Quote Of The Day - Jerry Sanders

"Equality isn’t something you can quantify. But it’s something that has to be there. I think it’s coming right away. The Supreme Court’s going to take up [the appeal of Prop. 8 supporters] and I think they’re going to let [gay marriage] stand in California because they don’t want to deal with it. The voters are going for it. Young people, that is not even in their concern list. We’re all taught from the day you start school, equality’s very important. And you look at the civil rights movements – this is exactly what this is. And so playing a little part in it, it’s been good." - Outgoing GOP San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, telling the surprised (and right wing) Union-Tribune editorial board that coming out for marriage was the "most important" thing he did as mayor.

RELATED: The 2007 video of Sanders' tearful declaration that he had reversed on same-sex marriage went viral at the time.  It remains quite moving.

SAN DIEGO: Openly Gay Mayoral Candidate Backed By Major Prop 8 Supporter

In the above tweet openly gay San Diego mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio thanks local business mogul Terry Castor for his support. Which may seem quite strange to you, since Castor and his family collectively donated almost $700,000 to Proposition 8, more than any other group in the city. San Diego City Beat observes:

According to a March 2008 story from the U-T San Diego, Terry Caster said he supported Prop. 8 because, “Without solid marriage, you are going to have a sick society.” The Casters have some other odd ideas on what constitutes a "solid" marriage. So, it was surprising to see this tweet from mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio earlier today. DeMaio is gay and in a committed relationship with the publisher of the online San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. When DeMaio first ran for City Council, in 2008, he declined to take a position on Prop. 8, but has since become more active in the gay community. But though his mayoral campaign's "coalitions" include an LGBT group, DeMaio's made it clear that gay-rights issues won't be part of the campaign.

So we have an openly gay candidate who isn't interested in gay rights and who is being backed by a local corporate giant that's still being boycotted over Prop 8. How very odd...oh WAIT. He's a teabagging homocon. Mystery solved.

RELATED: San Diego's current Mayor Jerry Sanders can be seen in the clip below this post. You may recall that Sanders gained worldwide attention for his tearful on-camera change of heart on same-sex marriage. Sanders will be term-limited out of office in November.

UNRELATED: DeMaio's office staff was busted for writing and making edits on his Wikipedia page.

VIDEO: Mayors For Marriage

70 Big-City Mayors Join Together To Advocate For Same-Sex Marriage

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The mayors of several big cities, including Chicago, New York, Boston and Los Angeles, are joining together to support same-sex marriage rights, a move that could put additional pressure on President Barack Obama to do the same. The effort is being organized by Freedom to Marry, an advocacy group that plans a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C.,, featuring mostly Democratic mayors and one Republican, Jerry Sanders of San Diego. Like others, Mr. Sanders has stated his views before, but organizers hope that their effort to join some 70 mayors together will give the issue a political boost.

“By joining the group, mayors hope to expand public and political support for ending the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage,” the mayors’ group said in a statement. The mayors planning to attend Friday’s news conference include Annise Parker of Houston, Thomas Menino of Boston, Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Marilyn Strickland of Tacoma, Wash. Michael Bloomberg of New York and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, Mr. Obama’s first White House chief of staff, have also joined the effort.

Rahm Emanuel. Interesting.

NOM: Prop 8 Happened Because Of San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders

Writing on NOM's blog, Maggie Gallagher claims that Prop 8 would never have happened had San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders not come out in support of marriage equality.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders testified today in the Prop 8 trial, in favor of misusing the Consittution to overturn the rights of 7 million Californian voters. Here’s the interesting thing most people don’t know. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is the reason Prop 8 got on the ballot. He gave moving testimony in court today about how much he loves his lesbian daughter. Sure. But he ran for office promising the people of San Diego he opposed gay marriage. And then, he signed a city council resolution trying to overturn Prop 22 instead of meeting his obligations, living up to his promises. And he used his daughter as an excuse. That’s wrong. Politicians are not elected to advance the views and values of their families. The National Organization for Marriage, which has been credited by gay rights activists as one of the main reasons Prop 8 qualified for the ballot, got involved because Mayor Sander betrayed his campaign vows. I was asked to fly to San Diego in October of 2007 by a group of San Diego Catholics upset about the Mayor’s betrayal. That meeting lead directly to NOM’s decision to try to raise a million dollars in January of 2008 to help Protect Marriage get this on the ballot. The rest is history. Thank-you Mayor Sanders.

Reporter Rex Wockner covered Sanders' testimony yesterday and provides the following post-trial quote.

