Gay marriage: Both sides unleash Prop. 8 TV ads
By Mike Swift
Mercury News
Article Launched: 09/30/2008 04:52:55 AM PDT
Ratcheting up a media barrage that will spill into millions of California living rooms, proponents of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage broadcast their first TV ads Monday, charging that permanent legalization could endanger religious freedom or change schools' curriculum, charges whose veracity were challenged by legal experts.
ProtectMarriage (dot) com's $10 million media buy puts its new pro-Proposition 8 television ad in every major media market in the state "” more markets than its chief opposition group is currently targeting.
With Prop 8 trailing in the polls, ProtectMarriage (dot) com is trying to highlight the broader effects of gay rights legislation and court decisions in its specific support for a ban on same-sex marriage, a strategy that underscores the different tactics the two campaigns are using to woo undecided voters.
The anti-Prop. 8 group Equality California's first ad, which aired last week, focuses on the effect the initiative would have on one family, featuring a gray-haired couple married for 46 years, Sam and Julia Thoron, talking about how they want all of their three children to have equal rights to marry, including their lesbian daughter.
"Please don't eliminate that right for anyone's family," says Julia Thoron.
The ProtectMarriage (dot) com's ads, however, say that the California Supreme Court decision would have wide and disruptive legal ramifications for society. The ad starts with a clip of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom saying, "The door's wide open now! It's gonna happen whether you like it or not" " an excerpt from his speech on May 15, when the state Supreme Court legalized gay marriage.
The ad goes on to claim that the Supreme Court decision could cause churches to lose their tax-exempt status, would require "gay marriage being taught in public schools," and could lead to people being sued for their "personal beliefs."
In a news release, Equality California refuted the claims, saying no child can be forced to learn about health and family issues against the wishes of their parents.
"It's no longer about tolerance," a female narrator intones, as a judge's gavel bangs down. "Acceptance of gay marriage is now mandatory."
While a Pepperdine University law professor, Richard Peterson, makes those specific legal charges in the ad, other legal experts said they were dubious claims.
The threat that a church, synagogue or mosque could lose its tax-exempt status because it refused to do a same-sex marriage "is preposterous, " said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California-Irvine.
For example, Chemerinsky said, many rabbis, ministers and priests already refuse to marry couples of two different faiths as a matter of religious conviction, without the risk of violating laws that prohibit discrimination based on religious beliefs.
The television ad also refers to a recent Supreme Court decision related to gay rights, North Coast Women's Care Medical Group vs. Superior Court, in which a Southern California doctor refused to do an artificial insemination procedure on a lesbian because of the doctor's religious beliefs. The Supreme Court ruled in August that the constitutional rights of religious freedom and free speech do not exempt doctors from state anti-discrimination laws.
But that decision, Chemerinsky said, revolves around sexual orientation and not marital status, and it would still be on the books "whether or not we have same-sex marriage in the state."
ProtectMarriage (dot) com has raised about $18 million since June 1, said Frank Schubert, the political consultant managing the Yes-on-8 campaign, with a large share of that money coming from religious groups, including 35 to 40 percent from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other ads are being produced and will hit the airwaves in the future, Schubert said.
The ads are designed "to let people know that (Proposition 8) is not just about the two gays who love each other and want to be committed to each other," he told reporters Monday in Sacramento.
Equality California, meanwhile, has raised about $14 million, said Geoff Kors, the group's executive director.
"They are trying to make it about totally unrelated things that are absolutely false," Kors said of ProtectMarriage (dot) com. "We believe that if people vote on the basis of what this is really about eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry we'll win, and it's clear the other side knows that."
Link:
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10593943 Contact Mike Swift at
(408)271-3648 or at mswift@mercurynews.com
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