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 — their very lives — 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 — 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’s 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.
If you’re an anti-gay pastor watcher like me, you’re well aware that San Diego area radical clerics Miles McPherson and Jim Garlow relish both the spotlight and the media attention that comes hand-in-hand with being two of California’s better known anti-LGBT advocates.
When he’s not mentoring young Christians like former beauty queen turned soft-porn celebrity Carrie Prejean, Pastor McPherson of San Diego’s Rock Church is happy to take the stage to preach against LGBT rights, as he did in November 2008 at TheCall — an anti-marriage-equality extravaganza held at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego shortly before the 2008 election. McPherson, according to Jeremy Hooper, writing at the Good As You blog, claimed “he and his followers are not ‘freaks’ who hate gays. They are really exterminators called upon to rid the world of satanic roaches.” (Read More)
Since the Supreme Court has effectively censored video coverage of the Proposition 8 marriage trial, at least until Wednesday, Truth Wins Out supports the efforts of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, Fed Court Junkie, and others to broadcast the trial live via Twitter.
You may visit AFER’s direct feed here. Go here for Fed Court Junkie or read it below. (Read More)
Today, the big federal marriage case in California, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, begins. In a San Francisco courtroom, ideological opposites David Boies (liberal) and Ted Olson (conservative) will team up to overturn the insidious Proposition 8. So far, they have made a persuasive case in the media, pointing out that:
a) Same-sex marriage does not harm heterosexual marriages.
b) The procreation argument does not hold up and allowing people to marry the same sex does not limit population. People marry for a variety of reasons, not necessarily to create an extended family. It is interesting that our opponents never bring into the procreation argument hetero older married couples or younger married couples who are unable to have or choose not to have children. Why do they not have the same problem with those marriages as they do with GLBT marriages.
c) The current prohibition is discriminatory, fueled by animus and exacts harm on LGBT individuals and their families.
d) The only argument that supporters of Proposition really have is that such discrimination is part of our tradition. Boies and Olson have articulated in eloquent fashion that just because a tradition has gone on for a long time does not make it right or just. They point to discrimination against Jews, interracial couples and women – all of which had gone on (and continues to) for centuries. As I have pointed out in the past, there is a difference between “traditional values” and “valueless traditions.”
To win Proposition 8, our opponents resorted to fear tactics and outright lies using despicable, negative attack ads. Without this fear-mongering tool to trick the masses, our foes are realizing they may not do well in court. They understand that they have no rational arguments and that they are intellectually bankrupt.
To make up for this coherency deficit, Proposition 8 supporters are claiming “bias” because the trial is opening in San Francisco. Interestingly, these whiners had no problem claiming home field advantage when the our marriages were put up for a vote in ultra-conservative states. One might call having places like Arkansas, Kentucky and Alabama changing their state constitutions to prohibit gay couples from marrying a gratuitous and cowardly act of bullying by a majority. So, I really don’t want to hear about the trial being held in San Francisco. Wing nuts must realize that they can’t always have all the advantages.
Social conservatives are also regurgitating the lie that because the trial will be filmed and made available on the Internet, it may cause potential harm to witnesses.
“To top it all off, Judge Walker has determined that this case will be the first in the Ninth Circuit to allow cameras in the courtroom, with the proceedings posted on YouTube” writes Edwin Meese III in today’s New York Times. “This will expose supporters of Proposition 8 who appear in the courtroom to the type of vandalism, harassment and bullying attacks already used by some of those who oppose the proposition.”
Of course, this is hogwash. Perhaps, Meese confused the “plight” of these witnesses with another Times story today discussing the opening of Scott Roeder’s trial – the religious zealot who murdered Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in his church. However, opponents of Proposition 8 have never displayed the violence committed by religious extremists, as much as the Prop 8 supporters try to make it appear to be true. (Even today there is a “debate” over whether killing Tiller was morally justified)
In reality, all that was ever hurt were the feelings of Prop 8 supporters who were rightfully confronted by their neighbors who asked: “Why did you vote to take away my rights? Why did you leave our children in limbo without married parents?”
