Yes - this is exactly the kind of campaign that is - and was - needed. Looking at this picture, it is hard to imagine how an average person can vote to nullify this sweet-looking family. I think the previous vague campaign materials allowed people to believe they were voting against the marriage of a bunch of "alternative" people running around in leather chaps. Not that there's anything wrong with that either.
If we had been this direct and unashamed in the anti-Prop 8 campaign, it might not have passed. Instead, all the anti-Prop 8 ads acted like they were ashamed to talk about same sex people loving each other. But that's the whole point. You don't get to vote on someone's marriage. Especially if it already exists.
Alas, some think otherwise: Infamous prosecutor Ken Starr has filed a legal brief -- on behalf of the "Yes on 8" campaign -- to nullify the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California between May and November of 2008. It's time to put a face to Ken Starr's shameful legal proceedings. To put a face to the 18,000 couples facing forcible divorce. To put a face to marriage equality. Because, gay or straight, YOU are the face of the Marriage Equality Movement.I'm going to give Courage Campaign a small donation. This is something I want to be on the right side of.
This is one issue where I really wish Obama was fighting for us. But he isn't. In fact, he invited a guy who excludes homosexuals from his church to give the invocation at his inauguration. There's been a groundswell of anguish surrounding this. (Though there's some hope: Rick Warren had a phone conversation with Melissa Etheridge and his church has apparently removed the gay-excluding language from its website.) I am hopeful that Obama will do other things for equality, like repeal the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy the military has and push for repeal of the horribly named Defense of Marriage Act. But we need to hold him accountable. Just because the better candidate won this November doesn't mean we can stop working, working, working.
Hey: Wouldn't it be cool if Rick Warren used Obama's inauguration as an occasion to tell the nation and the world that he's had a change of heart on the issue of the nature of homosexuality, and that he now supports gay marriage? That would totally be teh awesome. C'mon, Pastor Warren. Take a look at those photos. Aren't those the sorts of people you want in your church? Can't the spirit of Christian love wash away those old ways now that our understanding of homosexuality has changed? Give it chance.
posted by Zachary Drake at 7:51 AM on Dec 23, 2008
"Please Don't Divorce Us"
1 Comment -
Yes - this is exactly the kind of campaign that is - and was - needed. Looking at this picture, it is hard to imagine how an average person can vote to nullify this sweet-looking family. I think the previous vague campaign materials allowed people to believe they were voting against the marriage of a bunch of "alternative" people running around in leather chaps. Not that there's anything wrong with that either.
7:28 PM, December 23, 2008