Issue 8 got about the best wording we could have hoped for

[dsc]

I'd like to share some good news about Proposition 8! This week, the California Attorney General's office announced changes to the title and summary of the proposition. Here's what voters will read in November:
Proposition 8
ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME-SEX COUPLES TO MARRY.
INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

Changes California Constitution to eliminate right of same-sex couples to marry. Provides that only a marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Fiscal Impact: Over the next few years, potential revenue loss, mainly sales taxes, totaling in the several tens of millions of dollars, to state and local governments. In the long run, likely little fiscal impact to state and local governments.

Although the changes to the proposed amendment are subject to legal challenge, this summary accurately describes what the proposition will do. Prop. 8 would eliminate a constitutional right guaranteed to same-gender couples and would decrease revenues coming in to the state from marriages between same-gender couples.


this is from pams house blend not a direct link

end of quote

This wording might well be worth between 2 and 4 points at the polls. Changing the Constitution isn't popular plus stating that it will cost money. This is great news.

[Ian David]

1. I would have worded it differently...

ENSHRINES BIGOTRY INTO LAW AND ELIMINATES THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT OF SAME-SEX COUPLES TO MARRY BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE INSIST IN BEING GIANT BAGS OF DOUCHE.


Vote for ME for Secretary of State!

[DarkTirade]

2. ... you got MY vote.

[Q3JR4]

3. Mine too.

I'd even move to Cali and campaign for you.

Q3JR4.

[Karl_Bonner_1982]

4. I would have attached a really bigoted rider

Something like what Lon Mabon did in Oregon in the '90s, that would assure the bill failed.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. Unfortunately, the SoS has to at least give the appearance of being impartial

As reworded, the title and description are accurate, and the supporters of the measure have no grounds for legal action.

[terrya]

5. I agree. This is about the best wording we could hope for.

I'm getting even more optimistic that this will fail. I'll have to up my donations to Equality California.

[sui generis]

6. about damn time "same-gender" makes its public debut

I am not an animal husbandry classification.

[Ian David]

8. Technically,"gender" is strictly a grammatical term used to describe language, not biology.

Words have a gender.

People and animals, technically speaking, do not have a gender.

It's only recently, since around the Victorian Age (IIRC) that we've started to use "gender" as a euphemism for "sex."

[sui generis]

9. yes but on the farm

you're concerned with the sex of your livestock because you expect them to breed or you want to keep them from breeding.

The "ownership" of "sex" is related to the idea of procreation, while the use of "gender" seems to be, as the Victorian, more categorical than phenotypically descriptive.

I'd love to get to a place in the world where "gender" or "sex" were irrelevant to discussing human and civil rights altogether. We still place a greater burden on the arrangement of our pink parts than on our innate individual right to choose how we conduct our lives without interference from others.

[IntravenousDemilo]

10. I agree completely.

So far, you and I are the only ones who seem to know this. Isn't it great that we can say "leg" now, and not the Victorian euphemism "limb"?

[Fran Kubelik]

12. The Victorian Age is recently?

Word usage changes rapidly. Wouldn't you agree that removing the word sex might be a positive thing?

[Zuiderelle]

11. This is great news. Amendment propositions are usually so vaguely worded.

This has clarity and brevity. Only the most fundamentalist RW voter could vote Yes on 8 after reading that.