Split down the aisle

<p>Two formidable forces -- the gay rights movement and conservative churches -- are colliding in a $50 million ballot measure battle over same-sex marriage, an explosive issue that straddles the line between faith and politics.</p><p>Emotions and expenditures are running high over Proposition 8, which would overrule the California Supreme Court's verdict in May allowing same-sex marriage and restore the prohibition approved by voters eight years ago.</p><p>It's intensely personal, treading on the private lives of gay couples and the religious convictions of Catholics, Mormons and conservative Christians. And it is deeply political, cleaving Democrats from Republicans and possibly affecting the Golden State's vote for president.</p><p>"It's almost like we have two countries here," John Schmidt, senior pastor at Santa Rosa Alliance Church, said, reflecting on the schism over same-sex marriage.</p><p>For him and other Proposition 8 backers, gay marriage conflicts with their core religious beliefs.</p><p>"We cannot back off on our biblical convictions," said Schmidt, an evangelical Christian pastor, speaking for those who take the Bible as the inerrant word of God. "God has defined marriage in a very specific way. God has asserted that his desire for mankind is to be involved in a relationship that is a covenant between a man and a woman."</p><p>Stu Harrison of Healdsburg, a gay man and anti-Proposition 8 activist, sees the ballot measure as a first step toward dismantling other gay rights, such as adoption, domestic partnerships and anti-discrimination laws.</p><p>"For our side, it's about our life," Harrison said. He and his partner of 25 years, Dave Ring, were married Friday with Healdsburg Councilman Mike McGuire officiating.</p><p>For Californians, the vote on Proposition 8 will measure the state's cultural climate, a testimonial that could set a national benchmark.</p><p>Polls are mixed, indicating everything from growing opposition, to a trend in favor, to a steady majority sentiment against the measure.</p><p>Proposition 8 shares the Nov. 4 ballot with Proposition 4, which would require parental notification prior to an abortion for underage girls.</p><p>"Every voter has a history of baggage on abortion and gay marriage whether they want to acknowledge it or not," said Barbara O'Connor, director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and the Media at California State University, Sacramento. "They really are personal, visceral choices."</p><p>Both measures could draw conservatives to the polls, an antidote to the "brand fatigue" of Republicans weary of President Bush, said David McCuan, a Sonoma State University political scientist.</p><p>California lawmakers broke cleanly along party lines, with 34 legislators, all Republicans, endorsing Proposition 8 and 42 Democrats supporting the No on 8 campaign.</p><p>"This is one front on the cultural war," said Tim Arensmeier, pastor at the Sonoma Valley Community Church. And like any war provoked by the clash of social and moral values, there is scant middle ground.</p><p>"The real question everyone must ask is, 'Is there a God and are we subject to his laws?' " said Brad Hardisty of Windsor, a lifelong Mormon. "If there's no God then all the laws are political. It's like taking the wheat out of the bread. There's nothing there."</p><p>Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called upon their faithful, who number 750,000 in California, to "do all you can" to pass Proposition 8 and "preserve the sacred institution of marriage."</p><p>The response has been monumental. Of the nearly $20 million in donations of $1,000 or more to the Yes on 8 campaign, Mormons have given $9.2 million, or 46 percent, according to the Web site mormonsfor8.com.</p><p>Overall, Yes on 8 campaign groups received $27.1 million in donations this year, through Sept. 30, the Secretary of State's Office reported.</p><p>No on 8 campaigns reported $22.7 million, and McCuan, who is tracking the cash, said that late donations will boost the total for both sides to more than $54 million.</p><p>The state ballot measure spending record was set in 1998, when California Indian tribes and Las Vegas casino interests poured $100 million into Proposition 5, which passed overwhelmingly and allowed casinos on tribal land.</p><p>Television ads by both sides are filling the airwaves, some soft, others hard-edged, and some that don't even mention gays or lesbians. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newson plays an unexpected role in one Yes on 8 commercial, bluntly telling people they must accept gay marriage, which he favors, "whether you like it or not."