Why Did Prop 8 Win?
"There's no way Prop 8 will lose in California. It's the most liberal state in the U.S. Hollywood's just crawling with gays. Plus, it's a blue state that'll totally vote for Obama. Anyone voting for a black guy advocating change will also vote for equal rights. If Prop 8 will lose anywhere, it's there in California."
You might have heard variations of this reasoning in the weeks leading up to Election Day 2008. Back then, the Yes and No to Prop 8's sides muscled for money and public opinion stayed about even. Despite the millions of dollars, numerous advertisements, and celebrity endorsements, Prop 8 ended up passing 52 to 48%, overturning a California Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage on May 15th, 2008. According to the court's initial decision, marriage is a human right and the California Constitution prohibits denying anyone social equality. The current lawsuits filed against Proposition 8 on behalf of married gay couples cite the exact same argument. Though California government asserts that the any already performed same-sex marriages are still legally recognized, some county clerks are confused when the new law actually goes into effect.
QueerClick ran several PSAs soliciting donations to No on 8, and also a comprehensive Weekender explaining both sides of the gay marriage argument. Ultimately, we made a case for the social benefits of gay marriage, namely on economic grounds (arguably the more persuasive argument in economic-minded America). Now after our defeat, we examine why Prop 8 won, what it says about America's LGBT movement, and where we'll go from here.
Statistician David Silver suggests that voters over 65 helped pass Prop 8, meaning that voting for Prop 8 occurred over age lines rather than racial lines. Gay essayist and activist Dan Savage agrees with Silver. Here, the handsome Mr. Savage takes on President of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins. They are moderated by the silver fox, Anderson Cooper.
Let's quickly dispel a racial myth about Prop 8's victory, that blacks and Latinos overwhelmingly voted for the measure. It is true that 70% of black voters and 52% of Latino voters supported Prop 8. But one should also note that both communities are spread out all across California, meaning that black and Latino voters did not singlehandedly turn any county for in favor of the measure. Furthermore, blacks only make up 6.7% of California's electorate while Latinos make up 14%. The incorrect perception that "blacks and Latinos tipped the vote in favor of Prop 8" created an instant scapegoat that brought racial tensions in the LGBT community to the surface, tensions now being exploited by the likes of conservative pundit Bill O' Reilly and Tony Perkins, President of the bigoted Family Research Council—it's a divide and conquer strategy meant to pit two discriminated groups against one another instead of acknowledging the countless other groups who voted in favor of Prop 8 over 60%:
- The elderly (65+)
- Republicans
- Conservatives
- People who decided for whom to vote in October (but not within the week before the election)
- People who were contacted by the McCain campaign
- Protestants
- Catholics
- White Protestants
- Those who attend church weekly
- Married people
- People with children under 18
- Gun owners
- Bush voters
- Offshore drilling supporters
- People who are afraid of a terrorist attack
- People who thought their family finances were better now than 4 years ago
- Supporters of the war against Iraq
- People who didn't care about the age of the candidates
- Anti-choicers
- People who are from the "Inland/Valley" region of California
- McCain voters
A memo from the LDS church dated March 4th, 1997 outlines President Gordon B. Hinkley's strategy for dealing with gay marriage. The condescending Hinkley says, "We're not anti-gay, we are pro-family... We love these people and try to work with them and help them. We know they have a problem, we want to help them solve that problem." Ah... that explains the use of electroshock therapy to cure these well-loved abominations.
Similar reaction has been deservedly launched against the Utah-based Mormon Church which raised $22 million for Prop 8, 70% of Yes on 8's total income. According to a memo just made public, the church teamed up with Catholics to defeat gay marriage as early as 1997. They did this because the centuries-old Catholic Church is more established and accepted in America, whereas Joseph Smith founded the Mormon Church in 1830 and, if you agree with Louis from Angels in America, "Any religion that's not at least two thousand years old is a cult." It's understandable that these religious institutions should try to paint homosexuals as harmful to children considering their own troubled past with children-molesting priests, Mormon child-wives, and the psychological torture of gay Mormons. But now, there's an outcry to repeal the Mormon's tax-exempt status citing a 1954 IRS tax code meant to curtail church political endorsements. Though the repeal effort stems from an incorrect understanding of the tax code:
"The law for 501(c)3 non-profits -- both religious and secular -- is clear that issue advocacy and education is fine while candidate endorsement is prohibited. [The Mormon church's donations to Yes on 8 fall under] issue advocacy/education, and thus [is] protected. I think it is offensive, wrong-headed, and problematic on many theological and political grounds, but constitutionally protected nonetheless."
