I believe the current law requires donors of any amount to list their employer, and such information is automatically made public.
This, I object to.
I’d also like to know why someone would list their employer in order to make a political contribution. I’d have no problem firing an employee who made a political statement on my behalf starting with “as an employee of Levdrakon Inc, I support…”
And I find it objectionable, too. Among other things, it suppresses the political rights of people who take a different political stand from the owners and managers of their employer.
Do you object to it being listed, or to it being made public? Because the purpose of a contributor providing it is to control employers making donations in their employees names and getting round individual contribution limits that way, I presume.
I don’t think I’d object to suppressing the name of the donator’s employee. I do think that the donator should be required to reveal the name of his employer (to keep companies from donating money in their employee’s name), but I don’t think that information should necessarily be made public.
He’s made it pretty clear that he objects to the employment information being made public. I’m not sure if making it non-public would necessarily undermine the purpose you cite, although it would probably need to be taken into consideration.
There should be no such thing as a secret ballot or anonymous donations to a campaign that will be decided by public vote. If there’s any chicanery, let the police be ready to deal with it, but every person should have the right to vote (or donate) his or her conscience, but also have the responsibility to defend that vote or donation.
Interesting. Say you were to live in a Republican county and vote for Obama - suddenly your home assessment goes up. So you go to the police and various county employees to complain - but they work for the same county supervisors that just jacked up your assessment, and they don’t want to see the same thing happen to them - or worse, find themselves fired.
How willing would you be in the future to defend your vote to the “public”?
(Note - parties and politicians used here for example purposes - in the case of Chicago politics, substitute at will. :D)
Just to watch you go from 0 to Spluttering Republican, I say “firebomb some houses”.
Or, alternatively, exercise your legal rights. This kind of thing is illegal.
Intimidation was also illegal before redemption too. Didn’t stop it.
The reason laws against such things are enforced is that the people who have the power to intimidate most effectively can be controlled through a secret ballot.
Actually, gays are a protected minority under California law, which is what led the the ruling legalizing gay marriage in the first place.
This is, in fact, precisely what we did. Down to the letter. We had a nice legislative civil union law. Had for years, now. We also had a gay marriage bill, which passed. But it was vetoed by the governor, because there was this other law that said we couldn’t have gay marriage in California. So we looked at the legality of that law, and guess what? It was in direct contradiction with the Californian constitution, which banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Which ammendment to the constitution, again, was democratically voted in. So we have three levels of democratic approval for gay marriage already in place. Unfortunetly, the Californian voting public decided that they didn’t want to have full equality for gays after all, and they very properly and legally voted to strip us of our rights. Again. So, explain to me - again - how it’s our fault we’re being discriminated against, here? Because from where I’m sitting, it sure looks like we did everything you just told us to do, and we still got shat on.
I would argue, instead, that the events of the 2008 election were a necessary step in securing marriage rights. The situation was not going to advance any further on its own. Something need to be done to force the matter, and Gavin Newsom forcing the issue in San Francisco, and the subsequent court cases on the legality of the marriage ban, were exactly the right thing to do. In the long term, we haven’t actually lost anything - we’re in exactly the same place we were before they started issuing marriage licenses in San Francisco. But I think a lot of people on the anti-marriage side of this issue have been unpleasantly surprised at how angry they’ve made a lot of people - including people they considered friends and family. And I think that’s a good thing. A lot of people were under the impression that civil unions were good enough, and that they could vote for things like Prop 8, and still consider themselves as friends of the gay community. The amount of anger generated by this bill will, I hope, cause many of the people who voted for it to rethink their support, if for no other reason than they don’t want to deal with the drama surrounding it. It’s possible that the controversy will drive people into greater opposition to gay rights, but I suspect that gay rights supporters have a lot more invested in the issue than gay rights opponents, and are more likely to get exhausted with the issue and change their position just to make it go away.
Oh, and I believe it was you who brought up the case of the poor woman who was beaten and gang raped as an example of a “backlash” against opposition to proposition 8, was it not? I would submit to you that, if any group outside the immediate attackers bear responsibility for the assault, it is the backers of proposition 8, who have spent the last year flooding the public consciousness with lies and slanders about homosexuals. They have not called for violence against gays, of course, but they have been beating the drum that gays represent a threat to society that need to be fought - at the ballot box, of course, not in the streets. But if any third party can be held at all responsible for these brutes, it must surely be those who portrayed gays as something to be feared and fought against, and not the homosexual community, for having the temerity of simply visibly existing. Would you disagree with that notion?
Sure they are, as has been discussed. But even failing that, after all its your word, not mine, they’re very similar. But you just choose to dismiss anything that puts you in an uncomfortable situation. ::shrug::
:rolleyes:You seem to be ignorant of the meaning of the word ignorant. We agree that a vote and a donation are two different things. As a society, we have decided to make the ballot secret. We can choose to do the same with private donations from individuals. In fact, I think it was mentioned somewhere in the thread that some federal laws allow small donations to remain a private affair. The point is we differ in opinion, which doesn’t make either of us ignorant—well, me anyway. So, if you’re so tickled with throwing the word “ignorant” around willy-nilly, I suggest you first grasp command of its meaning, lest people think you ignorant. And worse.
