Homocons File Prop 8 Brief

Self-loathing homosexuals David Benkof, Doug Mainwaring, and Robert Oscar Lopez have jointly filed a Supreme Court brief against the overturn of Proposition 8.  Here's an excerpt:

Note that this repulsive trio cites several articles from fellow homocon writer Jonathan Rauch as well as the French homocon group HomoVox, whose videos have been posted by NOM.  If you are unfamiliar with any of these guys, hit their name in the labels of this post.

UPDATE: Jim Burroway has more at Box Turtle Bulletin.

HomoQuotable - David Benkof

"It is with great sadness that I announce that I feel I must withdraw from openly supporting man-woman marriage in the United States. I recently learned quite a bit of disturbing information that makes it impossible for me to continue supporting a movement I no longer respect. I have not yet decided when or even if I will write about why I’m ending my participation in this debate.

"I’d like to thank Maggie Gallagher of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy who got me started with blogging at MarriageDebate.com and encouraged me to create my own blog, which ultimately became GaysDefendMarriage.com. I’d also like to thank the dozens of commenters, both those who agree with me and those who disagree, who have made this Web site a true place of conversation rather than just another pro-man-woman-marriage site.

"In case you’re wondering:

"1) I do not advocate that people give time or money to the Proposition 8 campaign in California.

"2) People should vote their consciences on the ballot measure. I’m not a California voter, but if I was, I’d probably hold my nose and vote yes, though I can’t be sure. " - David Benkof, the putrid prince of self-loathing, in a typically bizarre "final" post on his blog, Gays Defend Marriage.

You may recall that Box Turtle Bulletin exposed Benkof's inflated journalistic claims last month. Whatever this mysterious epiphany that Benkof has experienced may be, he hasn't quite seen the light, having dropped in on Pam Spaulding's blog this morning to call her a "nasty bitch."

The Real David Benkof

Those of you who engaged David Benkof in the comments of last week's HomoQuotable post about him will be interested in Timothy Kincaid's exhaustive expose' on Benkof over at Box Turtle Bulletin. Go read Kincaid's post - it's a corker.

HomoQuotable - David Benkof

"The Human Rights Campaign, America's largest gay-rights group, recently announced plans to spend at least a half-million dollars to defeat the California Marriage Protection Act. What a waste; gays and lesbians have far more urgent needs. The Golden State constitutional amendment poses no substantive threat to them - it will take nothing away from same-sex couples but the word "marriage." Even if HRC wants Californians to vote no on the initiative, $500,000 is a lot to spend on a struggle to retain an unpopular court victory that's only semantic and symbolic.

"Instead, some of the cash (say, half) should go to achieve rights for same-sex couples who live in states that are much more hostile to gays and lesbians than California. A third of the US population lives in the 18 states that have passed constitutional amendments barring same-sex marriage and any other kind of recognition similar to marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

"(That these states passed these measures as a reaction to the gay community's drive to sue its way into "marriage equality" is another sign that campaign isn't such a great idea.)

"HRC is pushing for gays in San Francisco to be able to use their favorite term for their relationships. Meanwhile, gay and lesbian couples in Dallas and Ann Arbor and Norfolk have no way to make sure hospitals let them visit each other when one is sick and have to hope a judge won't prevent them from inheriting each other's property - and custody of their children - should one of them die.

"Constrained by one such constitutional amendment, advocates for fairness in the most unlikely of places - Salt Lake City - have come up with a creative solution that is both constitutional and alleviates the distress of nonmarried couples. Salt Lake couples who share a "mutual commitment" - whether their relationship is conjugal or not - have a set of rights, including insurance and workplace benefits.

"The gay movement should use the cash wasted on the California battle to try to achieve as many rights as possible for same-sex couples in states like Georgia, Ohio and Wisconsin. The other quarter-million dollars should be spent in California - but to help gays and lesbians facing much more pressing needs than the ego boost of having the government tell them they're married instead of in a domestic partnership." - Gay conservative David Benkof in an opinion piece in today's New York Post.

Benkof writes columns for several gay newspapers and blogs at Gays Defend Marriage, which bills itself as "a website for LGBT folks who support marriage as the union of husband and wife—and getting the gay leadership to return to more pressing LGBT issues for our community."

While I don't disagree that marriage equality shouldn't be our number one issue (longtime readers of this blog will know that I am much more passionate about ENDA), Benkof is apparently willfully ignoring the national ramifications of the California ballot fight. What happens there will affect the battle for marriage equality nationwide for years and years to come. Everybody knows the old saying "goes California, goes the nation." Everybody except David Benkof, that is.

I'd rather we had a unified gay leadership pouring tons of money into a completely inclusive ENDA, but that battle is over for the time being. The California marriage fight is here, it is now. On this, the HRC is doing the right thing.