So tax law does not stand in opposition to the church and it seems unlikely that the IRS would strip the church of tax-exemption anyway, especially because Bush and Obama have both endorsed "faith-based" initiatives and church-led community service efforts. That and religion has long had its hands in politics for so long, that even a few churches have gone so far as to deliberately endorse a presidential candidate with no consequences whatsoever.
Recently, there's been a move for gays to boycott the entire state of Utah. Even though the Mormon church does not have a heavy financial stake in either Utah's ski slopes or the Sundance Film Festival, the reasoning goes that 60.7% of Utah is Mormon and by economically deserting the state, you'll also punish the church. But a majority of Utah's Mormon population lives in the state's rural areas outside of Salt Lake City and Park City (where Sundance is held). Salt Lake and Park City are the most liberal cities in the entire state and Sundance is a very pro-gay event that has a long history of supporting gay and lesbian filmmaking. Furthermore, a lot of Utah residents (some of them Mormon) vehemently disagree with the church's role in Prop 8. Despite the church's gigantic financial contribution, the residents of California are the ones who actually voted for Prop 8, so why not boycott California instead? Though the Mormon church and the Yes on 8 donors deserve to have a shameful light needs cast on them, Utah's just an easy scapegoat that misses the larger issue.
One of the most emotionally effective yet disturbing No on 8 ads, didn't come from No on 8, but the Courage Campaign Issues Committee. One Catholic bishop called the ad "a blatant display of religious bigotry and intolerance." We couldn't agree more!
Hindsight is 20/20 and in the days immediately following the passage of Proposition 8, we've realized a handful of problems with No on 8's organizational skills:
- A managerial top-down organizational structure in harsh contrast with the Obama campaign's bottom-up grassroots style and structure—"I was amazed at the level of scripting: 'don't say 'civil rights,' don't say 'constitution,' don't say 'gay.'' I couldn't believe it."
- The LGBT community's proactive rather than reactive response: "[Anti-gay groups] study us daily. They read our web pages and listen to our spokespersons in anticipation of getting an advantage that they can use against us. But mostly, they plan and strategize behind the scenes... And us? Some of us (please notice that I did not say all of us) wait until we are threatened by ballot initiatives before we mobilize and concentrate on the enemy.How many of you know the name of the so-called pro-family group in your area? Do you know their leader or the policy issues they are pursuing now or will pursue in the future?..."
- Tardy outreach to ethnic communities: "Andrea Shorter, a black lesbian volunteer for the No on 8 campaign, told me that the outreach to the African-American community began in earnest a week ago. "What's happened is that there's been an outcry from communities of color, including African-American communities, who say, 'Include us!' Now there's a GOTV strategy, but for some it seems last minute," she said in an interview before the election. Another No on 8 activist, Karin Wang, told me at the City Hall rally that when Asian Pacific Islander groups went to buy ads in Chinese and Korean newspapers, they were informed that Yes on 8 had been renting space for weeks."
- The lack of gay people in any No on 8 TV ads: "a senior "No on 8" official told KPIX-TV in San Francisco that "from all the knowledge that we have and research that we have, [those] are not the best images to move people." Children, also, were missing; showing kids with same-sex parents could too easily backfire." This is possibly the result of too many focus groups. But excluding gay people from No on 8 ads removed their most compelling emotional argument, that loving couples make good families deserving of legal protection. Their exclusion also implicitly agreed with Yes on 8's assertion that gay people are unappetizing and worthy of exclusion.
It's also important to clear up the misconceptions between civil unions and marriage because in America, they are separate but not so equal. Recently, UK-resident and A-list gay, Elton John, said U.S. gays should be happy with civil unions, because using the word "marriage" is what gets all the Christian wingnuts up in arms. However, as Blue Jersey's Think Equal campaign explains, what we're actually after is "civil marriage" (with legal benefits), moreso than a religious one (with God's blessing).
Often, LGBTs compare the gay rights movement with the American Civil Rights movement, a comparison that irks some: "We are captivated by the visible aspect of this movement, i.e. the rallies, the marches, the speeches... but we need to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are not nor will we ever be like that movement. Certainly there are similarities, but we get so entranced by what happened back then that we don't seem to have perspective. [We need to] get away from the African-American civil rights movement terminology. Certainly we should use it as a blueprint but we should also be trying to establish our own style in fighting for our rights."
