AP writer Lisa Leff reports on Mayor Jerry Sanders’ testimony in the Prop 8 trial in the mayor’s hometown newspaper, The San Diego Union-Tribune:
The mayor of San Diego testified Tuesday that his views on same-sex marriage evolved after he learned one of his daughters was a lesbian.
Mayor Jerry Sanders took the witness stand on behalf of two same-sex couples suing to overturn Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban.
“I had been prejudiced,” he said. “I was saying one group of people did not deserve the same respect, did not deserve the same symbolism of marriage, and I was saying their marriages were less important than those of heterosexuals.”
During Sanders’ testimony this morning, the video of the Republican mayor’s reversal of his position on marriage equality was played.
During an emotion-laden press conference in 2007, Sanders revealed that several members of his staff and his daughter, Lisa, are gay. Said the Mayor, “In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships ‚Äî their very lives ‚Äî were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife, Rana.”
When San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera asked Sanders why he was so emotional in the video, Sanders replied, “I felt I came very close to making a bad decision. I came very close to showing the prejudice I obviously had toward my daughter to my staff and to the people of San Diego.”
“If government tolerates discrimination against anyone it is very easy for citizens to do the same thing,” said Sanders.
Pro-Prop 8 attorney Brian Raum seemed intent on convincing Sanders that his earlier position in support of civil unions was not a hostile one and didn’t communicate hatred toward the LGBT community ‚Äî the crux of the trial.
Sanders replied, “I feel like my thoughts were grounded in prejudice, but I don’t feel like I communicated hatred.”
In March 2009, during the city’ Eve of Justice rally the night before the California Supreme Court began considering Proposition 8, Mayor Saunders announced the engagement of his daughter, Lisa Sanders, to her partner, Meaghan Yaple. They were married by a justice of the peace in Vermont last December.
I applaud this mayor for speaking on his convictions. I understand he is surrounded by family and friends he obviously cares about.
However, the act of sexual immorality (ie. gays/lesbians) was originally found to be an “abomination” act by our Lord God. (Lev 18:22 & Lev 20:13) “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
We Christians are mandated to follow the commandments of Jehovah God aka Jesus Christ. God is truth and the light. He created boundaries in order to protect mankind, not destroy it. We care about people but we are cognizant and hate sin.
If God is not God and if man says God didn’t say what He said, then what standard is to be used to judge anything?
Man laying with man or woman laying with woman would never “produce” offspring. God created Adam and Eve and said go forth and multiply. How, if they couldn’t pro-create? Without pro-creation, mankind dies.
I say to this mayor, continue caring and loving your child and your friends, but don’t dilute “the Word of the Lord.”
No, Mary, your god did not find gays or lesbians to be an abomination, you did. Your suggestion that all gay and lesbian people be put to death is barbaric — blame yourself for that, not your god.
Your statements are utterly un-Jesus-like, and most Jews find your views repugnant as well.
Finally, it would be unloving for the mayor of San Diego to kill his lesbian daughter as you demand, so your suggestion that he continue caring and loving his child is inconsistent with your desire to kill all gay and lesbian people.
Mary said “If God is not God and if man says God didn’t say what He said, then what standard is to be used to judge anything?”.
There is no god Mary. The standard we must ethically use to judge is harm. Do whatever you want, but harm no one.
Mary said “Man laying with man or woman laying with woman would never “produce” offspring.”
Building a house or getting an education does not produce offspring. Just because something does not produce offspring does not mean it is bad. The world’s population is exploding and threatening to outstrip the worlds ability to support us resulting in a massive die-off of humans. There is no danger that humans will stop procreating just because a minority of the population does not.
There may be a God, Priya. But Mary worships her own false god of death and fear — not a God of love, life, or creation.
Mary – In fact, Evolution, and the survival of our species, tolerates a small percentage of homosexuals in society. No need for everyone in society to procreate, in fact, with global population over 6bn, it’s vital some do not.
In fact, the spread of ideas, and learning to co-operate, is what made our species great.not only passing on genes. I cannot comment about the existence of a deity, but we do know that midochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam, the first genetically identical humans, lived about 30,000 years apart, up to c.130,000 years ago, in Africa (and not a garden in Mesopotamia).
Also, recent study in evolutionary biology is showing that homosexuality may indeed be a trait that, when expressed in men, manifests as homosexuality, but in women causes extreme fecundity, which contributes to the very perpetuation of the species.