San Diego mayor says his change of heart on gay marriage threatened re-election campaign

San Diego mayor: Gay marriage stand hurt campaign

SAN FRANCISCO — San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders opposed gay marriage — until he learned his daughter was a lesbian in a committed relationship.

He testified Tuesday during a trial on California’s same-sex marriage ban. that the change was a defining moment in his personal life and his political career.

The mayor of California’s second-largest city took the witness stand on behalf of two same-sex couples suing to overturn Proposition 8, the state’s voter-approved ban.

Sanders, a Republican, said he lost support within his party and had to work harder to be re-elected after he opposed the 2008 ballot measure. GOP leaders in San Diego were even thinking of withdrawing their endorsement, he said.

“The kickoff for the campaign, a lot of people weren’t there,” Sanders testified.

The trial, in its sixth day, is the first in a federal court to examine whether denying gays and lesbians the right to wed violates their constitutional rights.

Throughout the trial, backers of the ban have tried to show the ballot measure was not motivated by deep-seated bias toward gays. Such “animus” would make it more difficult for the measure to pass constitutional muster.

Brian Raum, a lawyer for Proposition 8 sponsors, cross-examined the mayor about his one-time opposition to gay marriage.

“You don’t believe that you communicated hatred to the gay and lesbian community, did you?” Raum asked.

“I feel like my thoughts were grounded in prejudice, but I don’t feel like I communicated hatred,” Sanders said.

Raum also played a commercial produced by the Proposition 8 campaign claiming supporters were subjected to vandalism, slurs and physical violence during the 2008 election.

“You would agree that it’s wrong for people to suffer violence as a result of their political views, would you not?” Raum asked.

“I would,” Sanders agreed, adding he could not verify that supporters of the ban in San Diego experienced widespread harassment or if the ad was a campaign tactic.

Raum also pressed Sanders to acknowledge that people could oppose same-sex marriage because they think it’s in the best interests of children to be raised by their biological parents.

Sanders replied that such an ideal vision of heterosexual marriage is misinformed.

“I was a cop for 26 years, and I know there were a lot of children who did not benefit from child abuse and they were being raise by their biological parents,” he said.

In other testimony, University of Massachusetts at Amherst economist Lee Badgett, who also directs research for a gay-related think tank at the University of California, Los Angeles, said research showed gay couples preferred marriage to taking advantage of domestic partnership laws.

“Marriage is an institution that is recognized by many other people outside the couple, so it has that social validation,” Badgett said.

Charles Cooper, another lawyer for Proposition 8 backers, countered that the same number of couples registered as domestic partners in 2009 as 2008, even though same-sex marriage was legal in California during a four-month window before voters approved Proposition 8 in 2008.

“Do you believe these California same-sex couples chose domestic partnership over marriage because they felt these California domestic partnerships were second-rate?” Cooper asked Badgett.

“I don’t know that these same-sex couples who got married also registered as domestic partners to hedge their bets against the election,” Badgett replied.

Cooper spent several hours with Badgett trying to demonstrate that traditional male-female marriages suffered after same-sex marriages became legal in the Netherlands in 2001. He introduced a number of charts showing divorce and single parenthood rates increased while marriage rates fell in the that country.

Badgett rejected the comparison, however, noting those trends were firmly established long before gay couples won the right to wed in the Netherlands and were unrelated to same-sex marriage.

“I don’t think we need to wait any longer to see what the impact will be. I think we know,” Badgett said. “Everything I’ve looked at leads me to the conclusion that there is no impact.”