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When You Bring up the Antichrist...

6:01 AM, November 20, 2008 | Comments (38)
For this week's magazine, Lisa Miller wrote her Belief Watch column about people who think Barack Obama is the Antichrist. Her piece focused largely on Todd Strandberg, the editor and founder of Raptureready.com , a site that Strandberg refers to as the...

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Posted Monday, November 17, 2008 4:17 PM

Taking the Pulse on Prop. 8

Kurt Soller
This week in the magazine, David Jefferson takes another look at his recent marriage to his partner (which he wrote about previously) after the passage of California’s Proposition 8. In his new story, Jefferson discusses how the amendment that defines marriage between a man and a woman has turned him into an unlikely activist. “I couldn't imagine that voters here on the liberal Left Coast would deem our wedding a threat to "traditional" marriage,” Jefferson says of his thoughts before the vote went through. “But we were living in a bubble. We'd wrongly assumed that because most Americans no longer feel entitled to call us ‘***’ to our faces, we had won acceptance.”

In short, Jefferson (and many other men and woman) around the country didn’t expect Proposition 8 to pass, so it is interesting to look at the comments and get a national pulse on the debate. To be sure, there are many who nearly use the F-word Jefferson mentions, a phrase that is conveniently deleted from NEWSWEEK comments for being offensive. But without the expletives, many readers argue that it is obvious Proposition 8 was going to pass, and that gay men and women suffer from a “perversion” the majority has spoken out against. Throughout the comments section, the chorus echoes “marriage is defined between a man and a woman - period.”

It is these kinds of comments that clear any mystery as to why Proposition 8 passed. Nonetheless, they’re fuel to Jefferson’s other point: for years, the gay community has been placid. Now, with the passage of Proposition 8 and the ongoing rallies, there’s a reason to get mad, a reason to stand up for individual rights. “The gay community certainly has become too comfortable, a bit soft even about direct conflict,” writes one reader. “I would add that people in general have become far too trusting of the right-wing Christians and their whole compassionate conservatism dodge.” Even if you don’t include religion in this debate (which is difficult considering how much money the Mormon Church spent in California for “Yes on Prop 8” ads), others argue “Prop 8 is about a pursuit of happiness by being in a committed relationship.” And that’s something that people obviously care about. “I have to say I haven’t seen this kind of energy from the gay community for decades,” writes one reader, “This time they pissed us off. You don’t give rights and them take them away.”
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