news story / By Bob Doran

Popping the Question

What is marriage? Prop. 8 seeks to define, or redefine, the institution

(Oct. 9, 2008)  Expect a pitched battle in the weeks to come as proponents and opponents of Proposition 8 roll out TV ads and debate whether or not this simple phrase — “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California” — should be inserted into the state’s constitution.

In a sense the initiative is a re-run of Prop. 22, which used the same language — and passed in the 2000 election — but only changed the state Family Code. In May of this year the California Supreme Court ruled that any statute limiting marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman is a violation of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. As a result of that ruling, as of June 17, 2008, same-sex marriage is deemed valid in California.

GALLERY >

Battlelines were drawn this summer regarding the name of the initiative. The proponents, led by a group called Protect Marriage, qualified it as the “California Marriage Protection Act,” but Attorney General Jerry Brown changed the ballot language to the “Limit on Marriage” Constitutional Amendment, to indicate that its passage would take way an existing right. Proponents filed a lawsuit to change it back. It failed.

“We still call it the Protect Marriage Initiative,” said Chip White, spokesman for Protect Marriage-Yes on 8, calling from the group’s Sacramento headquarters. “What Prop. 8 would do is protect the people’s will. In 2000 over 61 percent of Californians voted in favor of Prop. 22 … but four activist judges in San Francisco wrongly overturned the people’s vote.”

For Jan Topp, who married her longtime partner Terrianne in August, the issues involved are more than ones of semantics. “My partner is in law enforcement; we have two children, we’ve been together for 10 years. There are a lot of things this affects: her retirement and the amount they take out for medical benefits for spouses versus domestic partners, things like that. Domestic partners are not the same as marriage.

“My partner — my wife — puts her life on the line every day for the citizens of this town and for them to turn around and tell her that they have a say in what she does in her private life and who she marries, that’s just not right. Discrimination like that has no place in anyone’s life. It just breeds hatred.”

To a great degree the financial support for Yes on 8 falls along religious lines. The Protect Marriage group notes support from evangelical religious leader James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and from the Catholic organization Knights of Columbus. Major funding for the “Yes” side has also come from members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. According to White, “People of all faiths and people of no faith support Prop. 8.”

Of course there are also many religious leaders who oppose the initiative. Stan Smith-Hanes, spokesman for the Humboldt chapter of Marriage Equality U.S.A., a group fighting against 8 locally, also serves also a deacon for the United Church of Christ in Eureka. “This is a civil rights issue that’s been highjacked by the churches,” said Smith-Hanes.

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