At least one major Yes on 8 contributor is regretting spending the piggy bank on defeating marriage equality in California. After dumping $539,000 in the coffers of the Yes on 8 campaign as well as an additional $83,000 in non-monetary support, James Dobson’s Colorado Springs-based Focus on Family organization announced today that it was cutting 202 jobs, raising the total number of layoffs this year to 950.
Mark Lewis, a Colorado Springs resident who organized a No on 8 protest this past Saturday said:
“If I were their membership I would be appalled that [Focus on the Family] would spend any money on anything that’s obviously going to get blocked in the courts is just sad. [Prop. 8] is guaranteed to lose, in the long run it doesn’t have a chance – it’s just a waste of money.”
While the 7th largest contributor to the Yes on 8 Campaign, Focus has seen better days. Their Christian book, CD & DVD sales have slashed by competition with big box store like Wal-Mart and has laid off employees for the last three years in a row.
This is so so sad. Oh, wait, it’s awesome! Perhaps the laid-off workers will find new jobs in California– and as they’re asking if you would like fries with that, at least they’ll be secure in the knowledge that their shitty minimum-wage lifestyle is protected from the dark, dank horrors of gay marriage.
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Joe Moag
I love the little irony that they are getting their economic asses kicked by big box stores, the same ones that they are always first to tell us are part of Jesus’ plan for big, cheap consumerism pursuant to His undying love of free-market capitalism.
fredo777
Own3d.
Inertia_90
The most delicious news I’ve seen in a good while.
ask ena
He sure looks a lot like Larry Craig.
Bruno
Let’s see…Focus on the Family having problems, “Yes on 8” areas of southern Cal on fire…are the funda-metnals SURE they were on the right side of God’s will?
michael
While its difficult for me to be happy when families lose their income and jobs I equate this more with a mafia member losing its
lively hood. Its ill gotten gain when ones work revolves around the oppression of others, spreading fear and lies, especially in the name of “God”.
The Gay Numbers
Screw them. Glad they are losing their jobs. Let’s hope more of these organizations continue to go under.
Jeff
Can’t do anything but LAUGH OUT LOUD!! Thanks for brightening up my day with this info.
Larry Linn
Why should the Government be involved in regulating marriages on any way? It is a religious agreement. Until recently, prior to birth control and DNA confirmation, there was some basis for the government to be involved. In the world today, there is no need for any regulations. Pre-nuptial agreements, divorces, and so on, are civil agreements. Let the religious institutions set their own criteria to grant marriages. Let there be marriages between a man and a woman, men and women, a man and a woman, a woman and men, and Sarah Siverman and her dog named “Duckâ€. Why should anyone not involved with the partnership be involved? Perhaps the solution is to have a California Constitutional Amendment, not have any role in marriages, just domestic partnerships.
GranDiva
@Bruno:
About as much as the Spanish were in believing that God was on their side against Elizabeth I…
InlandEmpire
Proposition 8 is a revision because it changes not only same-sex marriage rights but also opposite-sex marriage rights. It has added a derived requirement that opposite-sex couples can not marry. Proposition 8 has never removed the Equal Protection clause. In the Re Marriage Cases the remedy choices were to eliminate all marriages or allow same-sex marriages.
From page 119 (http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S147999.PDF):
“A court generally makes that determination by considering whether extending the benefit equally to both classes, or instead withholding it equally, would be most consistent with the likely intent of the Legislature, had that body recognized that unequal treatment was constitutionally impermissible.”
If Proposition 8 is ruled valid, the court has no choice but to invalidate all marriages since Prop 8 denies extending it to same-sex couples and the equal protection clause requires equality.
Carsen T.
The funny part was knowing you used to get Focus on the Family website to give you stuff for free…my friends and I have some really nice hardcover Narnia series and highly amusing gag gifts because you used to be able to put in the price you wanted to pay zero dollars used to work. So we jacked about $1000 dollars worth of merch off of them, we got some good lolz in knowing we could easily waste their money that way.
mark
Daddy D says, “MERRY CHRISTMAS,,,,suckers”
Dick Mills
Looks like they are fighting for a smaller and smaller piece of the gay-bashing hatemongery pie. With fewer and fewer dollars spread among more and more hatemongers, the rational outcome is a hatemongery recession.
John K.
Inlandempire: While that result would be such sweet irony, the wording of the provision makes it problematic. If it said “marriages between individuals of the same-sex shall not be recognized in California,” I’d say you’ve got a winning argument. However, since the provision actually defines marriage as being between a man and a woman as part of the constitution, that change would just be an exception to the equal protection clause. In other words, the constitution isn’t silent on hetero marriages; it specifically defines them.
