Petrelis Files

SF Chron, Kendall Scapegoating
Kids for Prop 8 Failures

You may have heard by now, thanks to a front-page article in the SF Chronicle, and a video posted on the paper's site, that a lesbian first grade teacher got hitched last week, and in response to this loving act, the parents of some of her students waited on the steps of City Hall to congratulate the newlyweds.

I see nothing wrong with parents deciding to include gay weddings and witnessing the power of love in action as part of their children's education. And there would have been no harm done to the children, had they, horrors!, seen the mayor performing the wedding ceremony.

But my opinion is deeply at odds with that of John Diaz, editorial writer for the SF Chronicle, and the dynamic and terrific lesbian leader Kate Kendall.

Diaz and Kendall are stricken with pangs of terror over the children tossing flower petals in the path of happy matrimony of their teacher and her lesbian spouse, all because our hateful opponents object to the kids doing this, and on a school day.

Frankly, it is just one more act of "don't do anything to frighten the heterosexuals who hate us" from the campaign to defeat Prop 8. The polls for our side are grim and we're probably going to lose come November 4, but our deep hope to retain gay marraige equality should not scapegoat the love and honor of the lesbian teacher, her students and their parents, as we face almost certain defeat at the ballot box.

If the Chron and Kendall want to cast the lesbian wedding and the kids attending the walk down the steps outside City Hall as a disaster for us, I want to be among the few to stand with the kids and oppose such thinking.

From today's Chronicle:

As someone who regards marriage-equality laws as a basic civil right, I had the same sinking feeling when I heard at Friday's news meeting that a first-grade class would be making a field trip to City Hall to celebrate the wedding of their lesbian teacher. This was handing powerful ammunition to the Yes on 8 campaign, which had been trying to scare Californians with warnings that its defeat would lead to the indoctrination of kindergartners.

The only thing that could be worse, I thought, was if Newsom - the anti-equality movement's favorite villain - officiated the wedding.

And he did, a double gift for the campaign against marriage equality.

"I know, I know, I know, I know," Kate Kendell executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, who first learned of the field trip in Saturday's Chronicle. "It was, obviously, a public-relations disaster for us."