Prop. 8: Breaking It Down

The other day I wondered if the No on 8 side was being too cautious in their advertising, instead of putting an actual face on the discrimination and harm that would be suffered if marriage rights were eliminated for a particular class of people. Well, this video isn't exactly that, but it certainly makes the point about discrimination. Via Amanda at Pandagon, this is my favorite video of the cycle. A group redubbed the voices on a video of young people ranting about all the supposed consequences about gay marriage, and changed it so they say "interracial marriage." It's kind of perfect:



See, this comes down to discrimination, pure and simple. The other side wants to talk about ancillary outcomes, but really they want to hurt LGBT people. I mean, we have to be willing to say that. The other side has no problem outlining what they consider to be the stakes, as crazy as they think they are:

“This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon,” said Charles W. Colson, the founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and an eminent evangelical voice, speaking to pastors in a video promoting Proposition 8. “We lose this, we are going to lose in a lot of other ways, including freedom of religion.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobby based in Washington, said in an interview, “It’s more important than the presidential election.”

“We’ve picked bad presidents before, and we’ve survived as a nation,” said Mr. Perkins, who has made two trips to California in the last six weeks. “But we will not survive if we lose the institution of marriage.”

I'm glad that No on 8 is raising a lot of money, and that high-profile Californians like Maria Shriver are on board. But at some point in this final week, someone has to break this down. This is about harming same-sex couples.