</p><p>Conservative Protestants and the Catholic Church also want to ban gay marriage.</p><p>Arensmeier said he has gay and lesbian friends whom he loves and respects, and is "willing to grant them the latitude to live as they choose."</p><p>But as an evangelical Christian clergyman, he is intent on "maintaining the definition of marriage as it has been for the majority of human history."</p><p>Arensmeier acknowledged the challenge of swimming against the pro-gay marriage sentiment in a sea of Sonoma County liberals. "If you disagree with them you are intolerant, a bigot, an intellectual troglodyte," he said.</p><p>California voters gave Proposition 22, which restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples, a 61 percent endorsement in 2000, but Sonoma County rejected it, 53 percent to 47 percent, a 14-point swing from the state margin.</p><p>The state Supreme Court overturned Proposition 22 on a 4-3 ruling in May that legalized same-sex marriage, setting the stage for a high-stakes battle over Proposition 8.</p><p>Bishop Daniel Walsh, head of the 160,000-member North Coast Catholic diocese, defined marriage as "a union of a man and a woman . . . an institution established by God at the moment of creation."</p><p>In a letter to Catholics following the Supreme Court's ruling, Walsh wrote: "When marriage is redefined so as to make other relationships equivalent to it, the institution of marriage is devalued and further weakened."</p><p>The group Wine Country Says No On 8, founded two months ago in Healdsburg, is one of about 80 organizations fighting the initiative under a coalition called Equality for All. The local group's list of 164 founders includes musician Charlie Musselwhite, businesswoman Connie Codding, winery executive Joy Sterling, former Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin and philanthropists Donald and Maureen Green.</p><p>Green, a telecommunications pioneer, said he has gay friends who "live life pretty much the way everybody else does."</p><p>"I believe they should be entitled to fair treatment by the government," Green said.</p><p>Joshua Rymer and Timothy Frazer, who were among the plaintiffs in the case before the Supreme Court, were married Oct. 11 at their home in Glen Ellen. They were among more than 1,500 couples who registered their nuptuals at the Equality California Web site, asking guests to contribute to the No on 8 campaign in lieu of gifts.</p><p>They raised about $5,000; wedding registries with Equality California and other organizations took in more than</p><p>$1 million.</p><p>"We should have the same rights as everybody else," said Rymer, who runs a real estate data analysis software company. He rejected the Proposition 8 campaign's frequent complaint that four "activist judges" overturned the will of California voters.</p><p>"The courts are there to make sure the laws of the land are consistent with the Constitution," Rymer said.</p><p>Proposition 8 backers also contend that same-sex couples, by virtue of domestic partnerships, enjoy the same rights and privileges of married couples. "It's like the argument that segregated schools are separate but equal," Rymer said, referring to the rationale for white-only schools rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954. "Nobody is hurt by my right to marry my partner."</p><p>Orlean Koehle of Santa Rosa contends that gay marriage threatens to unravel the social fabric. "I really believe it is destroying the foundation of a strong nation, which has always been the family," said Koehle, state president of the Eagle Forum, a socially conservative group founded by Phyllis Schlafly.</p><p>The Sonoma County Republican Central Committee endorsed Proposition 8, but party leaders did not respond to repeated requests for comment.</p><p>Millions of dollars are flowing from outside California to both sides of the Proposition 8 battle. Gay marriage is banned by law in 41 states and by constitutional amendment in 27 states, the result of a wave of legislative actions and ballot measures that began</p><p>10 years ago.</p><p>But two weeks ago, Connecticut became the third state in the nation, along with Massachusetts, to grant same-sex couples the right to marry, upping the stakes for both sides in the culture war.</p><p>"It's created a red-hot race in a blue state," SSU's McCuan said, noting the political maxim that "as California goes, so goes the nation."</p><p>Pastor Schmidt said: "I don't think the issue is going to be over after this vote."</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.</p>