Equal Rights for Great Interviews
Judy Schaim, co-chair of San Diego Pride, shared her perspective on the Proposition 8 debacle with writer David Harvey. File photo by Will Parson
On Wednesday, August 4, I got a call from Todd Gloria, San Diego District 3 Councilmember, around 1:30 in the afternoon. Judge Vaughn Walker had just overturned Proposition 8—California’s ban on same-sex marriage—and I had missed it.
“Do you want me to call you back in a few minutes? Maybe you need some time to digest this,” he said, laughing.
I muttered something about expecting the results and asked him if he was surprised by the verdict. I asked him what he expected next and about the rulings significance and then I realized I was writing the same story as a thousand other reporters.
I recalled a recent blog from Columbia Journalism Review on localizing a story, and I wished I had been prepared.
In the end, I found a stock question, “What should San Diegans do while awaiting an appeal?” and I ran with it. I asked 14 or 15 community leaders that question, and I used it to shape my story.
But it also forced me to leave out some really great details that didn’t fit my theme.
So while I was doing my best to localize a story, to make it relevant to my readers and to come up with a message, I also found that I was losing some of the best parts.
Too often I find that no matter how I try to shape a story, or what I want to include, it forms organically and something good gets lost in the mix.
Judi Schaim, co-chair of San Diego Pride told me that she didn’t get married the first time around, because she didn’t want her marriage to be taken away over politics.
She also told me this: “I’m 66 years old and in my lifetime I never thought I would see that same sex couples could marry so for me to see a flashback of history and to realize this is actually happening, it’s unbelievable, it’s awesome, it’s a dream come true. And it means that maybe I’ll be able to marry.”
She didn’t make the final cut.
And neither did Rev. Canon Albert Ogle of St. Paul’s Cathedral and Equality California—whom I didn’t ask my topical question. He spoke at the Day of Decision Rally in the LGBT Center in Hillcrest, and my very brief interview with him afterward was interesting enough—and not for his charmingly subtle Irish accent and clerical collar—that I wrote this post on Meridian so I could share it:
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David Harvey: You discussed winning over the religious community, families and others that supported proposition 8 with this decision and by moving forward, can you speak a little more to that?
Albert Ogle: “I think the coming out process is a conversion process, we’re first of all converted, but we’re gay and we have to deal with that, then our families are converted, they often don’t get there in a weekend but it takes time.”
In many ways I look at my experience as being, you bring about societal transformation and institutional transformation by doing those kind of one on ones, then all the sudden there’s a tipping point.”
I think we [the gay community] actually have much more in common with the religious right for making marriages work and showing that we are not actually a threat to marriage.”
I’ve had a couple of debates with the yes on 8 people and in some ways we use the same marriage preparation work and they were kind of surprised that we were doing 40 hours of premarital counseling with couples. We’re not a threat to marriage and if we start engaging in those sort of conversations we move forward.”
DH: When Prop 8 was being debated, in some cases it drew people away from the religious community. Do you think the overturning of Prop 8 can help rebridge that divide?
AO: “I think the judges decision is going to be helpful to some people who may be in the middle, because what he’s done is really looked at the facts. And we’re now separating what people hold as their beliefs. There are some people that believe the earth was created in 5 days and it’s 6,000 years old and most of us when we look at science we don’t believe that and they’re entitled to their beliefs, but are we enforcing that onto all our school to teach that, no. The same thing applies, people are entitled to their religious beliefs, but they have no right to impose them or make them the law of the land.”
The decision was also a victory for democracy over theocracy and this country has teetered on that—especially during the Bush years—where the separation of church and state is not clear. Here in California you have religious people who were forcing their views on everybody and Judge Vaughn Walker’s position was clear that as a democracy we can’t do that.”
Globally, we’re dealing with fundamentalism, we’re dealing with it in Christianity, were dealing with it in Islam, and in Judaism and one manifestation of that was the work we had to do to fight Prop 8.”
I’m going to Uganda later this year, and talk about a number the Christian right has done on a country, where they’re going to send gays to jail for life and possibly put them to death. The same people who are creating prop 8 are creating the laws in Uganda. I see this not only as a local concern, but this is happening all over the world and we have to fight it.”
DH: What do you think is the best weapon in that fight?
AO: Education.
People need to learn that there are different ways of interpreting. Some of us have a very different view of what we call the difficult texts. There are texts in the bible that condone violence and slavery, the oppression of women as well as the oppression of gays. As religious leaders we have to talk about those and explain these things. In Africa, for example, the seminaries do not teach human sexuality so they’ve never heard of Alfred Kinsey, they’ve never heard of Stonewall. They have no idea what we’re talking about when we talk about gay stuff. So if the religious right is going in with lies and misinformation, there is nothing to counter it with.”
There’s a lot of work to do still.”
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You can read the Canon’s Day of Decision speech online, for more great wisdom on the balance of faith and equality, as well as his figures that help to dispel the myth that the courts are acting out of tune with public opinion.
Read the Judge’s decision, along with his decision not to stay the original repeal of Prop 8 past Aug 18th, here.
And of course, my article is available in an updated print version online.
