SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3, 2008
Calif. Gay-Marriage Advocates Get Personal
Gays, Advocates Encouraged To Tell Co-Workers And Neighbors Why Their Votes Matter
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Play CBS Video Video Calif. Gay Marriage Under Fire Proposition 8 seeks to overturn the California Supreme Court's decision that gay marriage is legal. And, as John Blackstone reports, millions have been raised on both sides of the controversy.
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(AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)
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Bob Sodervick, right, waves the gay pride flag outside of City Hall in San Francisco, where same-sex marriage is currently legal. Proposition 8 seeks to change that. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
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Photo Essay Taking The Plunge In Calif. Festive atmosphere as gay and lesbian couples take their marriage vows.
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Timeline Gay Marriage Goes Global A look at the nations that have passed laws recognizing same-sex marriage.
Same-sex couples who have married since June knocked on doors in neighborhoods across the state on Sunday to share stories with the voters they hoped to persuade to defeat Proposition 8.
In recent weeks, other gay opponents of the ban, including a Roman Catholic priest, a former Republican mayor and a small-town newspaper editor, came out of the closet to show how the issue cuts across religious and social lines.
Proposition 8 has turned into this year's most expensive election question aside from the presidential race. Religious and civil rights groups have poured money and effort into the drive, making it one of the nation's most closely watched races.
When California's Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal, most polls showed majority support around the state. That is not the case anymore, reported CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.
"I am really worried," Willie Brown, a former mayor of San Francisco told CBS News.
Brown, one of the wise men of California politics, said the battle over Proposition 8 is raising passions, and money, across the country.
During his 23 years as a priest in the San Joaquin Valley, the Rev. Geoffrey Farrow offered solace to a mother who did not know how to relate to her lesbian daughter and to an 11-year-old boy who thought he might be gay.
Yet it was not until some parishioners confided they were confused about how to vote on Proposition 8 that Farrow, 50, decided he had an obligation to minister to a bigger audience - even if it meant publicly disagreeing with his bishop and other church leaders.
"By asking all of the pastors of the Diocese of Fresno to promote Catholics to vote yes on Proposition 8, the bishop has placed me in a moral predicament," Farrow began a homily he gave Sunday, Oct. 5. "They are making a statement which has a direct, and damaging, effect on some of the people who may be sitting in the pews next to you today."
He asked his parishioners to consider that their votes "can cause other human beings untold happiness or sorrow for a lifetime." Then he concluded by observing that he was prepared for any consequences of his words.
Farrow had revealed in response to a reporter's question just before the Mass that he was gay, but he did not disclose his sexual orientation to his parish.
Within days of his homily, Farrow was relieved as the St. Paul Newman Center's pastor and suspended without pay for contradicting church teachings and bringing scandal to his parish. He has retained a lawyer for a disciplinary hearing; the diocese has not commented on the case.
Former Folsom Mayor Glenn Fait has found a colorful way of describing his allegiance to the Grand Old Party.
"I like to say I'm a Lincoln Republican when it comes to civil rights, a Teddy Roosevelt Republican when it comes to the environment and a Reagan Republican when it comes to the economy," said Fait, a former city councilman and mayor of the Sacramento suburb made famous by the Johnny Cash song about the prison there.
His political experience and affiliation, as well as his background as a lawyer, made him a good No on 8 ambassador, Fait knew. But he had another card to play, and he laid it on the table in a quarter-page advertisement in his hometown newspaper Oct. 22.
"As a gay man, I have a personal interest in Proposition 8. My civil rights are at stake," wrote Fait, 65. "That is one reason I ask the people of Folsom to vote no."
Scott Shackford has spent the last six years in Barstow, in the high Mojave Desert between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The editor-in-chief of the Desert Dispatch has lived as openly gay for most of his adult life.
"Small, modestly conservative towns like Barstow know what it's like to feel powerless in the face of the majority," he wrote in an opinion piece published Oct. 23 in which he urged his readers to vote no on Proposition 8. "I come to you now from a position of powerlessness."
The column was the third Shackford, 37, had penned on a gay rights issue in the past four years.
While writing about Proposition 8, Shackford said he had to persuade the community that while he respected the fear associated with same-sex marriage, giving him a new right did not take threaten anyone else's freedom.
