As the saga of Proposition 8 continues to unfold, LGBT families can take comfort in recent polls showing that 59 percent of Californians now support marriage equality and only 34 percent remain opposed. Less than four years ago, the California ballot initiative that outlawed same-gender marriage passed by a margin of some 52 percent to 48 percent. But how did we get from there to here? In retrospect it appears that religiously-motivated Catholic, Mormon, and evangelical activists won the battle that may have had the unintended effect of losing the war. Americans resent, it would seem, religious interventions in the public square, especially when those are perceived as shady, secretive, and managed from afar (read: Catholic).
The play 8 by Dustin Lance Black is drawn mostly from the transcripts of Perry v. Brown , the legal challenge to Prop 8 that may or may not go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. A star-studded reading of the play was posted for a time on YouTube. The video included samples of the revealing Yes on 8 television ads. One such ad featured a young girl telling her mother what she learned in school that day: that she could grow up to marry a princess.
In 1977 Anita Bryant and Save Our Children won the repeal of a gay rights ordinance in Miami by casting LGBT persons as sexual deviants and seducers of children. Shortly thereafter California state Senator John Briggs of Fullerton mounted an unsuccessful bid to rid state schools of LGBT teachers. Because of California's Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act (FAIR) – thank you, Mark Leno! – students are now more likely to learn about the Briggs initiative and its defeat by Harvey Milk, Paula Lichtenberg, and a broad coalition that included labor unions, pro-LGBT religious leaders, and pro-LGBT religious groups.
Because of the culture wars, we tend to think of religion as being in opposition to LGBT civil rights. The No on 8 campaign was justifiably criticized for having hidden the faces and silenced the voices of LGBT families and pro-LGBT religion. As confirmed by the success of recent lobbying efforts for marriage equality in Washington, New Jersey, and Maryland, the witness of LGBT families and pro-LGBT religious leaders are both important. Thankfully the wisdom encapsulated in the anti-Briggs slogan "Come out, come out wherever you are" has been recovered.
Indeed, since Prop 8 passed, the religious witness for marriage equality has been amplified, in California and throughout the nation. In Maryland, for example, recent lobbying efforts were aided by Maryland Faith for Equality and persons of seemingly every religious background, including numerous Catholic individuals, and several Catholic groups. To take just one example, in a photo posted on the New Ways blog, Sr. Jeannine Gramick – who does not typically wear a veil – stands proudly in modified habit with a young same-gender couple. She stands in the tradition of Sr. Eileen Delong of Catholics for Human Dignity, who in 1978 joked frequently of the necessity of outing the veil for a good cause every now and again. (See http://newwaysministryblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/scenes-from-the-signing-of-marylands-marriage-equality-bill/.)
In his movie Milk, however, screenwriter Black presents a less subtle, less inclusive account of religion. Only Bryant is religious, and his Anita is a villainous, Bible-thumping beauty queen who more than deserved the taunts led by megaphone-wielding Milk protege Cleve Jones: "Anita, you liar, we'll set your hair on fire!" Fast forward to the recent 8 and the villain is Maggie Gallagher, read by Jane Lynch, who plays Sue Sylvester on Glee.
Lynch's portrayal of Gallagher was quite gentle, considering how so many people actually feel about her. A recently circulated social-media postcard featured Gallagher's photo with the caption "Hate Makes You Ugly." I have no idea if the postcard was created by a gay man, by any man, or if misogyny rather than simple looks-ism was involved. But it reminded me of a political cartoon from the archive c. 1978 in which Bryant was drawn as a pig. Black's treatment of religion in 8 is not fundamentally different from that in Milk; religion is the enemy of LGBT life, families and relationships. Even if we'd rather laugh than set Gallagher's hair on fire, it is a foregone conclusion that religion is a bitch.
Representing the National Organization for Marriage, Gallagher angrily spars with marriage equality champion Evan Wolfson, for whom her outdated and inadequate arguments are simply no match. Unlike Bryant in Milk , however, Black's Gallagher does not cite scripture, but is confined to seemingly secular (but recognizably Catholic) arguments concerning nature and the common good. As Judge Vaughan Walker would ultimately rule, none of the arguments advanced in defense of Prop 8 proved rational, a conclusion that was upheld by the recent decision of a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Since family and domestic partner law in California treat same-gender and opposite-gender couples as equivalent, and since same-gender marriage was legal in California when Prop 8 was passed, the referendum was obviously intended not to advance a positive notion of marriage, as the proponents claimed, but solely to deprive same-gender couples of the dignity of the word "marriage."
As those who have followed the culture wars and/or seen The Mormon Proposition will know, NOM is an anti-gay religious front group. Gallagher is an anti-gay Catholic who has worked closely with the Knights of Columbus and many anti-gay Catholic bishops. They have funded and helped to support NOM's work in ways that have yet to be fully disclosed. NOM has since worked with the Knights of Columbus and the bishops to produce an anti-gay video that was distributed to hundreds of thousands of Catholic households in Minnesota. Voters in that state will decide this November whether to ban same-gender marriage by constitutional amendment. So Black's critique of religion is more than justified.
But I'd rather read 8 with Harvey.
Milk was a devout atheist, a proud Jew, and a member of the predominantly-LGBT Congregation Sha'ar Zahav. While not a religious believer, his words and deeds show that he believed in belief, especially in the important role of LGBT-positive religion in supporting queer/human dignity and aiding the struggle for LGBT civil rights. He bore witness by engaging religion, as demonstrated in a 1978 clip from a San Francisco television program in which he addressed religious concerns head-on. Building on arguments developed and disseminated by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual (founded in San Francisco in 1964), Milk argued for a pro-LGBT reading of the Christian scriptures: "In the teachings of Paul, whose own life is questionable, there's reference to it. But the gospels, which is Christianity, you know, Jesus – his life, his teaching – it is never, ever even hinted at ... just the opposite. Christ says 'Love thy neighbor; Do unto the neighbor as you would want them to do unto you' ... To the Bible thumpers, those who are out there, re-read the gospels, and live the life of the gospels, and you would do what Christ says ... accept everyone." (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVlxq7wqgeU.)
The No on 8 campaign featured Milk colleague, and now Senator Dianne Feinstein in its ads, rather than LGBT families and pro-LGBT religious witnesses. In retrospect that was a mistake. We tried to be sneaky and it backfired. This is who we are, we should have said; this is how present inequality affects our families; and this is what secular reason and our many diverse faith traditions can teach us about how to get along.
Eugene McMullan will graduate with a Ph.D. in history from the Graduate Theological Union this May. His dissertation was entitled "Queer Witness: Religion and the History of the LGBT Movement in San Francisco, 1948-1981." He is also the co-editor of Communion, the monthly newsletter of Catholics for Marriage Equality in California.