I came as a Republican mayor, I came as a father and I came as a former police chief. And I came to say that we cannot tolerate discrimination against one group of people. ... I'm here with my daughter and I'm very proud of my daughter. But I was also honored to testify because I think this is an important issue for all Californians. Today was difficult at times because it required me to talk about the reasons I once believed civil unions were good enough for same-sex couples. And I think what that did was force me to think about why I'd done that. And I thought at the time it was an acceptable compromise. However, I have learned very clearly from people that are very involved that I was discriminating against them based on prejudicial arguments that I had. When I said that civil unions were enough, I was saying that the relationship that my daughter has with Meaghan, I was saying that that wasn't as important, that wasn't as significant as the marriage that I have to my wife. And I was wrong about that, and I think that that's one of the things that I wanted to make sure that people understood today.

Read the rest of Wockner's coverage, which includes comments from Sanders' daughter.

(Photo by Rex Wockner)

Today At The Prop 8 Trial: San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders To Testify

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, who in 2007 publicly reversed his position on marriage equality in a tearful press conference, is scheduled to testify today at Perry vs. Schwarzenegger. Today's witness list, per Americans For Equal Rights:

• Jerry Sanders, the current Republican Mayor and former Police Chief of the City of San Diego who is the father of a lesbian daughter. He will testify about his decision, as Mayor, to support the City of San Diego's participation in an amicus brief advocating against the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage and why he concluded supporting marriage equality was and is in the best interest of the local government and community. City Attorney Dennis Herrera will conduct the direct examination of Mayor Sanders.
• M.V. Lee Badgett, Ph.D., a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who will testify about the private harms caused by Prop. 8 and the impact of same-sex marriage on the marriages of different-sex couples
• Ryan Kendall, a gay man who will testify about the "conversation therapy" he underwent in his youth and how he has been affected by discrimination

In case you missed it back then, here's Sanders' emotional press conference. The trial resumes in San Francisco at 9am local time. Follow along on the Courage Campaign's live-blog.

Gay-Friendly GOP San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders To Testify For Olson/Boies

Republican San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, who in 2007 changed his mind on same-sex marriage in a tear-filled press conference with his lesbian daughter, will testify in the federal suit to repeal Prop 8 being brought by superstar lawyers Ted Olson and David Boies.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders will be a witness in the upcoming federal court trial over the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 8, according to San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera. Herrera announced Sanders’ participation today at a San Diego fundraiser for Herrera’s reelection. Herrera said he traveled to San Diego last week to meet with Sanders and that Sanders readily agreed to testify in the case, which seeks to overturn the constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage narrowly approved by California voters last year.

The City of San Francisco has been allowed to join the lawsuit, hence Herrera's involvement. In August a judge ruled in favor of Olson and Boies' request to block the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights from joining the suit after the groups' earlier denouncement of the attempt.

FLASHBACK: Here is Sanders' beautiful 2007 speech. If you haven't seen it, get out a hankie first.

San Diego's Mayor Announces Lesbian Daughter's Engagement At Eve Of Justice

San Diego's very gay friendly Mayor Jerry Sanders announced the engagement of his lesbian daughter from the stage of yesterday's Eve Of Justice rally.

"I want to thank each of you for your dedication, and I see you all over the city and I see you marching and I see you talking to people, I see you lobbying, I see you doing things that make all of us proud as we go down this road to make sure that everybody is treated equally in the state of California. Now, I want to say (he pauses to gain his composure) -- these are always hard ones for me -- if it didn't involve my daughter and her partner, they wouldn't be hard things, but they became engaged to get married last week (wild cheering and applause), and their families are tremendously proud of them, we're tremendously excited to see two people who are committed to each other and we know will be excellent partners into the future. So this becomes even a more important issue for our family."

Photo and reporting by Rex Wockner. Please visit Wockner's blog for more coverage of San Diego's event as well a great gallery of photos.

Thousands Rally Against Prop 8 In San Diego's Gayborhood

Describing it as the largest LGBT event to hit San Diego outside of gay Pride, our man Rex Wockner attended a huge anti-Prop 8 rally last night in that city's biggest gayborhood.

Between 7,000 and 10,000 people took to University Avenue in San Diego's heavily gay Hillcrest district the evening of Nov. 1 to protest Proposition 8, the Nov. 4 ballot measure that would amend the California Constitution to re-ban same-sex marriage, negating the California Supreme Court decision that legalized it.

The protest took place as some 15,000 Christians from around the nation prayed in San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium for passage of Prop 8. My blog post on that is here. Republican San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders and his lesbian daughter Lisa attended the gay event. Amazingly, the gay protest was organized entirely via e-mail and, to the best of my knowledge, it was the biggest gay street action in the 14 years I've lived here, apart from the gay pride parade, which draws about 150,000 people.

