him. How about “the supervisors – who do control Smith’s budget”?

Charles LiMandri, a Rancho Santa Fe attorney and general counsel to the National Organization for Marriage, said the supervisors should be courageous enough to speak out. LiMandri said they should be trumpeting the people’s will as displayed in Proposition 22.

“I’m disappointed that our leaders aren’t doing their jobs,” he said.

But the Board of Supervisors – all of whom are Republicans!! – aren’t willing to punish him. Why, if they aren’t going to be homophobes, what are they there for?!?

Previously, the San Diego County supervisors have been willing to take stands on social issues.

Sigh. The Supervisors weren’t even willing to scream their opposition to gay marriage. Only one made the obligatory “Personally, I believe that marriage is best defined as being between a man and woman” comment, and the others won’t comment at all. (Their email addresses are included in a sidebox so the outrage can pour in).

Poor Gustufson, it sucks to be anti-gay in San Diego.

California Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Petitions Submitted

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the anti-gay group, Protect Marriage, has submitted their signatures to the county registrars to place an amendment on the November ballot.

A coalition of religious groups called Protect Marriage collected more than 1.1 million signatures in support of the amendment, said Brian Brown, executive director of the California office of the National Organization for Marriage.

The initiative needs 694,354 signatures, or 8 percent of the votes cast in the last governor’s race, to make it onto the ballot. However, a large percentage of signatures tend to be invalid so petition goals were at 1.1 million.

When I checked their site last week, Protect Marriage was still about 50,000 short. Their website currently is not self-congratulatory, but the Chronicle may be right in their reporting. But even if they are a little short, there is still a good chance that the sample validation may prove that adequate signatures were raised.

If this reaches the ballot for November, there will undoubtedly be an expensive and fierce battle within the state. Fortunately, the Governor has promised to oppose the constitutional amendment, which will be very helpful for appealing to moderates.

UPDATE: the Protect Marriage website now states “We have received over 1.1 million signatures to qualify the California Marriage Protection Act for the ballot!”