The war over the passage of Proposition 8 in California is now personal and ugly.
Proposition 8 Map
As reported by SFist, someone has created a mashup of Google maps and a list of addresses of donors in favor of Proposition 8 to create a comprehensive map of pro-Prop 8 San Francisco residents. You can see the full map here. Proposition 8 effectively ended the legal recognition of same-sex marriages in the state of California.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I know that 1960’s style direct action politics and sit-in protests are still alive and well here. The people who live at the addresses shown on this map can expect a lot of shouting, if not more, outside of their homes sometime soon.
Proposition 8 supporters, as reported by SF Gate, are currently fighting to make donorship lists for propositions anonymous under campaign finance laws. They have filed a lawsuit in California state court to keep the donor lists out of public view to prevent harassment of donors.
I believe that www.eightmaps.com is pretty cowardly and hypocritical. If you are willing to “out” people as supporters of Proposition 8, at least have the guts to say who you are.
If you created this site, please tell us where you live. If you think politics should be totally transparent, then let us see who you are.
Personally, I think privacy is an important part of democracy. If you go down this road, you might as well make everyone publicly state who they voted for on every election.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:44 am
He Ignatz! You live in SF? Please leave, now.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:30 am
My God! I mean boycotting buisnesses was one thing, I can understand not wanting to contribute money to orginizations activally fighting against your rights. But this? This could encourage vandalism and violence! I think its time to scale back a little. Perhaps a great deal more then a little.
January 15th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Yes on 8 showed the people who donated against them long before the No on 8 party did. Yes on 8 do deserve a taste of their own medicine. They shouldn’t dish out what they can’t take.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:19 am
This is going to end ugly, but that’s to be expected from the promoters of ‘tolerance’.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:46 am
I am selling all my Google stock today!
January 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I propose that we create a gaymaps.com. How about we make public everyone who is gay and show the world where they live?
January 15th, 2009 at 11:01 am
As for you, Edward, if all the conservatives left SF, you liberals would have no tax money to mooch off. SF would become the unlivable hellhole known as Oakland.
And I live in the bay area, not SF. I left SF because the city taxes everything. The restaurant tax for universal health care is making me boycott SF restaurants. In fact, I deduct that tax from my bill whenever I go to an SF restaurant.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
People who donated to support Prop 8 took fundamental rights away from other people. Do they now understand how it feels to have your rights taken away?
As for me I don’t mind having my donations be public. I am not afraid of the truth.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Minvera,
As someone who is not opposed to gay marriage, I must state that your comment is factually incorrect. In CA, propositions form the “rights” of the people. Prop 8 was an affirmation that the term marriage was between a man and women only. The judiciary provided the guidance to the people that they had to amend the CA constitution. The people followed the instructions of the judiciary.
Further, prop 8 passed because the majority of hispanics and overwhelming majority of African Americans supported the measure. Both groups belong to the Democratic party by large margins over the Republican party. You need to address your concern with those groups. I would suggest a lobbying effort through the NAACP and various hispanc/latino community groups if you want to have any hope of the measure winning a majority of votes anytime in the near future.
As someone who could care less whether or not Gays marry, I am only trying to impact some realism onto your position. The attacks on conservatives will only hurt your cause.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
impact should be impart but hopefully you know what I intended to type.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
I am also stunned by how many R’s I know that live in the Bay area. Given it’s rep as an ultra leftist utopia, I think I must know every single Republican (all 10 or so) in the region.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Let me preface this with I SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF SAME SEX MARRIAGE.
but just to correct the last statement.
Marriage is not a fundamental right. It is a contract that you enter into that is recognized by the state. Now that contract in CA is not recognized any longer. Basically the right to marriage had another one of its many restrictions applied.
I disagree with this limitation, but fundimental right is a stong word to use loosly.
MINORVA: I hope it is overturned for you I really do, and please dont be offended, this was met as clarification only.
DMK
January 15th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
DMK,
That is a very good point. I am also not against the G&L community getting married. Why should us straight guys be the only ones living in Hell?
That is a joke!
