Campaign for Children and Families

The San Francisco Chronicle has a good article on how the folks behind Yes on 8 are trying to bar the Campaign for California Families, Randy Thomasson, and Mat Staver from getting involved in the on-going legal dispute because of the latter’s extreme anti-gay views, which Yes on 8 fears will make them all look bad: 

The group, now known as the Campaign for Children and Families, is run by Randy Thomasson, who for years has been one of California's most visible opponents of gay rights and what he bills as "the homosexual agenda."

The people behind Prop. 8 have been butting heads with Thomasson for years, arguing that his efforts to outlaw same-sex marriage and curb domestic partnership arrangements are a long step further than a majority of California voters is willing to go.

In 2005 and again in January, Thomasson and his allies proposed initiatives that not only would bar same-sex marriage but that also "voids or makes unenforceable" rights conferred by California law on couples, gay or heterosexual, registered as domestic partners, including community property, child custody, hospital visitation and insurance benefits.

"It was like the nuclear option to obliterate the entire domestic partners law," [Andrew Pugno, general counsel for the Yes on Prop. 8 campaign] said. "We were constantly hassled by that organization, who thought we weren't aggressive enough."

…

But the disputes between the groups have grown in the past few days, with Thomasson launching an all-out attack against the Supreme Court for accepting the challenge to Prop. 8, a court decision Pugno and others from ProtectMarriage.com had welcomed.

"If the court disobeys the constitution by voiding Prop. 8, it will ignite a voter revolt," Thomasson said in statement released after the court agreed Wednesday to hear arguments over the validity of the constitutional amendment. "The court is playing with fire by threatening to destroy the people's vote on marriage."

Pugno and others from the Prop. 8 campaign want to avoid such fiery challenges and threats to the court and keep matters on a quiet legal level until the court rules on same-sex marriage sometime after March.

"What we are not doing is discussing the possibility of recalling justices who oppose us," Ron Prentice, chairman of the Yes on Prop. 8 effort, said in an e-mail to supporters Wednesday. "Making threats to recall justices from office is counterproductive and harmful to our chances of winning in court."

So the “moderates” who want to deny equality for gays are afraid that people like Thomasson, who’s been busy freaking out about everything the use of “Party A” and “Party B” on marriage licenses and proposals for Harvey Milk Day, are going to make them look too extreme?  I think that, considering that they just spent tens of millions of dollars to getting California voters to strip gay couples throughout the state of their constitutional right to marriage, it’s a little late for the Yes on 8 troops to start worrying about looking like of bunch of anti-gay extremists.

We noted last month that right-wing activists were getting pretty worked up about legislation in California that would declare May 22 of each year to be Harvey Milk Day:

"What significant contribution did Harvey Milk bring to the state of California – other than encouraging gay people to come out of the closet?" asked Benjamin Lopez of the Traditional Values Coalition.

"This is yet another example of them trying to normalize and force acceptance of the gay lifestyle upon people," he said.

The California Legislature approved the legislation last week and, as one would expect, the Right continues to freak out:

"This bad bill will teach impressionable schoolchildren the anti-religious, homosexual-bisexual-transsexual agenda of Harvey Milk," warned Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families.  "If signed into law, AB 2567 will mean an official day commemorating homosexuality, bisexuality, and transsexuality in California government schools....This will harm children as young as kindergarten."

"The Democrats are so cocky, they have no qualms about pushing sexual indoctrination upon children in an election year. For the love of God, parents and their children, we implore Governor Schwarzenegger to veto AB 2567," Thomasson said.

In predictably accurate fashion, AFA’s OneNewsNow reports that the bill will “require all public schools to ‘conduct suitable commemorative exercises’ in commemoration of the anti-religious, homosexualist agenda of the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk.”  That is true, if by “require” you mean “not require at all”: 

This bill requires the Governor to proclaim May 22 as Harvey Milk Day, however, the bill primarily proposes to designate May 22 as a day having special significance; as such this bill does not result in additional average daily attendance or funding for a school district nor does it result in an additional holiday or day of school closure.  The designation of a day of significance triggers statutory encouragement for public schools to observe and conduct commemorative exercises suitable to the day, as specified in law, but leaves the decision as to whether to observe any day of significance or to conduct suitable commemorative exercises to the local district.

Before any ruling on equal marriage rights for same-sex couples.

A frequent complaint from opponents of same-sex marriage is that courts shouldn’t meddle in the issue – even though courts are charged with enforcing the equal protection of rights under the law. But anti-gay activists were pleased enough when courts in New York and other states rejected the claims of gay couples. How serious are anti-gay activists about letting the elected legislature decide?

Perhaps that logic only applies when the legislature comes down on their side. Last week, the California-based Campaign for Children and Families decried as “undemocratic” a bill to establish same-sex marriage going through the legislature. (It passed last year, but the governor vetoed it.)

And yesterday, the Family Research Council managed to juxtapose, in the same paragraph, their opposition to Washington, D.C.’s elected representatives getting to decide the issue and their claim that marriage in Maryland is “the province of the legislature”:

Hoping to avoid any "congressional meddling," the D.C. City Council is testing the waters for a same-sex marriage bill in the District. After passing a string of pro-homosexual legislation, the Council believes this to be the next logical step. While federal lawmakers have been all too receptive to the city's recent actions on "gay rights," Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who will soon chair the committee overseeing D.C. affairs, said the issue is not expected to surface. Congress has 30 days to challenge any law passed by the District government, and with the country's near sweep of marriage protection amendments many believe the move would be frowned on. In neighboring Maryland, the state Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today in the case to uphold a ban on same-sex marriage. Plaintiffs will continue to argue that a social issue of this magnitude is the province of the legislature--not the courts.