The Computer Wore Menace Shoes

"It was this big. Honest to God. And I was terrified."

Lately, supporting gay marriage has been easy and en vogue. There are Facebook groups. Advocates long ago boiled it down to a matter of civil rights, much like when persons of different race couldn’t marry. Supporting gay marriage is so popular that Theodore Olson – a conservative’s conservative – is trying to undo a voter-approved ban through the California Supreme Court, and not just for money.

Opponents of gay marriage have been giving the public their reasons (PDF) for years now. Examples: Think of the children! Civil unions are the same thing. How will it impact our children? It would increase the size of government and its involvement in our lives. OK, seriously. Think. Of. The. Children!

But perhaps, despite their staunch opposition, supporters of traditional marriage have been leaving out an important reason why gays should not have the same rights as everyone else. Maybe there is a reason so shocking, so abominable, so wicked and vile they are keeping it tucked away in case of emergency.

There is an ace in the hole, a figurative nuclear bomb to be dropped just in case some wacky socialist takes control of the country and gays are close to being made equal citizens. The nation may not be ready to know what it is, but making it known could put this nonsense behind us once and for all, and we can thank Republican Utah Sen. Chris Buttars (no relation, but similar in some aspects) for cluing us in.

Equalizing homosexual Americans’ rights with heterosexual Americans’ will lead to wide-spread sexual assaults ranging from forced oral copulation to indecent exposure by presumably flamboyant gay men. It sounds absurd, but that’s what Buttars says around 1:15 into this clip.

This reality is extremely difficult to fathom, but Buttars can be trusted. His impeccable, progressive record on all kinds of civil rights shows he knows what he’s talking about. It’s a real threat, and people have a right to know now rather than during a last-ditch effort to stave off gay marriage.

John Marcotte, author of the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act, speaks to the crowd at a rally in Sacramento Nov. 14.

Californians may have passed Prop. 8 last year in a bid to protect the sanctity of marriage, but they may have a chance to lock it in a fortress with 5-feet thick reinforced concrete walls plated with titanium armor and under the guard of a battalion of elite soldiers in 2010.

John Marcotte, a 38-year-old Web designer from Sacramento, is trying to gather 694,354 valid signatures by March 22 to get the 2010 California Marriage Protection Act on the ballot. The aim of Marcotte’s measure is simple: ban divorce in California.

“Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more,” the married father of two told NPR.

Intended as a satirical statement in the wake of voters banning gay marriage, most of Marcotte’s support is from people who feel Prop 8 was a way of taking the civil right of marriage away from gay people. The proposed constitutional amendment, however, has been taken seriously by a few people.

Although small, the showing of earnest support has even some of the big-name supporters of Prop 8 concerned. Ron Prentice, the executive director of the California Family Council who led a coalition of religious and conservative groups to qualify Prop 8 said those groups were only trying to strengthen the idea of one man-one woman marriages.

“That’s where our intention begins and ends,” he said.

Even if you’re like Prentice and believed in banning gay marriage on religious grounds but are now backpedaling to distance yourself from another social issue forbidden in the Bible, Marcotte has another good reason for you to support his proposal.

California is in the throes of a state budget crisis. On his Web site, Marcotte points out a divorce ban could be just the fiscal shot in the arm the state needs, as estimates put the potential savings from a ban on divorces at $4.8 billion annually. Nearly one-fourth of the state’s budget shortfall could be made up in a year.

Whether you think Marcotte’s measure is a joke or not, he sums it up simply: If you can’t get divorced, you can’t destroy traditional marriage.

OK, Sen. Sessions isn't quite at this point. But soon. Real soon.

The NAACP, the American Bar Association and more than 100 legislators support the inclusion of a “permanent partners” clause as part of a new immigration bill. It would allow an American citizen 18 or older “in a committed, intimate relationship with another individual 18 or older in which both individuals intend a lifelong commitment” to sponsor his or her partner for residency, and the U.S. would be the 20th nation to recognize same-sex partners for immigration purposes.

It seems a little backwards. A nation that doesn’t allow its own gay citizens the same civil rights as heterosexual couples is moving toward awarding the immigration rights given to heterosexual married couples to homosexual couples.

For that reason, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., doubts such a proposal will pass.

“It seems we would be creating a special preference and benefit for a category of immigrants based on a relationship that’s not recognized by federal law and overwhelmingly by most states,” he said.

Excellent point, senator. We can’t be preferential toward foreign persons in relationships this country doesn’t recognize among its own citizens.

