rolling stone’s take on prop 8

Here’s Rolling Stone’s take on what happened with the Proposition 8 campaign. It’s a lot more of the same, but some of the original reporting just continues to nail the No on 8 leadership for running an ineffective ground game. Something tells me we’re going to see a lot more of these kinds of stories over the next couple months. It’s dismaying to read but necessary if marriage equality supporters want to win at the ballot box. Yes on 8 consultant Frank Schubert talks about what happened the day of the election for his side, in contrast to what happened with the No on 8 folks…

The Yes on 8 campaign’s get-out-the-vote effort was equally prodigious. The weekend before the vote, Schubert’s religious volunteers once again went door to door, speaking to supporters and directing them to the right precinct locations. “On Election Day,” he says, “we had 100,000 people — five per precinct — checking voter rolls and contacting supporters who hadn’t showed up to vote.”

By contrast, the No on Prop 8 campaign mobilized just 11,000 volunteers on Election Day, which they deployed to polling locations to hold “Vote No on 8″ signs. The campaign even turned away volunteers who were unable to attend a sign-holding training seminar. Terry Leftgoff, a veteran campaign consultant who was once the highest-ranking gay officer in the California Democratic Party, was one of those who was informed that his services weren’t needed. “I was told I could come by on November 5th and help clean up a campaign office,” Leftgoff says.

the archbishop speaks

San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer has been pretty much silent on his involvement in Proposition 8, but in a letter posted on the SF Archdiocese’s Web site, he confirms he’s the one who encouraged the Mormons to get as involved as they did in the Yes on 8 campaign. You can read it here, but be prepared.

Here’s one passage I found interesting:

Whatever others may say, the proponents of Proposition 8 supported it as a defense of the traditional understanding and definition of marriage, not as an attack on any group, or as an attempt to deprive others of their civil rights. 

The Archbishop can say this as many times as he likes, but just denying the civil rights argument doesn’t make it go away. But then again denial seems to be an ongoing problem for his Excellency.

prop 8: the musical!

Nothing makes a heartbreaking tragedy easier to deal with than a cheerful scrubdown from a master of American Musical Theater. If Steven Sondheim can turn murderous racial gang wars into West Side Story, Jerry Bock can turn an impending religious pogrom into Fiddler on the Roof, and Marvin Hamlisch can twist the incessant catterwauling of self-indulgent dancers into A Chorus Line, then Tony winner Marc Shaiman can make Proposition 8 into a feel-good musical! Gotta love this star-studded production, which clearly was lovingly if hastily thrown together. 

To see more of Shaiman’s views on homosexuality, his relationship, the Bible and shellfish (yum!) check this out: