Your time to be heard has come. You can have your say, and vote your conscience. There's nothing hateful or bigoted about honoring marriage in our state laws. Do not be intimidated or bullied.

Remember to vote, and to vote "YES" on 1. This will protect your state's marriage law from the neutering actions of your legislature. State-issued marriage licenses are issued on YOUR behalf, and if you think marriage unites a bride and a groom, or if you do not want your official state policy to be that coitus (the heterosexual behavior that created all of us in the first place) is no different than homosexual sodomy, then you have good reason to vote "YES". State law applies to all – state-issued licenses are not a private matter. This does have an impact on you.

I go over the case for voting "Yes" on 1 over at The Opine Editorials. Check it out.

Whenever it comes out that a political candidate wasn't a registered voter or didn't cast a vote in some or all past elections, it becomes an issue. I can see why political junkies care, because they eat and sleep elections, and someone coming to the playing field who isn't like them in that respect is odd to them.

I have voted every time I have been allowed to cast a vote - save perhaps one ballot on which only a minor local issue or two could be found and no candidates for major office. But I do think it is possible that someone else could have decided they didn't think it mattered or hadn't studied up enough to vote. I don't think everyone should vote - unless they have actually considered for themselves the merits of voting one way or the other.

Lately, this lack of voting has been one of the questions about Meg Whitman, who is seeking to be elected Governor of California as a Republican.

Does it matter to you if a candidate skipped on voting in the past? I'm not talking about elected legislators failing to vote on legislation. I'm talking candidates who have only recently gotten involved in politics. To me, it depends on the reasons why the person didn't vote.

Doesn't this mean we should call for an expensive national federal outreach program?  We can run ads during "Wheel of Fortune" and "Matlock".  Oh, but old people aren't watching TV anymore because of the digital switchover.

Surely, this must be proof of vote suppression!

They couldn't even get out to support old, white McCain?

The answer should be obvious, but on March 9, the Orange County Register printed a short letter from a Carey Strombotne that asked "If church and state are separate, why then do religious people have the right to weigh in on the issue of Proposition 8?"

Today, the paper printed several responses.

It is a perversion of the American system to suggest that citizens should not be able to vote according to their conscience.  If that includes notions that are also found in tradtional, organized religion, so be it.  Non-religious arguments have been made for the California Marriage Amendment and similar laws.  Non-religious arguments have been made supporting the state's interest in licensing marriage as something uniting the sexes.

Ralph Alder of Santa Ana wrote:

A license from the state to marry is not a basic human right but rather a license granted on behalf of the people, because the people have chosen to issue it, just as with a driver's license, a business license or any other license.

And, as I've written many times before, individuals have access to the licenses regardless of their sex or sexual orientation, so there is equal access, even if one does not want to exercise that access.

Tom Culp of Dana Point wrote:

Does he mean that we have no free speech if our views are informed by religious conviction? Should we recuse ourselves from voting on such matters? How will this work in practice? Will there be a "Council on Separation of Church and State" set up by the government to determine what is political speech and what is religious speech? Will they then penalize newspapers for running op/ed pieces and letters to the editor that have a religious perspective?

Will there be a screener at polling places to question people on how they arrived at the votes?

Good questions.  Read their letters in full and also check out the letters from Mario Manriquez, Jr. of Cost Mesa, Michael R. Sumners of Santa Ana, Tom Farmer of La Mirada, Casey J. Durham of Mission Viejo, Ken Ellis of Anaheim, and Gene H. Cox of Mission Viejo.

Note that the OCR allows you to register and comment on their articles and opinions pieces.

Of course, someone could always say that we ought not vote according to our religious beliefs or our morality.  But that "ought" implies it is immoral to vote that way - and such a statement commits suicide and should not be taken seriously, because it is a moral statement itself about how we should vote.

I vote according to what I think is right.  Don't you?  We may have a different basis for right or wrong.  But unless you are willing to debate me about which one of us has a better basis to work from, then your plea for me not to vote according to what I think is right while you are voting according to what you think is right is laughable.

It is very appealing to a lot of people that "someone else" is going to pay for things, and they are going to get "refunds" or services from the government, which really means other people.  When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can almost surely count on Paul’s vote, and there are more Pauls than Peters.

I wrote earlier about some of the reasons why some people vote Democrat.  In this entry, I wanted to quickly go over ways we can address some of those reasons and get these people to vote for limited government Republicans.  If you haven’t done so yet, you can also read my entry on how to turn the newer voters who went with Obama our way.

We can turn some of the people by appealing to them as voters, taxpayers, parents, investors, potential employers, homeowners and potential property owners, churchgoers, military families, law enforcement families, crime victims, and lawsuit victims – showing them that have a stronger overall interest in limited government than they do in getting hand-outs.

We can appeal to voters by publicizing our efforts to fight vote fraud, but more importantly, emphasizing that the legislators they voted for should be making law, not activist courts.  In states where there is direct democracy, this can be even more effective.  Voters do not like it when courts overturn their votes without solid justification.  Witness Prop 8 passing in California, even in blue Los Angeles County.  Voters, obviously, think voting is important.

We can appeal to taxpayers by keeping taxes low and by using their money wisely.  It is nice to be able to “bring home the bacon”, but all we’re really doing is paying people in federal government to handle our money for us, and do so inefficiently.  Everybody thinks they pay federal income taxes.

We can appeal to parents by fighting to maintain their authority over their own children with things like school choice and parental consent laws.  Most of the population experiences parenthood at some point, and most of those people don't like it when someone interferes in the parent-child relationship.

We can appeal to investors by letting them decide how to run what they own, not taxing them more, and going after fraud aggressively.  We should point out that anyone with an IRA, 401(k), or some other like account is an investor.  That’s a lot of people.

We can appeal to potential employers by fighting for their rights to reach compensation and benefit agreements with their employees, and to keep the government from interfering more in the workplace.  A lot of people hope to be employers if they aren’t already.

We can appeal to homeowners and potential property owners by interfering less in their choices.  Most people will either own property or seek to buy property sometime in their lives.

We can appeal to religious communities by respecting them and not forcing them to keep their religion in a closet.  Most voters are either part of some “faith community” or are sympathetic to such groups.

We can appeal to military families by respecting and thanking our military personnel and giving them clear, effective missions and caring for their wounds – physical and mental.  Most people in our country have either served in the military or have some family member who has or does.

We can appeal to law enforcement families by keeping law enforcement personnel from being scapegoated and having their hands tied.  Most upstanding citizens appreciate law enforcement and are sympathetic to their struggles.

We can appeal to crime victims by aggressively pursuing criminals and restorative justice, and blocking Democrat attempts to extend voting to more felons.  Most voters have been victims of burglary or some serious crimes, or know someone who has been - robbery, identity theft, grand theft, arson, assault, rape, kidnapping, murder.

We can appeal to lawsuit victims by reforming legislation so that Litigational Harassment is discouraged instead of handsomely rewarded.

Overall, we can appeal to a lot of the Pauls out there because many of them hope to someday be Peter, and more people can if government is limited.

We can’t outpromise the Democrats when it comes to hand-outs.  We must appeal to the self-worth of the voters.


Previously: Is the Battle Lost?

If we know why, we might be able to more of them to vote Republican.  Of course, this presumes that the Republican they would be voting for would be somewhat conservative, libertarian, or federalist - have some form of limited government philosophy.  Yes, I know that there are some conservative Democrats out there, but even a liberal Republican can help in that the majority party in a legislature gets an advantage, such as in committee appointments, and if most of the Republicans are of the limited government sort, then the liberal Republican can’t do too much harm.

Let me get out of the way right now that I don’t deny there are people who largely vote Republican for some of the same reasons listed.  That’s fine - their votes can help even if they weren’t for the right reason.  Also, I'm not saying that these are the only reasons someone would vote Democrat.

Some people vote Democrat because...

• They’re registered Democrats and always have been and are never going to change.  It probably isn’t worth the effort to get such people to switch.  They may be part of the Democrat power structure and simply aren’t going to give it up.
• They want to push the government Leftward.  These people are probably not going to vote Republican, but it may be worth it to encourage them to vote for a third party candidate instead of the Democrat.
• There was a Democrat President or other figure they liked.  These people can be switched.  There are people who have fond memories of JFK.  However, we can show them that Republicans today have more in common with his political stances than the Democrat leadership of today.  People give Bill Clinton too much credit for the economy of the 1990s, and it can be demonstrated that a Republican Congress helped, and that the private sector did the heavy lifting despite – not because of – Bill Clinton.  One of the dangers of Obama is that he’s young and presumably will be around for years to encourage those who voted for him based on his perceived personality to keep voting Democrat.  I’ve already blogged about how to turn some of his voters.
• They think the Republicans are corrupt or nasty.  Some of us are.  But it isn't too hard to demonstrate that Democrats are at least as, if not more corrupt or nasty, and it is easy to demonstrate that Republicans force corrupt Republicans out of power much more readily.  It will help if the GOP continues to hold members publicly accountable, and help even more if Republicans stay out of trouble to begin with.
• Some Republican - politician or personal acquaintance - turned them off.  Unfortunately, some Democrat voters think of people in groups, and it is guilt by association for them.  Just think of how many Democrat voters Nixon created with Watergate alone.  It can be hard to turn these people.  It is easier to be proactive – being good ambassadors as Republicans so that we don’t turn them off to begin with.
• They are single-issue voters, such as with abortion.  These people can only be turned if we draw them away from a fixation on a single issue.  With abortion, though I think it is murder, I highly doubt that even with the right SCOTUS, we're going to see abortion effectively banned.  A few states may place some restrictions on it, but "health of the mother", technology and travel are going to make preventing abortions difficult.  Although I do not believe there is a right to an abortion, we're going to significantly reduce the number of abortions only be reaching the hearts of each generation and instilling a respect for life in them.  This does not mean we should give up standing up for life in elections.
• They think they need some government program/assistance to survive and thrive.  Anyone receiving any form of "public assistance" is susceptible to falling into this trap – welfare, grants, loans, and so on.  Anyone who has used the government to wrest something from a current or former employer or landlord.  That’s a lot of people.  Members of labor unions are constantly told by their leaders that Democrats will bring them higher pay, better benefits, and better working conditions.  For these people, it is important to appeal to their sense of self-worth and their personal talents and desire for self-determination.  It may mean steering them towards private assistance, and it might take the people who administer such assistance insisting that their beneficiaries refuse public assistance.  Just imagine if we stepped up to wean people from public assistance and got them to vote for limited government as a result.
  

We need to know why people who vote voted Democrat so that we can get some of them to our side.  If they are already voting, they're halfway there.  I'll get to more of that in subsequent blog entries.

It's amazing that people who do not question California's strong vote for Obama, or committing California's electoral votes to Obama refuse to accept that many of the very same voters passed Proposition 8.

They've taken to the streets, throwing fits like spoiled children, and the newsrooms are all to eager to give them as much exposure as possible, even though most of the people they get on microphone say silly things like "this is about love" (since when is law about love?) and "I have fewer rights than a chicken."  Really?  When was the last time you were confined to a small cage?  At one of those special nightclubs?  That doesn't count.

Anyway, it is a bit amusing to watch these sore losers blame and harass Mormons.  Because we all know how many Mormons, especially African-American Mormons, there are in California.  Yes, it couldn't possibly be that Prop 8 passed because people are tired of courts making decisions that belong to the people, or tired of being told they have to go along with everything that an activist group wants.  It couldn't possibly be that most voters still understand that marriage unites the sexes.  No, it must be the people blindly following the Mormons!  Yeah, that's why the people voted down Prop 4 - because Mormons don't want the parents of minor girls to know that their girl is about to have a baby sucked out of her and down a sink.  Yeah.  Sure.

We didn't vote for Prop 8 due to a lack of yelling and screaming by homosexual people.  We voted for it because we understand exactly what has been going on.

It is times like this that I am reminded of another classic Playful Walrus entry.  These protestors think we just haven't heard them.  The thing is, we have heard you, and that's one of the reasons why we did vote Yes on Prop 8.  These protesters are behaving like spoiled children who can't handle that they've finally been told "no!".  You don't get whatever you want simply because you want it - not when other people have to give it to you, and they don't want it.

There is no right to a state-issued marriage license.   Anyone who tells you that it is a fundamental right is either purposely lying (as can easily be revealed when they agree that there are limits on who should get the licenses) or they have a warped understanding of rights.

