Thank God for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
If, when the dust settles at the ballot box this Nov. 4,
California voters definitively repudiate the California Supreme
Court's unjust gay marriage ruling by voting Yes on Proposition
8, Mayor Gavin Newsom will be a big part of the reason why.
Even the San Francisco Chronicle acknowledged on Monday that
in recent weeks, Mayor Newsom's role in the gay marriage debate
"has turned decidedly unheroic."
"He's become everyone's worst nightmare," said Barbara
O'Connor, a professor of political communications at Sacramento
State University
Gay marriage is coming "whether you like it or not," Mayor
Newsom intones in news clips featured in the first round of
Yes-on-Proposition-8 ads, looking unbearably smug and arrogant in
dictating the future of marriage for the rest of California from
his San Francisco perch. (See the ads for yourself at www.protectmarriage.com.)
Public opinion polls showed a dramatic surge in support for
Prop 8 after these Yes-on-Propostion-8 ads featuring Newsom hit
the airwaves. Faced with a dramatic drop in public support once
the real potential consequences of gay marriage for parents,
public schools, church groups and others are highlighted, gay
marriage advocates have responded with a rebuttal ad. (See it at
www.noonprop8.com.)
Their allegedly pro-gay marriage message? Labeling the
concerns that public schools will teach about gay marriage, if we
permit gay marriage to remain the law of the land, as just
"lies!"
Right. What do gay marriage advocates think public schools
should teach about marriage if gay marriage is the law of the
land? Could we have a reasonably honest discussion please about
what you have in store for California's first-graders?
Instead of standing their ground and defending their moral
views, gay marriage advocates are simply pretending to voters
that legalizing gay marriage won't affect anyone else at all.
Marriage is a publicly affirmed status -- a shared social
ideal -- not just a private act. When the government says gay
unions are the ideal -- exactly the same as husband and wife -- a
whole lot of people who disagree are going to find life gets a
whole lot harder, especially when it comes to raising our
children.
So what does Mayor Newsom, the poster boy for arrogance among
gay marriage advocates, do in the middle of this campaign to
deceive California voters about the real consequences of gay
marriage?
Why, he presides over a lesbian teacher's wedding ceremony at
City Hall, to which public school children are bused, at taxpayer
expense, during school hours. (Newsom claims he wasn't aware of
that fact when he agreed to preside.)
That's right. Taxpayers paid for first-graders to take time
from reading, writing and 'rithmetic to strew rose petals after a
lesbian marriage ceremony -- no doubt in the belief that there
was something educational about witnessing a historic civil
rights victory the courts have endorsed as the law of the
land.
Let me be clear about one thing: I know many, many gay people
who have no truck with the arrogance of so many leaders of the
gay marriage movement in California (see for example www.gaypatriot.net). I even know some gay people
(though, not very many) who think marriage means a husband and
wife, and that the California solution struck down by the courts
-- civil unions for gay couples, marriage remains marriage -- is
common sense, not some kind of gross injustice motivated by
seething hatred to gay folks.
If Prop 8 loses, expect a lot more public schools to join
Mayor Newsom's crusade to promote gay marriage, "whether you like
it or not."
People who think that's a good thing should have the decency
to stand up before California voters and say so, instead of
pretending it's not going to happen.
It already has.
COPYRIGHT 2008 MAGGIE GALLAGHER Distributed by Universal Press
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