Granted, it may be a little late.
I think we are in agreement.
May I ask why, at this late date, your opinion is that private donations should be secret? It wouldn’t have anything to do with it being gays taking advantage of the same policy that has allowed anti-gays to blackmail gay supporters and equal rights proponents, would it?
As I’ve stated earlier in the thread, the issue is immaterial to me. The reasons are the same as why I think the ballot should be secret and why I think voting to unionize a workplace should be kept secret.
Here’s a macro view. In any society people are bound to disagree on which policies might be best for that society. At the same time, people will try to influence others to vote their way. Some of this, I think we’d agree, is fine. Some tactics, I think we’d also agree, would not be fine. (Think threats of violence, in an extreme case.) I believe everyone’s opinion should be heard, and the secret ballot is a great way to do that, as it virtually eliminates intimidation.
I see donating to a side of a Proposition very similar to that. If someone lived in a town that had a very large of people who were anti-gay, I don’t think that it would be right if those who supported gays were reluctant to support a pro-gay Proposition for fear that they’d have to suffer repercussions. While, as some posters alluded to, some individuals would be fine standing up for what they believed if—damned the consequences. But not everyone would, and support would be artificially suppressed.
I think that the ability to donate is one way to encourage participation in the process, and that making that information public would suppress participation.
As I’ve stated, I think that the amount of a donation can indeed rise to such a level as to constitute extraordinary influence. If so, I think that should be divulged. But people should be able to “help along” their vote in other ways. They can do so publicly, by volunteering, etc. And I think they should be able to do so without fear of confrontation, through a donation. I think the amounts Measure for Measure mentions along the lines of those allowed in federal elections sound about right.
Now, I’'ll ask you: what compelling reason is their to maker this information public and allow for things like the map to be published? What is the reason for having this information out there other than making those people “pay” in some way for their opinion?
I’m of the mind that we should accept that we’re going to be living next door to people, working with people who disagree with us. As passionate as I am about some issues, I’m friends with people who disagree with me. Those gay friends that I have that disagree with me on Prop 8 focus more on how I treat them. They must think I treat them pretty well/fairly, or else they wouldn’t be friends with me. Some have tried to change my mind, as unsuccessfully as I’ve tried to change theirs (regarding gay marriage). But they see that I have a different idea to them as to what would be in the best longterm interest of society. So, we agree to disagree, and then start to rant about taxes or movies or sports.
Polycarp, thanks for posting this. Until you posted it, I only had those two lines in that WSJ article that I had read to reference it. And I think you may be right about this, that Marjorie Chrisofferson may be more like an owner than a manager, although that distinction is still being tossed around in some articles.
But since you posted it, I wondered how you had known so much about her and went to google it and found a whole controversy surrounding this issue. So apologies to the OP for going a little off-topic, but this controversy has opened my eyes to a lot of things that I wasn’t aware of before. I first got involved in this discussion when I asked Antinor01 why he was protesting the passage of Prop. 8. That led me to another thread on Prop. 8 where I tried to understand how a protest would be helpful. I was told that people were mad because people who had passed Prop. 8 were hateful to gays and were discriminatory against gays. But after reading this case, I’m learning that’s not the case.
Marjorie Christofferson’s Courage
Not only was El Coyote gay-friendly and hired gays, Marjorie Christofferson gave her own money to help her gay friends in their times of need.
Clearly this isn’t about people being hateful to gays or discriminatory against gays. This is about people who don’t agree on an issue. . . what the word marriage means.
The only thing that buoys me about this case is that there are some gay people who agree that this is over the top behavior.
Zen and the Art of Protesting Prop 8
Marjorie Christoffersen’s Freedom — and Ours
Update: El Coyote Owner Expresses Regret Over Prop. 8 Contribution, While Boycott Looms
I don’t know how the culture wars will play out. I don’t have a crystal ball. Maybe Miller is right and people will be intimidated in the future and not contribute funds, allowing the pro-gay marriage people to sweep the next election. But I wonder, is that what winning the culture war looks like? From where I sit, that doesn’t look like society accepting gay marriage.
Anyone else find it ironic…
Gays want to marry - its the ultimate in coming out of the closet. When two men (or two women) marry, its very public, its legal, its putting yourself out there. There is no “that wasn’t me on that float dressed like Cher.”
The people who want to donate money to keep this from happening want to be closeted regarding their donations - afraid, like gays have been for generations, that they will be shunned should anyone find out.
When come back, bring padding between mutually exclusive assertions. It shows at least a pretense of respect for the reader’s intelligence.
Not giving people money is a punishment? Ah, you’ve come around to the belief that people have a right to get money just for existing. Hail, comrade!
Because in this country we don’t approve of corruption, and disinfect it with sunshine.