Here are the latest (and possibly, final) ads from No On 8.

At The Log Cabin Convention

[ABOVE: San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders (left) with Log Cabin Republicans President Patrick Sammon. Photo by Rex Wockner.]

Gay journalist Rex Wockner attended the Log Cabin Republicans' annual convention in San Diego yesterday, where Mayor Jerry Sanders gave the welcoming remarks. (You may recall Sanders' very moving change of heart on gay marriage last year.) Wockner spoke with LCR President Patrick Sammon about Gov. Schwarzenegger.

Sammon:

"We understand that it's an education process on [marriage] but Gov. Schwarzenegger has signed more pro-gay bills than any governor in American history," Sammon said. "I understand the rationale he's used for vetoing the [marriage] bills. It doesn't mean I agree with it but I understand the rationale. ... I'm more focused on what happens if there's an affirmative [California Supreme] Court ruling [on same-sex marriage] by June 5 -- what's the governor's position going to be on an [voter-initiated constitutional] amendment to possibly roll back whatever decision is made? ... I'm optimistic that marriage equality can be achieved in California and I'm optimistic that we can have a successful effort to defeat this amendment or, hopefully, keep it off the ballot."

And unsurprisingly, the LCR plans to endorse John McCain.

"We're pleased he was nominated. Our posture during this campaign was stopping Mitt Romney. We're proud of the role we played with our ad campaign and, you know, Sen. McCain, we endorsed him in his Senate re-election in 2004; in 2000 a lot of our members were very supportive of his campaign, and certainly this time as well. We know he's someone who's an inclusive Republican who understands the party needs to get back to its core principles and we are excited about the campaign ahead."

Schwarzenegger and former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton will speak to the Cabinettes today.

HomoQuotable - Lisa Sanders

"I'm just very proud of my father. And to be a part of this. It's about equality, and he's doing the right thing, and I'm very confident in him." - Lisa Sanders, lesbian daughter of San Diego's Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders, who outed her during his press conference endorsing San Diego's pro-gay marriage resolution. (Via - Rex Wockner.)

Sanders is running for re-election in heavily-red San Diego. Here's hoping his change of heart regarding marriage equality does not cost him the election.

UPDATE: Rex Wockner objects to my characterization of San Diego as "heavily-red". Rex: "Although San Diego COUNTY has more red than blue registered voters (527,448 to 461,245) ... in the city itself, blue beats red 224,397 to 190,647. Interestingly, another 141,090 registered voters (such as myself) are 'decline to state,' meaning they have no declared party affiliation. Another 27,000 voters in the city are registered with minor parties." My apologies for the error.

HomoQuotable - Matt Foreman

"San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders' emotional statement brought me - and I know millions of other gay and lesbian people - to tears. Simply, directly, and most importantly from the heart, he said what we yearn to hear from our leaders - that our relationships are just as meaningful and just as deserving of the same protections as everyone else's. Mayor Sanders will go into the history books as a profile in courage and conviction. He stands in stark contrast to Governor Schwarzenegger's threatened veto of the marriage equality bill that will be on his desk within days and to leading Democratic presidential candidates who cannot bring themselves to say we are truly equal." - Matt Foreman, Executive Director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.

San Diego's Republican Mayor Changes His Mind About Gay Marriage

Just one day after pledging to veto Tuesday's pro-gay marriage resolution by the San Diego City Council, Republican Mayor Jerry Sanders abruptly switched gears yesterday and signed the resolution, outing his lesbian daughter in the process.

Fighting back tears, Sanders told reporters, "Two years ago, I believed that civil unions were a fair alternative. Those beliefs, in my case, have since changed. The concept of a 'separate but equal' institution is not something that I can support." Sanders said that he wanted his daughter and other gay people he knows to have their relationships equally protected under the law, adding, "In the end, I could not look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships — their very lives — were any less meaningful than the marriage that I share with my wife."

Sanders has been otherwise supportive of gay rights and has appeared in San Diego's gay pride parades. His daughter, who is in a relationship, came out to him four years ago, but was not out publicly until Sanders' revelation on Wednesday. San Diego, the nation's 8th largest city, now joins San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Long Beach among California cities officially supporting marriage equality.

Thank Mayor Sanders by emailing him at JerrySanders@SanDiego.gov or calling his office at (619) 236-6330. Read the complete transcript of Sanders' emotional press conference over on San Diego resident Rex Wockner's blog.

UPDATE: Watch Mayor Sanders almost break down making his announcement. It's a beautiful thing. I'm completely verklempt, seriously. Could he be California's next governor?