It's good to differentiate the two. Though LGBTs face wide-scale institutionalized homophobia, this is Stonewall 2.0 (or 4.0, depending on how you count), an era where social networking mobilized nationwide protests this last Saturday. While boycotts are a good start, phone banks, online ads, door-to-door canvassing, letters to the editor, and grassroots attention cast on local homophobia are an integral part of keeping gay rights in the national limelight. Likewise, instead of waiting for gay celebrities to speak or donate or the Human Rights Campaign (who stayed mostly silent throughout the election) to fight our battles for us, we need to seek out gay leaders in our own communities.
In Harvey Milk's famous 1978 Call to Action speech, Milk calls on gays to activate, demonstrate, and legislate—all equally important that will give hope to present-day and future gays in America, but everywhere. Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man ever elected to public office.
Obama's election and the passage of Prop 8 made the morning of November 5th an ambivalent one for gay Americans. Obama's election didn't prove that America had matured beyond its racist origins—if anything, Obama's election has brought those ages-old racism boiling to the surface. Moments after he was declared President-elect, the mostly-white newscasters finally acknowledged some positive contribution of blacks and Latinos to the U.S. campaign. Viewed side-by-side, Obama's election and the passage of Proposition 8 aren't endings, but the beginning recognitions of larger social inequalities. Just as blacks, Latinos, and Asians must fight for greater positive representation and voice in mainstream news and entertainment, so to must we gays fight for civil protection. And we must do it on our own terms, not those handed down by the civil rights movement or arguments framed by so-called "pro-family" groups, but with wit, style, and verve. We need to speak truth to power, casting light on those who would seek to deny us and the socio-economic costs of denying us children and legal protection, and avoid the physical or emotional violence that we've been subjected to for years.
After this weekend of historic LGBT protests against Prop 8, we're curious... what do you think individual LGBTs can do to help the gay rights movement at large?
(SMALL UPDATE: Here's a parting shot... thanks for reading.)
19
QC Asians
Reader Comments
Your 2¢, in chronological order — add your comment below.
There is also one small part that never gets mentioned, the damage we gays do to ourselves when we insist on living in the closet.
It is harder to turn your back on someone you know then turn your back on a concept. It doesn't matter if you are a celebrity or just Joe Blow down the street. People will not see us as normal and intigral parts of society if they don't know WHO we are.
Even when I lived in San Diego, I could not believe how many of my straight friends only knew of, but DID KNOW, a homosexual or lesbian until they met me and my friend.
While they were not against homosexuals, just knowing us as PEOPLE gave the issues we face as LGBT community new meaning.
Wanda Sykes just became public ... as she never felt the need to make a big issue about being gay ... just like hetrosexuals don't make a big deal about being straight. That is the song and dance many LGBT's practice. The bottom line is though, while we can't get married, adopt children, build family legecies, have legal rights with our partners when it comes to medical, property, death, and children ... then it is a big deal.
If it is normal, we need to be taking about our boyfriends, our girlfriends, not our partners. We need to be seen in public with together, at office parties, company picnics etc. If we are going to do the song and dance routine, we need to walk the walk, because this is one show that is not over yet.
Mr. Savage should not be praised. He's the idiot who started this whole Black bashing.
Out of all the NO Prop 8 campaign ads why were all the 'couples' white? you tell me they couldn't find two black gay couples in the whole state of Cali. They had Mary J. Blige perform at a fundraiser, they should of had her do an ad instead that would of helped in the black community. I didn't see the LGBT community reach out to the black/latino community.
Then white gay's thought ''oh let me vote for a black guy and blacks will vote our way.''
This was the most thoughtful, provocative, and challenging analysis I've yet read on the passage of Prop 8. A job remarkably well done.
Some voters may have been motivated by religious concerns, but the vast majority of the Pro-8 voters had concerns about the following issues:
WHY CALIFORNIA PASSED PROPOSITION 8
Marriage is the legal, social, economic and spiritual union of a man and a woman. One man and one woman are necessary for a valid marriage. If that definition is radically altered then anything is possible. There is no logical reason for not letting several people marry, or for eliminating other requirements, such as minimum age, blood relative status or even the limitation of the relationship to human beings. Those who are trying to radically redefine California's marriage laws for their own purposes are the ones who are trying to impose their values on the rest of the population. Those citizens opposed to any change in California's marriage statutes are merely defending the basic morality that has sustained the culture for everyone against a radical attack.