January 15th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
It is strange, some of the best conservative bloggers I know live in the Bay area, I guess oppressive liberalism brings the best out of people on the right.
This whole issue has me very conflicted I must admit. On the one hand the role of government is essentially to allow us as human beings achieve and make the most we can out of life, that is why the Constitution is essentially one of negative rights. In other words, we are free from government interference, free to live our lives in relative peace and pursue happiness as we see it. You will have a hard time finding any “right to’s” or positive rights in the Constitution. Some have claimed to find a so called “right to” privacy, but even this is highly debated. So, I believe whether gay or straight, one should be able to live their chosen lifestyle without government intefering in that, which is why I’m glad these anti-sodomy laws have been found unconstitutional.
On the other hand, I also feel that the will of the people should trump all, with rare exceptions. We should always remember that it is government who derives their power from the people, not the other way around. Thus when a majority of the population specifically votes a particular way, I am hesitant to over-turn that.
In this instance I think I have resolved the conflict as Mdelf suggests above, marriage is essentially a contract, spouses have the right to get tax breaks, inheritance, share benefits, hospital visitations, etc. All of these same rights can be conferred with domestic partnership laws, so essentially the argument boils down to a discussion over what is officially recognized as “marriage”. In my opinion, there is a certain segment of the gay community that simply wants the same label to legitimize their lifestyle as “normal” and I can understand that. But if they truly just want the same rights as hetro’s, this is easily accomplished with domestic partnership laws. Defining “marriage” in a particular way (man and wife) is not denying anyone rights, it just means they those rights have to be pursued in different ways.
Some might thing this is a “seperate but equal” argument, and maybe it is. However, even the Brown decision didn’t rule that seperate but equal was unconstitutional per se, the big problem is that schools never were equal, they were only seperate, thus that violated equal protections, etc. This is not the same case.
January 16th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Mr. McAffee:
just a little note to say, bless you… you “get it”.
the problem is that people generally do not care to calmly, carefully and peacefully THINK about the issues the way that you have. there are waves of public opinion, not fully explained or divulged, riding on the airwaves of the media, that seem to greatly influence public opinion and play on the fears of people as a whole.
the main problem with the california supreme court’s ruling to allow legal gay marriage in california is…. (not the issue of gay marriage)…. at the time, over 60% of californians voted against making it legal. the supreme court of california, by a margin of 4 to 3, voted to overturn the result of that democratic vote. THAT is government running the people, not people running the government. 4 people on the supreme court overturned the will of the millions who voted in california.
their claim was that they felt the law banning gay marriage infringed upon the rights of gay people, but the most overlooked, most obvious violation of rights is that the vote, by the will of millions of people in california, was overturned by 4 people… so what if they are judges! that’s just the thing… they are a few who represent the government. that’s government stepping in to decide things for what is supposed to be a free nation.
what if a very few in government, say 5 out of 4 supreme court justices, stepped in to remove the right of gay people to vote? the same people who are angry about prop 8 would be seething mad about this little scenario.
if the people vote in favor of gay marriage, then let it be. if not, let it be. that is democracy.
becoming the sort of person that believes in the violation of privacy that you see on this google map travesty is a very sad example of how much people don’t seem to know, or don’t seem to remember about freedom and privacy… to me it looks just like nazi’s forcing jews to wear the star of david on their clothing.
take down the map…
January 16th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
I never realized how much like Alabama California actually is. I think the map is a great idea.
