Another One Down

[TW: Homophobia]

6,999,998 to go.

Elite "Marriage Defenders" who have built careers out of getting Americans to feel good about opposing same-sex marriage have claimed that it "defames" those who believe in "traditional marriage" to suggest that they, and the 7 million voters who upheld California's anti-equality Proposition 8, have anything less than benign motives for doing so.

It's not so much that American "marriage defenders" think same-sex couples or gay people are inferior to heterosexuals, they claim, it's just that they think every marriage should contain a man and a woman.

Well, oopsies. Again.

It turns out that Prop 8 plaintiffs Kristin Perry and Sandra Stier were "subjected to more than a dozen antigay voice mails during the 2010 trial." These messages echoed the big "non-bigoted" anti-equality talking point about how the purpose of marriage is procreation:

“'You stinkin’ lesbos make me sick,' the caller, identified by multiple sources as [Gregory Lee] Giusti, said in one voice mail to Stier and Perry. 'I hope you lose your case. ... Marriage is between one man and one woman only. That’s the way God arranged it, set it up. Two people of the same sex cannot procreate. And no, getting yourself artificially inseminated is not procreation in God’s eyes. Or two faggots can’t procreate no matter how much you want to [expletive] each other.'

In another, Giusti told the couple, who have children, ' think that’s really disgusting that you’re raising, um, kids, I think the law should state lesbos and faggots shouldn’t be around kids. ...

'I hope you enjoy burning in hell, for that’s where you’re going to go when you die, for the Bible clearly states that lesbianism and homosexuality is an abomination in God’s eyes,' Giusti said. 'And you can tell those other faggots doing the case with you that I hope they both die of AIDS.'”

Now, this fact doesn't erase the unfortunate reality that some opponents of same-sex marriage were also harassed. But, it does counter the anti-equality, anti-gay narrative that it was primarily "marriage defenders" who were harassed and fearful during the Prop 8 campaign and trial.