Since the passage of California’s Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage in the state, there has been no shortage of outrage from gays and friends of the gay community. Much of this vituperation has been focused on fundamentalist Christians, and the Mormon church in particular. This is understandable. They were and are highly visible opponents of homosexuality, to the point that they used the ballot proposition process to enforce this worldview to the detriment of gay couples. An emotional response is a natural outgrowth of these circumstances. But the machinations of Bible (or Book of Mormon)-thumping boogeyman aren’t the whole story. It would do a disservice to the future of the movement not to turn the harsh light of criticism on those within their ranks who doomed the No on 8 campaign in ways no outside force could.
Most infamously, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom gave a speech about same-sex marriage in which he gloated/threatened/unwisely vomited out
“As California goes, so goes the rest of the nation. It’s inevitable. This door’s wide open now. It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not.”
The Yes on 8 campaign jumped on Newsom’s folly, using footage of the speech in political ads to devastating effect – public opinion, which had until then trended towards respecting the California Supreme Court’s decision, was now galvanized in the other direction. There were others – less visible than the polarizing Mayor, but influential nonetheless – whose overconfidence about the goodwill of voters led to a slipshod campaign that ended in resounding failure. Then there were those like Steve Smith of the Democratic consulting firm DeweySquare who, as we’re now learning, were not only blockheadedly optimistic but dangerously incompetent.
The facts are these: In June 2008, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama sent a strongly worded letter supporting gays and denouncing efforts to amend the California state constitution to the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club in San Francisco, a move noted by numerous papers of record. The consultants at the fore of No on 8, Smith among them, opted not to use what amounted to a shot in the arm from an extremely popular politician who would go on to become leader of the free world… because the group he sent it to wasn’t well-known outside of the Bay Area.
Move over Mormons, there’s an overpaid numbskull to crucify. If Barack Obama sent an email to Re:Generator in the Summer of ‘08 with the exact same message, and its veracity could be verified, it would have been news. Indeed, he could have done an interview with a high school newspaper in a small town in Southern California, and if that’s what he said, it would be of statewide interest, and in the gay movements best interest to make the most of. How did this not occur to Steve Smith? What, would Obama had to have called up Smith personally to say “Look, Steve, California isn’t a straight state or a gay state, but a state that’s going to me even if I personally abort a baby in an alleyway two days before the general election. Why don’t you use my letter to help the No on 8 campaign?”?
The LDS church could have saved several million dollars and averted an FPPC complaint, because as it turns out, gays and friends of the gay community were capable of ruining a good thing with minimal outside interference.
