Could Newsom have prevented Prop 8's success?

Voters are the ones who make the decision but no one person handed the Yes on 8 campaign a more persuasive and compelling sound bite than our own mayor. Even if there were other flaws in the anti-8 operation, he was unquestionably the poster child for the pro-8 push, whether you like it or not.

And unlike Willie Brown, whose 70s high afro and muttonchop sideburn photo got used as a thinly disguised racial scare tactic in the 80s by some Republican candidates for the State legislature (nothing he could do about it), Mr. Newsom willingly and imperiously handed over the ammunition in yesterday's election.

While No on 8 campaigners like Alex Tourk, who I talked to recently, were agonizing over whether they'd win and were working every angle, Mr. Newsom was out stumping against the proposition this last, critical weekend. Where? In Solano, the only Bay Area county to vote for 8? In Contra Costa, where the tally was pretty close and some minds might have been changed?

No, the mayor was hitting the bricks in the Castro. How many people in that neighborhood do you think were undecided on same sex marriage? But it sure must have been fun getting all that adoration and applause. No boos there for Mr. Newsom, not even on Halloween.

Yesterday, as voters went to the polls, the mayor stiffed a tribute to the late, highly respected Democratic Party strategist Bob McCarthy, where there was genuine emotion flowing, to do some last minute arm-twisting against Prop8.

I still remember the President of the Philippines giving him a citation/award because Newsom’s father was a survivor of the Bataan Death March back 2 years ago in Manila. My Filipino in-law relatives leaned to me and said “oh he’s good looking”.

Then I explained to them what he’s been doing in SF and quickly the tone turned into instant anger. He’s pretty much a deplorable human being. I still couldn’t believe how tough his father was yet the son is the exact opposite.

Excluding those with certain fetishes, no black alive today has been a legal slave in America.

Blacks can pretend they have had an exclusive on dehumanized treatment by a society at large but it simply isn't so.

The the dehumanization that comes with being segregated or treated as property, homosexuals whole existence from birth is in a heteronormative world.

The children don't know they'll face the challenge of a homosexual orientation when they're being taught gender roles, about mothers and fathers, boys and girls, family life and so forth.

Puberty arrives and they find themselves either not becoming attracted to the opposite sex like their peers and muddle along hoping it will happen or, more terrifyingly, they are inexplicably attracted to their same gender.

They don't want to be different, they have no path to follow because they've always been shown the heteronormative lifestyle. Who can they talk to? Parents who they don't want to disappoint? Peers who taught one another with pejoratives like "fag" or "sissy" which they suddenly realize describes the orientation they fear is why they aren't fitting in to the mold set forth in the prior 12, 15, 17 years?

It is no wonder suicide is a serious problem with children who find themselves facing this issue.

They must be treated with dignity and compassion. We should not fear exposing our progeny to the true fact that such people exist in our world. If you want to keep them from being susceptible to be "recruited" by insecure, radical, promiscuous gays you have to give them the tools to face this challenge and the reassurance you will do your level best to be a loving, caring parent in whatever personal challenge they face be it the heartbreak of first love, death of a friend, an adolescent's lapse in judgment, a serious illness or the fate's cruelty of a homosexual orientation.

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