January 17th, 2009 at 7:31 am
well, believe it or not we live in a republic , so the will of the poeple goes (kinda like whne 70+% of the poeple were against the 700 bil dollar bailout that was just passes by Bush and the democrats )
IF you want to have the right to get married, just wait you will get it, they have conceded everything too you anyways. You gays will not stop until you have more than straights for this I know. Today it is marriage, tommrow it will be adoption, the next day it will be mandatory ‘experimentation” and then we will have gay “repreations” to payback all the queers who were not allowed to make a mockery out of our “marriages”
But worry not, Liberals have destoryed traditonal marriage in the last 40 years anways, From “feminismn”’s attack on marriage, where divorce rates skyrocketed, Singlemotherhood also skyrocketed, illegitimate children is out of control,
Women freely having sex with men due to their new “fundamental right to be a tramp” have made men even more lazy and abusive, which means if you add (a) Women with no morals and doesn’t need a man , + (b) Man who wants women for one thing = (c) Victims – Society as a whole due to wellfare for the mother and the child that doenst have a father or a bit a hope
Regardless – i am against
Gay Adoption – Adoption should be between a FAMILTY not a perversion – Btw 2 lesbos in my town have a son, he is 8 and runs around kissing other little boys…. those lesbos taught him to do that , defacto made him gay even though he doenst know what that means
Gay marraige – Nope sorry enjoy them Civil unions – here’s an idea, make a Will, it will let you give everything to your “lover” whom ever that may be this week.
Gay Teachers – Students should never know your sexuality, you should not be “openly” gay or openly” straight” you should be there to teach not indoctrinate
Gays wanting to Vandalize houses/familys – that crap won’t work down here , you’d be shot , ON A SIDE NOTE- you poeple think its okay to pass gun laws that actuly take away “fundamental rights” from poeple such as Gun controls, that way nobody can have guns and you can bully and terroize poeple and not have to fear them when they defend themselves.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:16 am
This is a dangerous precedent. I’m sure a lot of LGBT people would be very angry if Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church was to create a similar map on his website of all the contributors to the ‘No on 8′ campaign. It would provide a useful tool for all the fringe lunatics responsible for anti-gay hate crimes.
January 17th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Bryan, to many gays being gay “is normal” for them as they are simply being who they are and to say that that is somehow abnormal means they are sick and they reject that. That is what gay liberation is all about. Now they are a statistical minority, but no longer an “illness” definition in the Psychiatric Diagnostic manuals. They are just saying, “hey this is what is normal to me” and quite frankly may reject your values as abnormal in general. while not a procreative relationship for breeding, they may experience all the other things relationships can offer, good and bad. So it could be a highly functional working relationship or some al bundy marriage made in hell just like anyone else. Why we assume we are the “normals” when we are simply the statistical majority is beyond me. Many of our heterosexual relationships strike me as troubled and doomed in ways that seem anything but “normal”. I see the controversy of course, but as an American also see it as part and parcel of our “freedoms” available to everybody hopefully, just act responsibly in how you exercise your freedoms. Yes there are gays with issues to prove to everyone who will listen, but many are not that wound up
January 19th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
If only I can go to each address to shake and thank the people on the map mash-up. Why should people be targeted for voting the way they did? The state of California wanted to know what Californians thought of PROP 8 and Calfiornians stated to pass it. So, because some of you think the majority was wrong, you’re spending more money and time, and raising the hate level to stalking to reverse what the majority wanted?
All the serious “down with the pro-Prop 8″ people are just as bad as those who hate on the gay, lesbian, and transexual communities. In other words, those who are happy about this map is just as guilty of bigotry as the people they claim to hate. (A bigot is a person who is intolerant of opinions, lifestyles or identities differing from his or her own, and bigotry is the corresponding attitude or mindset.)
Get over it people! Go PROP 8!
January 20th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
you are a talking flower pot.
January 21st, 2009 at 1:44 pm
DUMB. DUMB. DUMB.
When businesses donate money publically & cry out for privacy- DUMB. DUMB. DUMB.
Especially, when these businesses are taking money from the GLBT community & use it against their good.
The passing of Prop. 8 was probably a good thing. It’s ignited a nation wide movement. Those bigot Mormons probably never expected this!
January 21st, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Grace,
The difference IS, “WE” don’t force YOU what to do with your life! I wish we could put you up for trial in a state wide election.
You probably voted for Bush too.
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Fun little side note : the owners of “eightmaps.com” are hiding their own identities by using private registration via DomainsByProxy.com
Hypocrites.
January 25th, 2009 at 9:20 am
… and FagHunter.org
It was the Democrats who hung blacks in the South, and it’s still the Democrats behind all suppression of free speech.