"As a gay person, you have to be able to live in the same world as these people, and they have to be able to live in the same world as you," he said.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 111 Commentsill tell you what god loves us all!!! even if your gay...now being gay is a sin like everything else the good news is that thats y god died for us...you are gay because you chose to be...god can change that and no im not judging...
Oh My GOD! You are so right! Cause that''s what the G A Y S are planning to do. That''s totally on their G A Y Agenda. Lock your kids up and don''t ever let them come out.
Would you please get a clue! Pedophilia and homosexuality have nothing to do with one another.
Choose to do it? Like choosing a different hairstyle? Doesn''t work the same way buddy. No one chooses to be G A Y.
Posted by m8143
Is the bible the only reason you don''t hate? Regarding the same *** marriage, how are not going to tolerate it? Hold your breath until you turn blue? Form big prayer circles to petition God to do something about it? Also, it''s so nice that you can speak for God.
Those who fight prop 8 aren''t asking anyone to condone anything against their will in their own life and in their own church. What people against prop 8 want, is for the constitution to be left alone and not soiled by the insertion of discrimination within its text, so that citizens belonging to either other churches, or no church at all, whether they are homosexual or not may decide for themselves whether to marry legally without having the tenets of a specific version of Christianity rammed down their throats.
Those who fight prop 8 aren''t asking anyone to condone anything against their will in their own life and in their own church. What people against prop 8 want, is for the constitution to be left alone and not soiled by the insertion of discrimination within its text, so that citizens belonging to either other churches, or no church at all, whether they are homosexual or not may decide for themselves whether to marry legally without having the tenets of a specific version of Christianity rammed down their throats.
Posted by XRepublican_
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Indeed! I actually started to look up the phrase ''Norichard cranium'' because I suspected it was some Latin legal phrase he was taking out of context. Then I applied phonics and realized it was actually the combination of a typo and his attempts at creativity.
Made it all quite funny, really.
Posted by guysdigdirt
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You are quite at liberty to lock your own doors because you fear a break-in. You are not free to lock my doors out of that same fear.
Posted by VoidMaster at 09:03 PM : Nov 03, 2008
Well put! A husband''s love for his wife does not depend on their ability to discriminate against others. It''s very easy to see who the real dipstick is!
Posted by guysdigdirt
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And assuming I am not taking this out of the context in which you mean it; no, I do not want someone else to do as much for me. In fact, I would go so far as to use deadly force to prevent them from it.
Posted by guysdigdirt
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Refusing to serve a potential customer because of obvious safety or health risks is not the same thing; though I question the validity of the Disneyland example you give.
Do you imagine that a white doctor should be able to deny treatment to a black patient because he (the hypothetical doctor) happens to be racist? It is after all that doctor%u2019s right to be a racist if he so chooses.
Posted by Avigil2 "
It sure seems that only certain people have the right to give their opinions. Any time any one gives the opinion that homosexuality is wrong it is immediately assumed (by those that don''t agree) that they are IGNORANT,BIGOTED, SELF RIGHTEOUS, and HATERS of homosexuals. I thought this was a free country and that people had the right to give their opinion WITHOUT being PERSECUTED. I believe that homosexuality is just as wrong now as it has ever been, but I certainly don''t hate people who choose to do it. I have the right to my opinion and I will continue to use that right even though other people might express THEIR hatred towards me for daring to do that.
Posted by guysdigdirt
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You are quite at liberty to lock your own doors because you fear a break-in. You are not free to lock my doors out of that same fear.
Posted by Avigil2 "
It sure seem that only certain people have the right to give their opinions. Any time any one give the opinion that homosexuality is wrong it is immediately assumed (by those that don''t agree) that they are IGNORANT,BIGOTED, SELF RIGHTEOUS, and HATERS of homosexuals. I thought this was a free country and that people had the right to give their opinion WITHOUT being PERSECUTED.
Posted by Avigil2"
It sure seems that every time anyone gives the OPINION that the perversion of homesexuality is wrong it is immediately assumed that those people are IGNORANT, BIGOTED, SELF RIGHTEOUS and HATERS of all homosexuals. Aren''t people allowed to express their opinion WITHOUT being persecuted. It seems like the people who are assuming these untrue things are the ones who are IGNORANT. Obviously only certain people are allowed to give their opinion and woe to anyone disagreeing with them.
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See all 111 Comments