Social conservatives looking to overturn California’s gay marriages are misappropriating Barack Obama‘s image to woo black voters.
The backers of a move to ban same-sex marriage in California are inaccurately suggesting they have Barack Obama’s and Joe Biden‘s support in a mailing that appears targeted at black voters.
The mailer is from ProtectMarriage.com, whose backers it says include the Knights of Columbus and Focus on the Family. It quotes Obama, Biden, and four African-American religious leaders who appear actually to support Proposition Eight, which is the subject of an expensive, hard-fought campaign in the state. The words from the religious leaders warn of “mandatory indoctrination” of school children and say it’s “insulting that radical gay activists try to equate” the civil rights movement to the push for same-sex marriage.
The mailing quotes Obama and Biden — accurately — saying they oppose same-sex marriage. However, they also explicitly oppose Proposition Eight.
Many pundits claim black voters will play a key role in a possible Proposition 8 passage, although we seriously doubt many African-Americans are going to be fooled into taking away people’s rights.
[via Politico]
fredo777
Damn him for giving them that ammo, but he also said (which is why they’re so stupid) that he’s against Prop 8 + finds it unnecessary + discriminatory.
Bill Perdue
The bigotry of the Obama and McCain tickets about same sex marriage is the one single factor that hurts us the most in California, Arizona and Florida.
The constant repetition of their superstitious (religious) prejudices about same sex marriage is a green light to bigots to vote against us. Obama’s phrase “god’s in the mix†says two things. First that same sex marriage is a sin and secondly that bigotry is sanctioned from “On Highâ€. That excites those whose lifestyles embrace irrational and superstitious views, aka, christians, and if enough of them vote we’re toast.
Of course the right and the bigots embrace Obama and use him against us. Why wouldn’t they. It makes perfect sense because he, the Clintons, Focus on the Family, Biden, Palin and McCain all agree that we have no right to marry. The fact that Obama supports civil unions, which cements our second class status, and that he’s quite content to let state DOMAs mistreat us just makes matters that much worse.
Like most Democrats, Obama opposition is simply tactical – he opposes Constitutional amendments but says that other wise the states can treat us as badly as they want. Like bigots before him, he’s for ‘states rights’ and opposes a federal law legalizing same sex marraige.
Lots of people don’t bother voting and most of those who do enter the voting have to hold their noses. They know we’re going to get screwed blue (not in the good way) no matter who wins. It’s happened in every election since 1868. Hopefully, if all the hard work of the volunteers pays off a lot of them will reject the outright bigotry of McCain and Obama and vote for their rights as well as ours.
Win or lose, though, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the volunteers and to all the local and campus groups and especially to Unions and groups like the NAACP. When it got down and dirty they were there doing the most valuable thing people can do with their lives; fighting injustice.
Mr C
People do not be fooled. African Americans may be divided on this just like every other race. But these BULLSHIT tactics we don’t stand for. It’s obviously these folks think we’re stupid! But we’re not!
VOTE NO ON PROP #8 ALL RACES!
CHURCHILL-Y
“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”
“he does not support it and is not inclined to fight for it, his advisers say.”
OBAMA ’08
DairyQueen
I guess you guys @ Queerty didn’t open my email I sent yesterday on the flyer. The back of the Flyer had a direct quote from Queerty.com. I got this flyer over the weekend here in Sacramento.
seitan-on-a-stick
ELECTION VOTING MACHINE ISSUE! Yes on 8 may result in YES to McCain-Palin ticket:
There are news reports that if people vote down the line for say Barack Obama on the Democratic ticket, but you vote Yes on Prop 8 (Against Gay Marriage), the will of your intended vote might be flipped to the other party who supports that measure. So, a YES on 8 may actually cancel your Democratic vote. This issue must be robo-called to the African-American community or California may unknowingly flip the election to John McCain.
Bill Perdue
seitan-on-a-stick, we’ve discussed this before. Please, take your meds.
Jenna's Bush
There are news reports
Where?
Bill Perdue
There are news reports…
Sounds like a Faux News story to me.
Or perhaps seitan-on-a-stick is just doing what he does best – living in an alternate universe and occasionally reporting back to us.
kravitz
did I hear the no on 8 people create anything like the above flyer and distribute it to the same people who got the above? mail to their neighboorhoods, etc?
that would be a no.
next time you want a coalition, build one person by person.
Bill Perdue
kravitz is korrect – We never had a chance in California because of the ineptness and political immaturity of the No on 8 leadership and their connections to the Democrats. They were timid when audacity was required. They left the field of battle in Black and Latino communities to the bigots, ignoring the influence of bigoted christer cults until the last minute and wasting the opportunities opened by the powerful support of women’s groups, unions, MALDEF and the NAACP.
The other big factor that led inexorably to our defeat was the cowardice of McCain and Obama. From the primaries until November 3rd both constantly vied for the bigot vote, trying to outdo each other pandering to christers. In that effort Obama made huge gains, digging deep into Rove territory and closing the ‘bigot gap’. Unlike the youth vote and others, christers are regimented, disciplined and have real clout. They know the game; they elected Obama and now they own him. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR2008110503908.html?hpid=sec-religion
I worked on the first of these right wing initiatives, Prop 6 in 1978, which would have disqualified GLBT folks from teaching jobs. No on 6 had some of the same problems as No on 8 did.
We organized the LA Committee against the Briggs Initiative as a grass roots, democratically run group that emphasized mobilizing our own communities not to compete with No on 6 but to cover things not addressed by dueling TV commercials. We passed out hundreds of thousands of leaflets door to door in LA and the Bay Area, partnered with the Bay Area CABI. And we we went to unions, the NAACP, and women’s groups.
On top of that we had one huge advantage that we lacked this time. Both Carter and Reagan, already running for president very publically blasted the Briggs Initiative, calling it bigoted and undemocratic. When that happened our numbers changed dramatically.
Now however, both parties pander to the religious right. It a tradition that began with Clinton’s gutless capitulation on DOMA and DADT and was followed by the Republican use of DOMA as a wedge issue in 2000 and 2004. When the Democrats regained the Congress in 2006 they continued the drift towards theocracy by eviscerating ENDA and tossing it’s corpse along with the hate crimes bill in the garbage.
Now comes the latest betrayal. McCain blasted us saying that we’re second class citizens who have to right to get married. Obama agreed and took it a step further. His comment “god’s in the mix†said that god disapproved of us, that same sex marriage was a sin. (A sin is what ever interferes with a priest, pastor, imam, rabbi, preacher or grand gazoo making money. Marriage is their stock in trade.) McCain and Obama caved on us, and their strident bigotry was an excuse, a green light for bigots to clobber us. The other betrayal was that most liberals and Democrats gave him a pass on his bigotry. Their silence was deafening.
Now we need to pick up the pieces and build a nationwide mass action movement independent of the twin parties of bigotry. The road to equality will bypass the Democrats and Republicans