*UPDATE: D.R. Tucker at The Right Angle says Romney would have beat Obama.  I wonder how the anti-Mormonism of the marriage neutering crowd would have been impacted by that?  In a way, it is good that people who voted for Obama also votes for Prop 8 and other marriage amendments.  The marriage neutering crowd can't blame it all on "racist right-wing bigots who always vote Republican", as much as they try.

We still have the power.  Victory or defeat, we'll regroup, analyze the results, and move forward promoting liberty, the Constitution, and representative government.

If the polls are still open where you vote and you haven't voted yet - GET OUT THERE AND VOTE.  Get your friends and families to the polls, too.

Don’t let the defeatism that the MSM and Obama/Biden are pushing on us keep you from voting for McCain/Palin.

Don’t let idealism keep you for voting for McCain/Palin.

Our choice is simple:  Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin.

You can also make a different in other elections, too.  Get out there and vote GOP.  Vote on the ballot propositions.

Fight the socialists and the surrenderists.  Vote for the man who has literally fought for you.  Get out there and vote, no matter how long the lines.  Make sure your Republican friends get out to vote, too.  Take them yourself if you have to.  Let’s stun the MSM!

Some previous blog entries that are relevant:

Boiling Down Our Choice

Libertarian Dreams Are Nice, But We Have to Choose Between Two

We Need a Republican President’s Veto

Conservatives Can’t Influence if They Sit on Their Hands

Conservative Christians Must Have Sensible Priorities

McCain is Better Than Obama

What to Expect With a Democrat President, Supermajority in Congress

Only citizens 18 years of age or older who are registered to vote can legally vote, and they can only legally vote once in each election.

If you are dead, under 18, an immigrant who has not been naturalized, an illegal alien, a foreign tourist, legal resident who is not a citizen, or figment of ACORN’s imagination, YOU CAN’T LEGALLY VOTE.

Also, if you are currently serving prison time as a convicted felon, in most places you can't vote.  Don't worry - the Democrats are working hard to change that.

Couldn’t have anything to do with felons have more of an interest in Democrats winning, could it?  Here is their editorial.

Turnout for Tuesday's election is expected to be vast, but one group will be grievously underrepresented in many states. As many as 5 million felons are barred from exercising the most important duty of citizenship even though they have served their sentences or been released on parole.

Cry me a river.

A disproportionate number of them are African Americans.

Whose fault is that?  Oh, I know.  Those big, bad Republicans force people to commit felonies, and then only report felonies committed by African Americans, and the prosecutors only prosecute African Americans, and juries only convict African Americans.  It’s one, giant, racist conspiracy designed to prevent African Americans from voting.

But even without evidence of racial skewing, laws that prevent felons from voting after they have been released contradict the notion of rehabilitation and send a message to former inmates that they are literally second-class citizens.

Let’s toss any files on felons, too, and not retain any DNA or fingerprints.

As The Times recently reported, several states have eased or eliminated restrictions on voting by former prisoners convicted of felonies.

Do I see shades of blue?

But 12 states permanently prohibit some felons from voting, and 35, including California, bar voting by ex-inmates as long as they are on parole. An argument can be made that this patchwork of protections is an acceptable manifestation of federalism. But state restrictions on felons' voting rights also affect elections for Congress and for president.

Evidently you don’t know what federalism means.  It includes the idea that the federal govern is created from a collection of states, not that the states are mere districts of a central government.

It's intolerable that a citizen's ability to help choose the president, the one official who serves the entire nation, depends on whether a particular state decides that a felony conviction requires the revocation of voting rights.

Oh, yes, intolerable.  I stay awake at night worrying about it.

But history suggests that restoring federal voting rights for felons probably would have a ripple effect.

It sure would!  More Democrats!

Treating offenders who have served their time as criminals for life is cruel and counterproductive.

Will you be leaving any of your children alone with paroled child molesters?  How about a huge wad of your cash alone with a paroled thief?

In 2000, California Proposition 22 got a "yes" vote of 61 percent.  The language of Prop 22 – defining state-licensed marriage as between a man and a woman - was identical to this year’s Proposition 8, except that Prop 8 is an amendment to the state constitution while Prop 22 was only a law.

Prop 22 wasn’t useless.  In reaffirming what was already California law, the measure gave Governor Schwarzenegger good reason to veto a marriage-neutering bill by the state legislature.