But we can eliminate the appearance of inequality with this legislation by allowing gay marriage in the United States. If gay Americans were allowed to marry, then nobody would think twice about a gay American sponsoring his or her foreign spouse for immigration. Heterosexual couples are given immigration rights, so if gay couples are equal, both groups get the same rights. It’s bulletproof!

And you thought Republicans would be the last ones to come up with a compelling argument in favor of gay marriage.

If you want to know the best way to put your Miss California crown up for grabs, just follow Carrie Prejean’s example.

Although the Miss USA runner-up and – possibly – ex-Miss California believes her opposition to gay marriage caused her detractors to dig up the dirt on her scantily clad and augmented past, the facts seem to point to a less-sinister reason it’s coming back to haunt her now: Prejean didn’t own up to it.

Shanna Moakler, a former Miss USA and co-executive director of the Miss California pageant told “Access Hollywood“‘s low-budget-porn-monikered titan of journalism Billy Bush the group paid for Prejean’s breast implants before Miss USA.

“Pshaw,” you say, and with good reason. Moakler also told Bush implants are commonplace among pageant contestants. Well, then how about a topless photo? OK, we’ll make it two topless photos, just for emphasis.

Two topless photos plus some unsanctioned television appearances for her church and the National Organization for Marriage have the Miss California pageant officials debating whether Prejean should keep her crown.

For me, the issue isn’t about Prejean’s stance on gay marriage or “Pantygate,” as it’s been dubbed by the people who think varying levels of scandal can be ascribed a combination of an associated noun and the suffix -gate. (Note to those people: Watergate was an actual place. You’re just annoying and need to stop it.)

The real issue is Prejean seeming to think the clauses in her Miss California contract don’t apply to her. Topless photos? Models pose for all kinds of stuff, “including lingerie and swimwear photos.” Go ahead and work with organizations that support your views, but don’t pretend everyone is attacking them when you’re in trouble for doing it on TV when your contract forbids it.

Although I don’t agree with Prejean, I appreciate her unwillingness to be a pushover when the situation clearly warranted it. Anyone who thinks Perez Hilton asked Prejean her view on gay marriage without having an idea of what she would say is living with his or her head in the sand. (And his reaction was classless.)

Prejean is being praised as a “public figure for conservative Christians to love” (even though NOM felt it necessary to issue a statement saying she’s not a spokesperson). That’s fine. She can voice her opinion without apologizing to anyone, something that seems to be lost on many supporters of gay marriage.

On the other hand, growing evidence Prejean ran roughshod over the provisions of her Miss California contract and pageant officials saying she lied about being forced to apologize doesn’t do anything to help her. Whatever her position on gay marriage, global warming, crises in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation or steroids in baseball, Prejean’s real problem isn’t being outspoken. It’s lacking the maturity to do what she agreed to do.

California voters passed Proposition 8 in Tuesday’s election, amending the state constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. The proposition campaign was the second-most expensive of 2008 – to the presidential race.

Contributions to the proposition battle exceeded $73 million: $35.8 million for it and $37.6 million against it. The difference between those figures – besides $1.8 million – is contributors to the “No on 8″ campaign are individuals and secular groups. Nearly $15 million, or 42 percent, of the “Yes on 8″ campaign’s contributions came at the urging of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its members to “support in every way possible the sacred institution of marriage as [the church] know[s] it to be.”

Sure, there was a phone campaign organized for the Protect Marriage Coalition, but the group also asked for members to contribute in “whatever way they can to the effort to pass Proposition 8.” Apparently, that included six- and seven-figure donations from Mormons not living in California.

If we can get around the fact that non-Californians were contributing millions of dollars to a campaign that wouldn’t directly affect them, we can focus on the more troubling aspect of this: the absolute disregard for the separation of church and state.

The separation of church and state is a doctrine Americans have enjoyed since the founding of our nation more than 200 years ago. The state doesn’t tell us which religion to practice or bother us for practicing one that’s not normal. Our religions don’t get muddled up trying to influence state affairs. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson said it best in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

Now, there are people who believe Jefferson meant a one-way wall, a separation that prevents government from affecting religion but allows religion to participate in government activities. Obviously those people have never seen how a wall works. Maybe they’ve only seen those invisible dog fences and believe it works like that. (The boy in the red shirt represents government.)

We’ll never know what the vote would have looked like had the “Yes on 8″ campaign had $21 million instead of $35.8 million to work with. But when gay marriage comes to a vote again, I hope we’ll find out what happens when a single religious group doesn’t provide 40 percent of the contributions. If members of religious groups want to contribute to a cause, they can do it individually, not with any push from their church.