When same-sex couples seek California's approval and all the benefits that the state reserves for married couples, they impose the law on everyone. According non-marital relationships the same status as marriage would mean that millions of people would be disenfranchised by their own governments. The state would be telling them that their beliefs are no longer valid, and would turn the civil rights laws into a battering ram against them.
Law is not a suggestion, as George Washington observed, "it is force". An official state sanction of same-sex relationships as "marriage" would bring the full apparatus of the state against those who believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. This has already happened in Massachusetts (CatholicCharities and Lexington Public Schools), New Jersey (Methodist Church lost its tax exemption), etc. The Protect Marriage Coalition views this as outlawing traditional morality.
Eliminating one entire sex from an institution defined as the union of the two sexes is a quantum leap from eliminating racial discrimination, which did not alter the fundamental character of marriage. Marriage reflects the natural moral and social law evidenced the world over. As the late British social anthropologist Joseph Daniel Unwin noted in his study of world civilizations, any society that devalued the nuclear family soon lost what he called "expansive energy," which might best be summarized as society's will to make things better for the next generation. In fact, no society that has loosened sexual morality outside of man-woman marriage has survived.
Analyzing studies of cultures spanning several thousands of years on several continents, Harvard sociologist Pitirim Sorokin found that virtually all political revolutions that brought about societal collapse were preceded by a sexual revolution in which marriage and family were devalued by the culture’s acceptance of homosexuality.
When marriage loses its unique status, women and children most frequently are the direct victims. Giving same-sex relationships or out-of-wedlock heterosexual couples the same special status and benefits as the marital bond would not be the expansion of a right but the destruction of a principle. . If the one-man/one-woman definition of marriage is broken, there is no logical stopping point for continuing the assault on marriage.
If feelings are the key requirement, then why not let three people marry, or two adults and a child, or consenting blood relatives of any age? . Marriage-based kinship is essential to stability and continuity in our state. Child abuse is much more prevalent when a living arrangement is not based on kinship. Kinship imparts family names, heritage, and property, secures the identity and commitment of fathers for the sake of the children, and entails mutual obligations to the community.
The US Supreme Court declared in 1885 that states' marriage laws must be based on "the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman in the holy estate of matrimony; the sure foundation of all that is stable and noble in our civilization, the best guaranty of that reverent morality which is the source of all beneficent progress in social and political improvement.''
Dispel a racial myth? Like you said, over 70% of black people voted against the measure. There's no myth to dispel. The facts speak for themselves. What if it that had been lowered to say, 50% overall. Probably would've passed...
People who voted for Prop 8...
You missed one. How about people who are Free and excercise their right to cast a private vote in what we call a democracy.
What the H is wrong with you people. This is a free country that is based on popular decision rule. It's just not the time yet.
Stop the stupid Pride parades and .. hmm.. maybe people will start taking us seriously.
Grow up. We are NOT entitled. YOU have to WORK to EARN peoples' respect, regardless of their red or blue status. We CANNOT expect activist judges or protests of free-voting results to ever earn us an ounce of respect.
AND I'm SO tired of ACTORS speaking for me. HOLLYWOOD does not speak for me - especially POSERS like Cynthia Nixon. Where are the real intellegent gays... hmm, NOT on Larry King.
They are slowly and honestly earning peoples respect and changing peoples perceptions, through everyday good deeds and hard honest work.
Obama has so lead us off track. The politics of HATE and ENVY will get you no where.
:(
There is no possible way to travel to Utah or to patronize Utah businesses without financing the multitude of bigoted crusades of the Mormon Church. If you want to end oppression, you have to follow the money trail. You have to fight back. No one ever is given their rights.
Uh Tom, When have the white gay power elite ever supported African American causes and issues? Yet suddenly, white homosexuals demand support from blacks?
