Latest On How The AFA Is Working For "Yes On Prop 8" Campaign

by: Autumn Sandeen

Wed Aug 13, 2008 at 00:00:00 AM EDT

The first is the AFA Action Alert from Jim Garlow (Pastor, Skyline Church, San Diego, CA Pastors
Rapid Response Team). The AFA is organizing a California Statewide Pastors Conference Call on Wednesday, August 27 at 10 AM. Some of what they want to accomplish on the call:

• Voter Identification Phase (August) - to find out who, among the 16 million CA registered voters, are for Proposition 8 and who are undecided. This canvassing will begin on August 16, and will continue on August 23 and September 6. If you have those within your congregation who would like to participate, please ask them to email protectmarriageCA@4sd.net by early next week including all their contact information, including email, phone, address and zip code.

• Advocacy Phase (September) - returning to those who are for Proposition 8 and those who are undecided. INFORMATION WILL BE PROVIDED IN THE AUGUST 27 CONFERENCE CALL.

• "Get Out the Vote" Phase (October) - returning to those who are for Proposition 8. INFORMATION WILL BE PROVIDED IN THE AUGUST 27 CONFERENCE CALL.

Some of the ways they're going to identify voters, besides cold calls:

[Below the fold: More on the AFA Action Alert, and the OneNewsNow article entitled 'Deceptive' tactics continue to undermine Prop. 8]

• We invite you to join with us in a campaign to call every church attendee in California during the next few weeks, encouraging those not currently a registered voter to become one with vote-by-mail status. To do this, we encourage you to call every family in your own church database - from those who have attended once or twice in the last few years to those who are active members.

• To help you with this volunteer phoning campaign, we have hired an organization with great expertise in church outreach phoning campaigns, and they will be providing a training opportunity for you and your church phoning team. The training will be simple, user friendly, and can be completed online at your convenience. Everything is planned to make this as understandable and doable as possible.

This online training can take place for your church as soon as you, as the pastor, appoint a "Campaign Director" for your congregation - a layperson or member of your staff who will oversee the phoning campaign. We suggest you select a dependable person with good people and leadership skills, and with time to organize and oversee the team of volunteers who will make the phone calls for your church. Remember - every church is important - no matter the size. We could win this campaign by just one vote, so every person in your church counts

You can see a PDF version of the entire AFA Action Alert e-letter by double-clicking the thumbnail above, or by double-clicking here.

In the second way the AFA is working their religious right constituency to repeal marriage equality in California, OneNewsNow posted the article 'Deceptive' tactics continue to undermine Prop. 8. "Christian" commentator and "reporter" Jeff Johnson characterized his, and apparently the AFA's, beliefs about how the supporters of marriage equality are being deceptive:

First it was California Attorney General Jerry Brown changing the ballot title -- from defining marriage as between one man and one woman, to eliminating the right of same-sex couples to marry. Now an unidentified supporter of same-sex marriage has printed bumper stickers that inaccurately encourage people to "Preserve Marriage: Vote NO on Prop. 8."

But a "no" vote on Proposition 8 would not preserve marriage; it would, in fact, allow the redefinition of real marriage to include counterfeit unions between homosexual couples.

... "It's one thing for the opposition to make their case with commercials persuading people to be against it [Prop. 8] because they favor homosexual marriage and those kinds of things," says the attorney. "But it's another thing to be outright deceptive -- and this is the epitome of political deceptive practices that have no business in any campaign."

"Christian" Jeff Johnson believes that protecting marriage is voting to limit marriage between one man and one woman, verses protecting the California current legal status quo of marriage being between a Party A and a Party B -- and therefore it's deceptive to say that voting No on Prop 8 is protecting marriage. Remember, he wrote earlier in his piece that "same sex unions" are "counterfeit unions," so he no doubt believes that one can't really protect a "counterfeit union" in the first place.

I don't think I'm telling anyone anything unexpected. We who support marriage equality should have expected, and actually have expected the "Christian" scouring of church membership roles to find/identify our opposition voters. The AFA has no proplem at all mixing their faith and their conservative "Christian" politics.

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Related:
* Pam's House Blend: Marriage Equality
* Pam's House Blend: Prop 8 ; Proposition 8

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