The truth is, Proposition 8 supporters do not want this trial televised because deep down they are ashamed by their own bigotry. They are allergic to the TV lights, because it will expose their inner-darkness. I really don’t blame them for not wanting their views exposed to a national audience. Not only will it look like they formed their discriminatory ideas with their heads in their posterior, but they will look quite awful for posterity. They realize, on some level, that history will not judge them well. Their grandchildren will regard them with great embarrassment and shame.
I wish Boies and Olson much luck and Truth Wins Out thanks them for the strong case they have made so far. They have undeniably shown that LGBT equality is not a liberal or conservative issue – but an American one. This trial is about the values of our nation, who we are and will we live up to our creed of liberty and justice for all people.
When I was 11 years old and entering Middle School my family moved from Miami to Alief, a suburb of Houston. Only days before my first Christmas in Texas, a large high school student wearing cowboy boots and chewing tobacco confronted me.
“You a Jew?” he angrily inquired. “How could you people not believe in Jesus after you murdered him? Did you know it’s Jesus’ birthday? If Jesus Christ ain’t the son of God, who the hell is?”
This is the type of pressure often faced by non-Christians in conservative school districts. There can sometimes be an enormous amount of coercion to conform to the majority view, particualrly around Christmas, when the “Jesus is the reason for the season” crowd, wants to let non-Christians know they are an alien species in a “Christian Nation. While I am certain things have improved since I was 11, in 1981, there are still pockets of bigotry and religious intolerance in America.
As recognition that religious majorities often make religious minorities feel left out, as well as to follow that pesky “separation of church and state” rule that keeps our country free, we don’t use public schools to shove religion down the throats of pupils. Not only would doing so be illegal, but it is also rude and obnoxious behavior – violating the spirit of Christmas.
Unfortunately, not everyone is smart enough to understand the wisdom of ensuring that our public schools are not turned into private fundamentalist church services. A terribly misguided substitute teacher in Redding, Calif., Merry Hyatt, is sponsoring a ballot initiative that would require all public schools in California to give children the opportunity to sing or listen to religious Christmas carols.
“For years and years, maybe one person has been able to ruin it for an entire school,” Hyatt said. “It’s not right. I think it’s the majority’s turn.”
Hyatt is mindlessly promoting a myopic and shortsighted idea designed to make non-Christians uncomfortable in the hope they will convert to Christianity in order to feel accepted and fit in. Portraying religious minorities as the Grinch who stole Christmas is also exploitative, because students are a captive audience who would have no choice but to endure unwanted proselytizing – sometimes at the hands of older, larger tobacco spitting students in cowboy boots.
Of course, the unspoken subtext is that such bullying is precisely what people like Hyatt are truly after. They want consequences to be paid for anyone who is not a fundamentalist or for GLBT students, who would also face increased persecution in a more religious public school atmosphere, given that faiths practiced in conservative areas are largely anti-gay.
People like Hyatt worship mob rule as long as they are in the majority, where they can force their sectarian views onto others. I’m not sure how tolerant people of her ilk would be if, for example, a majority Muslim public school in Dearborn, Michigan, forced Christians to celebrate Ramadan. Or, a majority Catholic public school made a picture of the Pope mandatory in classrooms. How about a majority Jewish school jettisoning Christmas songs in favor of Hanukkah ditties? What about a New Age Winter celebration in liberal public schools at the expense of Christmas altogether?
“It’s sad and it’s wrong to have a Christmas party and not mention Jesus,” said Hyatt. “It’s his birthday.”
The undeniable fact is, Hyatt can sing religious songs at any moment of her choosing, when she is off the clock. She can attend church every day of the week if she wants to. So, clearly, this is not about religious freedom, nor is it about Hyatt being denied her ability to practice her faith.
No, this is about her not being content to practice her faith privately, and having a predatory desire to inflict her beliefs on others without their consent. This is about her wanting to use public money to peddle her religious ideas on public property – which is paid for by all of us.
Prior to her stint as a substitute teacher, Hyatt taught at a Christian school for a year. This, of course, was the proper venue for her cloying need to indoctrinate children and hammer home her narrow worldview. Instead, she wants to obliterate parents’ rights, by subjecting children to religious dogma and a conservative worldview that violates the beliefs of many mothers and fathers.