In addition to working through the legislature, the marriage neutering activists also used the courts to challenge state law, and were able to get the California Supreme Court to order the neutering of state marriage licensing.  In doing so, the court declared previously undiscovered or unrecognized rights.  After all, since when has there been a right to a state-issued license, or a right for one kind of voluntary association to be treated the same as a different kind of voluntary association?

Polling shows a close vote on Prop 8, which needs 50 percent of the vote plus one to win.  Why the disparity from the vote on Prop 22?  The marriage neutering activists cite shifting public opinion.  I’m not so sure that many people who voted for Prop 22 are planning to vote no on Prop 8 because they really have changed their minds to believe that licensing same-sex unions as marriage is a good thing .  I think part of the difference is that we’ve had eight years for new voters to come of age and eight years for older voters to die.  The newer voters have been raised in a culture - including schools and media and more - that has been increasingly influenced by marriage neutering activists and that has increasingly devalued marriage and the complimentary nature of masculinity and femininity.

I also think that some of the disparity is a passive deference to courts that have changed some people from voting for Prop 22 or at least not voting against it to voting against Prop 8.

There are people who mistakenly think courts are the end-all-be-all deciders of our society.  It wasn’t a court that wrote and adopted our federal and state constitutions.  Our constitutions recognize that we the people should retain as many of our rights as possible.  That a court has weighed in does not mean that the court was right.  That is one reason why we have the amendment process.

I would think that some of the people have decided that the marriage protection effort is futile, as it seems like no matter how the people vote, the tiny minority of marriage neutering activists will always do an end-run to subvert the will of the people and our right to self-government.  But I do not believe that it is futile.

We need to stand up to the courts and other to defend our rights and we can do so by voting YES on Prop 8.

Marriage license neutering advocates frequently ask those who oppose their agenda, “How does this hurt your marriage?”

I will get to my reply to that later.  I wanted to turn this around.

What we should be asking all of these same-sex couples with new, neutered marriage licenses who will be making appeals to emotion in an effort to get people to vote “no” on Proposition 8:

“How will Proposition 8 hurt you, even assuming that it invalidates all same-sex ‘marriages’ licensed from June through Election Day as well as precluding them from Election Day forward?”

The answer is: It won’t hurt them in any way, save perhaps their feelings, in the case of those who have falsely rested their feelings on what the California Supreme Court says about a matter that belongs to the people.  California has domestic partnerships that apply all of the legalities the state applies to marriage.  See for yourself in the state’s Family Code law.  The only difference is that it isn't called "marriage" and it doesn't have a marriage license.  Since the federal government doesn’t recognize unions missing a bride or groom as marriage, any couples registered as domestic partners in California will not be hurt at all by the passing of Proposition 8.  If they haven't yet registered as domestic partners, then how can they be as committed to each other as they claim?

What it would hurt is their carefully crafted incrementalist activist agenda game plan where they plan to use the tyranny of four California Supreme Court justices to wreak havoc in other states.

But you know, in researching, I learned something I didn’t know about California’s Domestic Partnerships.  They discriminate against both-sex couples!    See for yourself right here.  That’s right - a man and woman who love each other and share a life are barred from forming a state-recognized domestic partnership, unless one of them is a seasoned citizen.  Where have these “equality” activists been on this issue?  Why haven’t they made a big deal about this violation of human rights?  After all, if only licensing bride-groom coupling as marriage is a violation of rights, then so must be the restriction on domestic partnerships.

But let’s get back to the original question.  We get asked, in the case of neutered marriage licensing, “How does this hurt your marriage?”

To which I reply:

Marriage is an institution.  If you change it in law, that institution is changed for all.  Saying that either bride is not required or a groom is not required dilutes the legal meaning of marriage and destroys the very foundation for what makes marriage marriage.  (If "love" is the basis for marriage, than most marriages in history were not really marriages, at least not when they started.)  If the state said a marriage license gives someone the right to beat their spouse, how would that have an effect on your licensed marriage?  Don’t like domestic violence?  Don’t marry an abuser!  Yet I bet you’d still oppose such a legality.  Everyone, not just same-sex couples, who gets a marriage license in California now gets the demeaning “Party A and Party B” instead of “bride” and “groom” license.  So it DOES have an effect on all of us.