That said, I’m cautiously optimistic that the court will hold that an exception to equal protection is a revision rather than an amendment. The case law is very meager in this area, but such a decision, although not strongly supported by the case law, is not inconsistent with the case law either. That being the case, common sense will likely prevail: if a simple majority can change the constitution to make an exception to equal protection, then equal protection is a literal nullity. I don’t think the Court can overlook that.
John K.
I’d also like to point out that I read an article a few days ago about how the justices held some conference at berkeley about the role of the courts (scheduled prior to prop 8). They discussed In re Marriage Cases, but not the new suits against prop 8 (obviously). Chief Justice George made some comment about the role of the courts being to protect minority rights from majorities, a comment I think he would have avoided had he thought he would have to uphold Prop. 8. Justice Werdegar rolled her eyes and ignored a comment by a non-justice panelist about how the court couldn’t strike down prop 8. Finally, Justice Kennard has been on the Court since 1989, and was in the majority in a 1990 case which was one of only two or three to strike down initiative constitutional changes as revisions. These are at least positive signs about three of the four justices that were in the majority in In re Marriage Cases. I wasn’t able to find any clues about Justice Moreno.
There’s also a backdoor possibility that one of the minority justices will swing over. This issue isn’t quite the same as same-sex marriage per se. Even though those justices voted against recognizing same-sex marriage as a fundamental right and sexual orientation as a suspect class, it’s possible they will honor the precedent. Their votes in In re Marriage Cases are not necessarily indicitive of whether they would hold that removing a fundamental right from a suspect class is a revision or not. Like I said, it’s a backdoor possibility; since the case is only 6 months old, it’s not likely the justices in the minority will give much weight to it as precedent.
John K.
That was kinda confusing….if anyone is interested but didn’t quite get what I was saying, let me know and I’ll try to say it better, lol.
Trenton
Praise him: The Lord works in mysterious ways.
RS
They’ve laid off 950 people this year already?!?! I was shocked they even had that many to begin with. Seriously, I thought they had maybe 20 to 30 paid staff members. I knew they had money but I had no idea how large they were.
Charles J. Mueller
What sweet irony, that those who voted to take away our basic, civil-rights and protections that they have always enjoyed, should find themselves the victim of their own actions.
A pity, however, that these simple-minded folks cannot see any connection between their beliefs and horrendous actions and their own present plight.
Guess they will have to just keep doing it, until they get it!
Liz M
How very Christian of them! I’m glad to see that they follow the basic Christian tenets of loving thy neighbor as thyself, live and let live, and judging not as they be judged. Gotta love when the Fates intervene!
Scott Berwitz
Being a bigot takes money…a lot of it. Congratulations…they defeated gay marriage and now a bunch of straight families have no money to support their kids. Bravo to “family values!”
Inlandempire
See: S168066 ROBIN TYLER, et al., Petitioners v. STATE OF CALIFORNIA’s Amended Petition Page 6 and 7. Gloria Allred is using the same argument that if Prop 8 is legal, then under the equal protection clause either all couples should be able to marry or none of them should be able to marry.
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/highprofile/documents/20081105135855223.pdf
Inlandempire
The Equal Protection clause was never modified by Prop 8, otherwise it would be an obvious revision.
Charles J. Mueller
Question? We keep hearing how much money the Mormon Church urged it’s flock to raise to get Prop8 passed in California.
How much of that money was actually spent on advertising…how much is left over…and what will that money be used for, if it was not all spent?
Or, dos the Mormon Church get to keep it as a matter of principal and the ‘spoils’ of war, as it were?
John K.
Inlandempire: That’s very interesting. I heard that Allred was going to use a “controversial new” legal argument, but I don’t remember reading this argument in the brief I read on November 6 that I thought was Allred’s. That was basically argued that the initiative process itself was added to the constitution as an amendment and not a revision and thus can’t give the people the power to vote on fundamental rights, a slightly different argument than the one that says prop 8 is a revision.
In any event, this is an interesting argument, although I stick by my assertion that the wording of Prop. 8 makes it unlikely to succeed. I think it’s much more likely that the court will just say prop. 8 renders equal protection a nullity and also affects due process and is thus a revision that is completely invalid. That said, I also wouldn’t mind being wrong and watching the conservatives in California freak out when their new “domestic partnership” licenses don’t contain the words “marriage” or “spouse” considering they freaked out when “Pary A” and “Party B” were temporarily used in place of “Husband” and “Wife” on the marriage licenses. As I said, it would be sweet irony to have the Court force the government to stop recognizing straight marriages because of Prop. 8.
John K.
Charles: I don’t know, but I do know that the Mormon leadership sent a letter to every church that was read to the congregants that said their “souls were in peril” if they did not donate “time and money” to passing Prop. 8.
Charles J. Mueller
@John K. Wow. If that isn’t blatant, outright blackmail, I don’t what is?
That’s really messin’ with people’s heads…and their pocketbooks. Big time.
With a line that powerful, who needs a gun to commit a hold-up, I ask?