Vote YES on proposition 8

The Joint Legislative Hearing on Prop. 8, held in downtown Los Angeles, included about 75 Yes on 8 supporters who took to the curb to voice their support for Prop. 8.  Supporters of all backgrounds came to listen to debates on marriage and to speak to California Senators and Assembly Representatives about the importance of passing Proposition 8.

Steve Marshall, 20, made his pro-Proposition 8 video, "Four Men In Black,” as a college project. "I go to a Catholic film school in San Diego," he said in explaining why he focused his film on the "activist judges" who legalized same-sex marriage in California in spring. "It's an issue we really feel passionate about, and we had the resources available to take some action."

Other students at John Paul the Great Catholic University also made videos in support of the proposition. One of them, "Marriage Rights,” features a man haplessly trying to fit two electrical plugs together instead of into a socket. Finally, he looks into the camera and declares, "It doesn't work." Then a signs says: "Keep marriage real."

Grant Johnson, a 49-year-old traffic engineer who lives in the Sierra foothill town of Coarsegold, passionately supports Proposition 8, which would amend the state Constitution to ban gay marriage.
In past elections, Johnson might have written a letter to the editor about his views. This year, he had a better idea. He made a video and put it up on YouTube.

The spot Johnson made, "Garriage," is one of dozens of homemade advertisements for and against Proposition 8 that are dueling it out in cyberspace. It begins with images of gay weddings and then moves on to dramatic photos of lightning striking San Francisco and fires burning around California, leaving the viewer to infer that the state is being punished for allowing same-sex marriage. Johnson included the photos, he said, because he thought it was "interesting . . . an elephant in the room" that so many fires erupted in California the same week the state Supreme Court issued its ruling to legalize gay marriage.