SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3, 2008

Calif. Gay-Marriage Advocates Get Personal

Gays, Advocates Encouraged To Tell Co-Workers And Neighbors Why Their Votes Matter

  • 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.

    •  (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

    • 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.

      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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(CBS/AP)  As California voters prepare to decide Tuesday whether to eliminate the marriage rights same-sex couples won five months ago, gays and their allies have been encouraged to tell co-workers and neighbors why legalizing the unions matters to them.

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.

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Add a Comment See all 111 Comments
by honestabe8 November 5, 2008 8:46 AM EST
fush: when did you choose your orientation?
Reply to this comment
by fush2 November 5, 2008 6:18 AM EST
and no i dont think that gay ppl have the right to get married...
Reply to this comment
by fush2 November 5, 2008 6:13 AM EST
http://www.bible-knowledge.com/Testimony-Homosexual-Deliverance.html

ill 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...
Reply to this comment
by avigil2 November 4, 2008 2:39 PM EST
Give them an inch they''''ll take a mile.. next they will want to have the legal age of consent lowered to 10, then 8 then 6 and legalize kiddie porn and kiddie prostitution because kids should have the civil right to engage in adult activities because they are humans. - posted by mustang4mom

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.
Reply to this comment
by avigil2 November 4, 2008 2:35 PM EST
"... but I certainly don''''t hate people who choose to do it." - posted by WhirledPeas7

Choose to do it? Like choosing a different hairstyle? Doesn''t work the same way buddy. No one chooses to be G A Y.
Reply to this comment
by honestabe8 November 4, 2008 8:38 AM EST
I don''''t HATE anyone cause it''''s considered murder according to The Bible, BUT I will not tolerate same *** marriage. It''''s an abomination to GOD.
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.
Reply to this comment
by mumu11 November 4, 2008 5:58 AM EST
Just read on one of the posts a) marriage has always been between one man and one woman. Well, no. Polygamy (both polygyny and polyandry) have just as long a history. b) marriage is for procreation. Really? Are the people unfortunate enough to be sterile also going to be barred from staying with the spouse they love, when it''s discovered they just can''t procreate? Is that the prop 8 (bis) planed for 2012 maybe?
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.
Reply to this comment
by mumu11 November 4, 2008 5:57 AM EST
Just read on one of the posts a) marriage has always been between one man and one woman. Well, no. Polygamy (both polygyny and polyandry) have just as long a history. b) marriage is for procreation. Really? Are the people unfortunate enough to be sterile also going to be barred from staying with the spouse they love, when it''s discovered they just can''t procreate? Is that the prop 8 (bis) planed for 2012 maybe?
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.
Reply to this comment
by m8143 November 4, 2008 5:39 AM EST
I don''t HATE anyone cause it''s considered murder according to The Bible, BUT I will not tolerate same *** marriage. It''s an abomination to GOD.
Reply to this comment
by imsmiley12 November 4, 2008 2:18 AM EST
wiccan reade...And it harm none do what ye will
Reply to this comment
by voidmaster-2009 November 4, 2008 12:24 AM EST
It''s very easy to see who the real dipstick is!

Posted by XRepublican_
***
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.
Reply to this comment
by xrepublican_ November 4, 2008 12:17 AM EST
What a dipstick. Saying I have to wait til you think it harms me to do something about it is like saying I have to wait until I get robbed once to lock the doors. * * *

Posted by guysdigdirt
***

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!
Reply to this comment
by voidmaster-2009 November 4, 2008 12:13 AM EST
. . . that what you want someone else to do for you?

Posted by guysdigdirt
***
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.
Reply to this comment
by voidmaster-2009 November 4, 2008 12:10 AM EST
Norichard cranium, you do not have to serve anyone anytime they want you to just because you are in business. McDonalds will not serve you if you are not dressed properly, Disneyland will not let you in on Halloween if you are wearing a mask, bars will not serve you if you have had too much to drink. You do not have to go out of business if you do not want to serve someone.

Posted by guysdigdirt
***

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.
Reply to this comment
by whirledpeas7 November 4, 2008 12:05 AM EST
"I truly feel sorry for your kids that they have a father who''''''''s bigoted, ignorant and seems full of hate of g-ay people, because to pass that onto your children is a form of child abuse. So sad.
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.
Reply to this comment
by voidmaster-2009 November 4, 2008 12:03 AM EST
What a dipstick. Saying I have to wait til you think it harms me to do something about it is like saying I have to wait until I get robbed once to lock the doors. It is already happening and if you do not want to deal with it or if you are one of the perps doing the terrible things then step out of your own conceit and do what it right for others, isn''''t that what you want someone else to do for you?

Posted by guysdigdirt
***
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.
Reply to this comment
by whirledpeas7 November 4, 2008 12:00 AM EST
"I truly feel sorry for your kids that they have a father who''''''''s bigoted, ignorant and seems full of hate of g-ay people, because to pass that onto your children is a form of child abuse. So sad.
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.
Reply to this comment
by 4marlene November 3, 2008 11:54 PM EST
In San Fran, children are used in sexx slavery. A large kiddie prostitution ring was recently busted. Give them an inch they''ll take a mile.. next they will want to have the legal age of consent lowered to 10, then 8 then 6 and legalize kiddie porn and kiddie prostitution because kids should have the civil right to engage in adult activities because they are humans. Makes a lot of sense in the minds of sick people. The recruitment has already begun in kindergarten. Wake up people!! *** already have the right of domestic union. Don''t push it on the kids through our public schools!
Reply to this comment
by 4marlene November 3, 2008 11:54 PM EST
In San Fran, children are used in sexx slavery. A large kiddie prostitution ring was recently busted. Give them an inch they''ll take a mile.. next they will want to have the legal age of consent lowered to 10, then 8 then 6 and legalize kiddie porn and kiddie prostitution because kids should have the civil right to engage in adult activities because they are humans. Makes a lot of sense in the minds of sick people. The recruitment has already begun in kindergarten. Wake up people!! *** already have the right of domestic union. Don''t push it on the kids through our public schools!
Reply to this comment
by whirledpeas7 November 3, 2008 11:52 PM EST
"I truly feel sorry for your kids that they have a father who''''''''s bigoted, ignorant and seems full of hate of g-ay people, because to pass that onto your children is a form of child abuse. So sad.
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.
Reply to this comment
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