Oct 28 2008
Saving Marriage
With the Presidential election claiming the vast majority of election-related attention, here in the state of California, Proposition 8 is garnering a firestorm of controversy. Support for the proposition, which would amend the state constitution to restrict marriage to heterosexuals, has changed dramatically. While there are similar marriage amendments on the ballot in Arizona and Florida, the California battle is seen as the most important – as goes California, so goes the nation. Religious conservatives have staked everything on this vote – prominent evangelist, Charles W. Colson, said, “This vote on whether we stop the gay-marriage juggernaut in California is Armageddon.” Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council told the New York Times, “It’s more important than the presidential election.†In recent days, videos scaring voters into passing Prop 8 have claimed that churches that refuse to marry same-sex couples will be sued and lose their tax-exempt status, ministers will be jailed if they preach against homosexuality, and children will be taught about same-sex marriage in school. The latest poll by the Public Policy Institute show a close race – 44% of voters support Prop 8 and and 52% oppose it, with a 3 percent margin of error.
The battle in California closely mirrors one that happened in the state of Massachusetts, which is the topic of a new documentary that has been out in theaters. Saving Marriage, produced and directed by Mike Roth and John Henning, chronicles the monumental battle over allowing same-sex couples the right to marry. I spoke recently with Mike Roth and we played a short excerpt of it during the fund drive. Today we’ll play the interview in its entirety.
GUEST: Mike Roth, Co-Producer and Co-Director of Saving Marriage.
For more information, visit www.savingmarriagethemovie.com. Saving Marriage is screening at the Regent Showcase Theater, 614 N La Brea in Hollywood, 90036. For more information, visit www.savingmarriagethemovie.com.
2 Responses to “Saving Marriage”
I especially appreciated the comment about the feminist activist in the film who changes her mind about marriage.
Following on that thought, it occurs to me that same-sex marriage can open and broaden heterosexual marriage in terms of partnering, egalitarianism and feminist ideals. Gay marriage may be the upshift heterosexual marriage has desperately needed for far too long.
Whenever the Xtian fundies want something stopped, I’ve learned that it’s a safe bet that very thing needs to be empowered because an upshift is about to happen, and these regressive types of sheep definitely fear progressive upshifts in human actualization.
The marriage issue is so much larger than who marries whom. This issue speaks to a larger issue I haven’t been hearing in the discussion which, at its roots, is the further erosion of our human and civil rights, especially as American and global citizens. Marriage is simply a keystone social institution which those who favor a distracted citizenry are attacking because then we cannot speak truth against the powers we the people have not granted them.