Marriage Measure’s Foes Launch TV Ads

Trailing in opinion polls, foes of a ballot measure to ban recognition of same-sex marriage in California took their campaign onto television this week, hoping to sway voters against an initiative they call mean-spirited and unnecessary.

With 19 days remaining before the March election, opponents are scrambling to pump up the volume on their campaign, which was hampered early on by sluggish fund-raising.

In two new ads, foes tell viewers that the initiative--just 14 words long--is not as simple as it looks, concealing an “extremist” subtext that harms gays and lesbians and intrudes on people’s private lives.

One spot, which began airing Tuesday, says the measure’s author, Republican state Sen. William “Pete” Knight of Palmdale, has a gay son of whom he disapproves and is making Californians “vote on his private problem.”

The other, which debuted Wednesday, says the initiative could lead to increased violence against gays and lesbians and spawn laws discriminating against them.

The 30-second spots are airing in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento. Next week, they will hit the air in the Bay Area, rounding out a television campaign costing opponents of the initiative $3.1 million.

An ad featuring the cast of the gay-themed NBC sitcom “Will & Grace” that was filmed last year may never be seen; campaign officials said it did not influence test audiences as strongly as they had hoped.

Proposition 22 would bar California from recognizing any marriage other than that between a man and a woman--including those performed in other states. Although no state permits same-sex marriages, lawmakers are debating the possibility in Vermont.

Opponents call the Knight measure unnecessary and say it’s part of a broader movement to roll back gay rights. Supporters say their only goal is to block out-of-state judges or politicians from redefining marriage in California.

The No on Knight campaign, which has scores of politicians, newspapers and organizations on its side, has been unable to spread its message until now. While supporters of Proposition 22 have flooded the state with 500,000 yard signs and began airing TV ads nearly a month ago, opponents were slowed by a fund-raising effort that only began to pay off last month.

Tracey Conaty, a spokeswoman for No on Knight, attributed the early money woes to “maybe a bit of complacency and a certain level of disbelief that this could actually pass.” Since the ads backing the initiative hit television, she said, “our donations have increased tremendously.”

Darry Sragow, a political strategist in Los Angeles, sketched another scenario, saying that early in the campaign, “a lot of insiders thought that 22 was going to be very tough to beat. Because of that, they were disinclined to spend a lot of emotional--never mind financial--resources on the no side,” he said.

On top of that, there is a presidential race, a U.S. Senate race and 19 other measures on the California ballot siphoning money and attention away from Proposition 22, analysts said. And one of the most eloquent opponents of the measure, Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), has had to invest considerable time raising funds for her own race for a state Senate seat.

“There’s a lot of competition for the dollars,” said Timothy Cavanaugh, finance director for No on Knight. But people are beginning to focus on the election now, and “we’ve raised $2.4 million in the last month,” for a total of about $4.5 million, Cavanaugh said.

Mike Marshall, campaign manager of the No on Knight effort, acknowledged the slower start on fund-raising, attributing it in part to the need to build a statewide gay and lesbian political organization “from scratch.” He said he wished the No on Knight message had been on TV earlier. Opponents of the measure trail by about 13 percentage points in recent polls.

As of the last filing deadline, supporters of the initiative had collected $5.1 million. Most of it has been sunk into television ads, including two new spots that began airing statewide this week.

One of them depicts a teacher, surrounded by children in a classroom, who declares that “parents and teachers like me all across California are voting yes on Proposition 22.” The teacher, Terri Mains, works at a Catholic school in Sacramento.

On Wednesday, the spot was attacked as “misleading” by state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin and representatives of two teachers unions that oppose the initiative. Eastin, noting that she has a nephew who is gay, called the ad “deceptive,” saying it suggests that most educators support the measure.

Rob Stutzman, manager of the campaign for Proposition 22, said: “I don’t think anyone knows” the level of support among educators. “But we know that a majority of Californians support us, and teachers are usually reflective of that.”

Stutzman criticized opponents for the “growing negativity” of their campaign, specifically the ad that suggests that passage of Proposition 22 would lead to more violence against gays and lesbians.

“They’re using fear mongering, and it’s insulting to the millions of Californians who believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman and who don’t hate anybody,” Stutzman said.

Strategists say there is ample time for Proposition 22 foes to hammer home a winning message because voters are only now beginning to tune in to the political season.