Under her proposed measure, students who don’t want to participate, or whose parents don’t want them to participate, could be excused.
“They can have a holiday party in the other room,” she said. “Or if they don’t want a party, they can have social studies or some other learning experience.”
Yes, of course they could, and be heckled and treated like heathen freaks by their peers…just the way intolerant zealots like Hyatt want it to be.
Huffington Post pointed out today that Focus on the Family’s California affiliate, the California Family Council, opposes efforts in that state to protect marriage.
While the organization emphatically opposes the right of two people of the same gender to choose lifelong marriage, regardless of their religious beliefs, the group supports heterosexual divorce.
Making divorce illegal would be “impractical,” said Ron Prentice, the executive director of the California Family Council. The CFC led a coalition of religious conservative groups to qualify that state’s Proposition 8 in which religious voters overrode the civil right of persons not sharing those religious beliefs to marry.
In 2010, it is hoped, California will vote to protect marriage from Focus on the Family and its apologists for divorce.
John Marcotte, a married father of two, is proposing the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act. The following mock PSA makes a strong case for why voters should protect marriage from Focus on the Family.
Sexuality is not a right, according to OneNewsNow, which cites the Orange County (Calif.) Board of Education as its authority on the subject.
The Christian Rightists of the American Family Association’s media organ might make exceptions for you — if you’re an evangelical heterosexual Republican and you ask them nicely.
“Homosexuality is not a civil right,” board chair Alexandria Coronado emphasizes. Nor is heterosexuality, unless it is preapproved by a Christian Rightist authority.
Two California Christian-Right organizations — the Capitol Resource Institute and Pacific Justice Institute — say that if antigay parents want to teach their children to bully gay classmates, the schools shouldn’t stand in their way.
The two organizations further contend that their own “religious freedom” trumps the religious and personal freedom of the bullied students and their parents.
According to Edge, parents suing the Alameda Unified School District near Oakland claimed the schools’ anti-bullying lessons are “being foisted on kindergartners” and that they saw the curriculum as a form of “indoctrination” in antiviolence and civility — traits which to them, apparently, are effeminate and sissyish. Edge continues:
But other parents who support the curriculum argue that the lessons are vital for countering school bullying.
The lessons consist of 45-minute videos shown once during the course of the school year. Kindergartners learn about teasing and how it can be hurtful; issues of sexual orientation are included in the presentation shown to fifth-graders, which is the last year that the anti-bullying presentations are required in the Alameda Unified School District.
The lessons commenced after kindergartners repeatedly hurled antigay epithets at classmates. Antigay parents want that behavior to continue.
It’s that sort of bullying among the very youngest children that the curriculum is intended to address, say supporters of the program like Carrie Brash, a mother quoted in the article as saying that her daughter had to endure harassment from schoolmates who would strike up a chorus of, “Lesbian, lesbian, your mom’s a lesbian,” in order to torment her.
Antigay parents teach their children to insult not only their classmates, but those classmates’ parents. The objective: Drive people they don’t like out of the public-school system and out of their neighborhoods.
The lawsuit seeks to recall the school board and replace the members with Christian Rightists.
“If homophobia is allowed to flourish under the protection of religious freedom, then any form of bigotry can be justified.”
It appears that the Christian Right will not rest until they are the only people in California, Michigan, and other states who are permitted to enjoy religious freedom and protection from angry, violent mobs.
Ex-gay activist James Hartline has convinced San Diego council member Ruth Sterling to retract her support for San Diego LGBT Pride.
Without substantiation and without attending an event, Sterling wrote to the event organizers: “Never having seen one of your parades/celebrations I was shocked and shaken to my core to learn of the lewd and lascivious behavior and unconscionable activities portrayed.”
The mayor and pro-equality activists subsequently criticized Sterling for caving in so easily to Hartline’s unsubstantiated bigotry.
Hyatt is mindlessly promoting a myopic and shortsighted idea designed to make non-Christians uncomfortable in the hope they will convert to Christianity in order to feel accepted and fit in. Portraying religious minorities as the Grinch who stole Christmas is also exploitative, because students are a captive audience who would have no choice but to endure unwanted proselytizing – sometimes at the hands of older, larger tobacco spitting students in cowboy boots.