In addition, the neutering of marriage licensing in California will, in accordance with anti-discrimination laws, make it impossible for government agencies and businesses to operate in a way that recognizes the differences between both-sex legally-married couples and those who are same-sex.  This means that adoption agencies, for example, will not be able to give preference in placing children so that they will have both a mother and a father.  Now, I know that many of you don’t think fathers are important, or don’t think that mothers are important, but the facts say otherwise – that all other things being equal, having both a mother and a father will benefit a child in ways that can’t be replicated with two men or two women.  You yourselves know there is a difference between men and women when it comes to personal relationships, and therefore parenting, because you are attracted to people of the same sex instead or more than people of the opposite sex.  What is bad for children, will, as those children become adults, be bad for us all.

Furthermore, this court ruling will hurt the Constitutionally-listed right to religious freedom.  It also violated the principles of our democratic republic by overturning the vote of the people without a compelling constitutional justification, as individuals already had equal access to the privilege of state-issued marriage licenses regardless of sexual orientation.

Assert your self-government rights, California!  Vote YES on Proposition 8!

 I saw a poll that a Los Angeles television station did that said, in the wake of pet food contamination, 91% of the respondents said that the FDA should "do more" to protect the human and pet food supply.

How many of those people have a good idea what the FDA does and does not do, and how it does it?  It is so easy to say that "someone else" should "do more" when something happens that we don't like.  The police should do more about crime.  The schools should more about kids not learning.  Sanjaya Malakar should do more to help malaria-stricken kids in Africa.  Celine Dion should take a kayak to rescue orphans drowing in Angelina Jolie's pool.

But what do these polls really mean?  I know we live in a democratic republic, but how many of those respondents will actually vote or will vote in a way that is relevant to their opinion on that issue?

A NBC/Universal/WallStreetJournal says that a majority of Americans think that it will be "impossible to win the war in Iraq," or something along those lines.  Really?  How informed are these people?  Most of them don't know more than what they've seen in a headline and the cursory coverage provided by the old media news, and maybe that the Dixie Chicks have said.  They are not intelligence experts.  They are not historians.  They are not military strategists.

If the poll had been done like the global warming polls, they would have polled the experts - the military leaders - and the conclusion would have been overwhelmingly positive.

The truth is, we already largely won in Iraq.  We removed that genocidal tyrant Saddam.  We no longer have a country with a rogue government that is hostile to us and working on WMD programs.  Are the deluded Islamofascist terrorists carrying out bombings?  Yes.  But have you been through some of our gang-infested neighborhood in the states?

The answer isn't to pull out and let genocidal maniacs throw the entire country into chaos, and then to have the country and all of its resources to fall into the hands of an Islamofascist regime bent on sponsoring terrorism and pursuing WMD.  If our troops shouldn't be there, where should they be?

Wow, are we California Republicans always so eager to shoot our wounded?  That's the difference between Democrat leadership and Republican leadership.  Democrat leaders either deny their person did anything wrong (even if it means calling the law wrong), or say things like "Yeah, but look at what this person has done well!"  I guess that is possible when the dinosaur media is your willing accomplice.

Yeah, I understand that in the past, in some parts of the country, there was a history of trying to suppress the votes of certain groups who had a legally-recognized right to vote.

But in this case, we're not talking about intimidation of people who have the right to vote in the U.S.

Only citizens can vote legally in the U.S.  So what's wrong with pointing out that it is illegal to vote if you are an immigrant (someone here legally who hasn't been naturalized) or an illegal alien (anyone here illegally)?

If anything, the letter was wrong because it said they ran the risk of getting caught.  How???  Voting is supposed to be one of our most treasured rights as citizens, and yet we're doing very little to make sure the person voting is who he/she claims to be, never mind if they are citizens or even in this country legally.

So, at the risk of getting in some sort of trouble, here goes:

ATTENTION IMMIGRANTS WHO HAVEN'T BECOME CITIZENS...  ATTENTION ILLEGAL ALIENS...  ATTENTION CITIZENS WHO HAVE NEVER EVEN REGISTERED TO VOTE...

IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU TO VOTE IN THE UNITED STATES.  ONCE YOU BECOME A U.S. CITIZEN AND YOU PROPERLY REGISTER TO VOTE, YOU CAN.  BUT UNTIL THEN, YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW IF YOU VOTE.