Marriage Watch / Maggie Gallagher
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders testified today in the Prop 8 trial, in favor of misusing the Consittution to overturn the rights of 7 million Californian voters.
Here's the interesting thing most people don't know. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is the reason Prop 8 got on the ballot.
He gave moving testimony in court today about how much he loves his lesbian daughter. Sure. But he ran for office promising the people of San Diego he opposed gay marriage. And then, he signed a city council resolution trying to overturn Prop 22 instead of meeting his obligations, living up to his promises. And he used his daughter as an excuse. That's wrong. Politicians are not elected to advance the views and values of their families.
The National Organization for Marriage, which has been credited by gay rights activists as one of the main reasons Prop 8 qualified for the ballot, got involved because Mayor Sander betrayed his campaign vows. I was asked to fly to San Diego in October of 2007 by a group of San Diego Catholics upset about the Mayor's betrayal. That meeting lead directly to NOM's decision to try to raise a million dollars in January of 2008 to help Protect Marriage get this on the ballot. The rest is history. Thank-you Mayor Sanders.
14 Comments
Liar.
homer, huh? Sanders' record is clear. Would you like to put some substance behind that thought? I'd love to hear it.
I think Jerry Sanders is a very intelligent man. People change their minds all the time, especially when they learn right from wrong. Kudos to Sanders!
"Politicians are not elected to advance the views and values of their families."
Really? I thought the whole point of your organization was that politicians WERE elected to advance the views and values of their families?
Politicians are elected to advance the views and ideas of the people they represent, not their own personal agendas! And as a resident of San Diego, I can tell you I was LIVID when Mayor Sanders betrayed us by signing on to overturn Prop 22. I don't like being lied to. And he lied to us, not unlike Governor Flinch - oops, Lynch - of New Hampshire lied to his constutients about his stand on gay marriage, "changed his mind" and then signed their gay marriage bill into law with a cadre of out-of-state officials from the HRC, one of the country's largest gay activist groups, standing there surrounding him as he put pen to paper. How disgusting is that! And how reprehensible is it of our mayor to have pledged to the National Association of Mayors that he would work to promote the gay agenda here in San Diego when he KNOWS he doesn't have the support of the voters! I have never used the word "mayor" before as an expletive, but I do whenever I refer to this guy - this "mayor."
What part of "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." isn't clear to you people? You disenfranchise and entire section of the population because of your religion based bigotry and when we fight for their rights (I'm not gay but i fully support equality in marriage) we're accused to "abusing the Constitution." I don't care if the vote on Prop 8 was unanimous, you can't make a law that contradicts the Constitution.
Some Guy,
Gays and lesbians can and do marry, just like the rest of us. No one is being "disenfranchised". If there's any bigotry involved here, it's among people who think the opposite sex is too gross to love.
There is room, in a representative democracy, for an elected representative to act on his conscience rather than the demands of those who elected him.
However, Sanders made a commitment to his electorate and his did not release himself from that commitment by virtue of his daughter's private relationship.
His was a 180-degree turn, not a nuanced change in political commitment to the electorate.
On the other hand, SSMers insist that an elected representative's conscience is insufficient reason to support the man-woman basis of marriage.
So, they want it both ways -- and then some.
Marty
I don’t think anyone is saying gays and lesbians are being disenfranchised; that means they aren’t being allowed to vote. The problem is that the US Constitution guarantees all citizens equal rights and gays and lesbians are being denied the right to marry. Gay couples do not have equal access to marriage licenses, compared to straight couples, except where same-sex marriage is legal. This is a huge constitutional problem.
Attackers of gay marriage (I hate to call them ' marriage defenders' since what they want is less marriage) say they care about children.
What about children being raised by gay couples, who are much more vulnerable and have less protections because they can often not have a legal relationship with both parents?
Do marriage attackers care about those children? Or are those children just lambs they are willing to sacrifice on the altar of their greater goal, i.e., scapegoating gay people for the failure of heterosexuals to maintain their marriages?
Kevin,
Some Guy wrote: "You disenfranchise and entire section of the population because of your religion based bigotry."
No one is being disenfranchised.
You wrote: "and lesbians are being denied the right to marry"
Untrue. Gays and Lesbians marry in every state, all the time. They just marry someone of the opposite sex.
Whether or not they WANT to do that is hardly a "huge constitutional problem".
"in favor of misusing the Consittution to overturn the rights of 7 million Californian voters. "
Are you kidding me with this?
So by your logic, it was an "infringement" on the rights of the majority when the courts decided that interracial couples should marry as well, despite the majority's belief that there was something gravely immoral about it, right?
What's the difference?
James,
You need to worry less about logic and more about history and accuracy.
In short, the interracial marriage laws were about racism, not marriage. They were unequally applied to different races, and ultimately the Loving court decided that race has NOTHING to do with marriage.
But just about everyone still agrees that (as the Loving court said) sex/gender has EVERYTHING to do with marriage.
Marty,
You have no clue what you're talking about, and your dodging of the question posed to you clearly indicates that you have no legs to stand on in your argument. Only the brain-dead will buy any of that malarkey.
If you call them "interracial marriage laws" then they were about racism and marriage, since both are acknowledged in that phrase. Racism was used to deny people basic rights, (like the right to marry whomever they loved enough to want to marry), to dehumanize them, thus making it easier to enslave them.
Perhaps revisiting history classes (or any classes for that matter) would be a wise next step for you since there is no hint of comprehension or accuracy in your quoting of it.