I agree that "scapegoating" is not productive, but, at the same time, we need to face the facts. 51% of whites and asians voted no. 70% of blacks and 53% of hispanics voted yes. I don't understand the point in the post regarding blacks and hispanics not tipping the balance in any county. The result is not based on county-by-county voting--it's based on raw numbers. Thus, if 51% of blacks and hispanics had voted no, Prop 8 would have failed. It isn't racist or divisive to say that--it's factual. We need to focus on changing hearts and minds within the black and hispanic communities. Denying that there is an issue for the sake of political correctness isn't productive. All that being said, the exit polling reveals that the real divide is religion. People who attend church once a week or more voted over 80% yes. People who never attend church voted over 80% no. Like it or not, we are going to have to build bridges with the relgious communities if we want to defeat these types of measures.
You guys should stick to porn. Social scientists ye are not.
We aren't mad that blacks/latinos put it over the top...we aren't stupid enough to think they as groups could do that. We argue that the PERCANTAGES in which they voted for prop 8 are stunning and discriminatory. It's the level of support in their communities which speaks of deeper ideologies.
Is that really that hard to understand? Or are you still going to be apologists for their behaviour?
Comment on Bot:
Your arguments are based on a couple of key assumptions, which I believe are wrong:
1) Marriage is a public committment that is recognized by the state. You can have a marriage without children, without love, without fidelity...but you cannot have a marriage without committment. A marriage ends the moment the parties involved publically announce their separation (i.e. their divorce). What we are talking about here is the secular state recognizing the committment between two people of the same sex. The ultimate question is whether the state should subordinate its laws in accordance with the will of the church or vice versa. No church has been required to perform same-sex marriages in the US or in any of the countries where same-sex marriage is legal (Canada, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, South Africa). Whether a secular, justice of the peace should be required to perform a same-sex marriage is a different issue.
2) Acknowledging the committment of two people of the same sex does NOT mean that the state has to acknowledge the committment of three or more people, or relatives, or with animals, etc. This was the same "road to ruin" argument that was used to prevent interracial marriage. The state has the right examine each issue individually based on its own argument and merits. Ruling on same-sex marriage does not affect polygamous marriages.
3) The case being made with same-sex marriage is that prohibiting it discriminates against a minority group, i.e. homosexuals. But you have to assume that 'homosexuals" are a distinct group based on their innate, unchangeable sexual orientation. Ultimately, what Bot is saying is that homosexuality is a choice, and therefore the state is not obligated to accept the choices of people who "choose" to marry people of the same sex. This is the heart of the debate. What makes the same-sex marriage case different from that of polygamy is that polygamy is clearly a behaviorial choice.
4) The idea that homosexuality brought about the downfall of civilization is completely baseless. Homosexuality has been a part of human (and animal) behavior for as long as recorded history and probably longer. Homosexuality has persisted in all civilizations but there is NO CAUSAL CONNECTION between the decline of a civilization and homosexuality.
5) Marriage, however, has been redefined many times - from allowing interfaith marriages, interracial marriages, paying for brides, keeping multiple wives, taking underage wives. There is also significant evidence of same-sex committment ceremonies taking place in the early Christian Church, for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions
6) The current same-sex debate is the natural results of modern, secular society. We do not necessarily need to marry to have children anymore. Marriage is a personal choice to publically make a committment to another person. Gays and lesbians are free to have children through other partners or artificial insemination. You cannot stop this. The question is how the state is going to treat those relations and the resulting children. Refusing to honor the committment between the two parents through same-sex marriage and accord the corresponding benefits only harms the children of those parents. The state has an interest in recognizing and affirming the committment of the parents, be they two men or two women, in order to provide as much support to the couple and any resulting children as possible.
7) The idea that same-sex committments should recognized as something other than marriage, i.e. "civil unions" is also not valid. In any marriage the state is simply acknowledging the committment of two individuals to be treated as a single unit. Creating a separate institution for same-sex committments makes no sense because the committment between a same-sex couple is EXACTLY THE SAME as that of an opposite sex couple. It's a question of equal treatment before the law.
It also does not respect the rights of churches e.g. Unitarians, Buddhists, Episcopalians, who are willing to "marry" same sex couples. It would also be unfair because any potential federal benefits that may be accorded to married couples would not necessarily apply to "civil unions" in individual states, unless the federal government would standardize marriages and "civil unions" across the nation. So much for state's rights...
Ultimately, in a few years, when the biological roots of homosexuality are widely known and about as immoral as left-handedness, objections to same-sex marriage will same as misguided and bigoted as we currently view opponents of interracial marriage.
Tom is absolutely correct. There is no myth here: Black voters came out strongly against gay marriage. 70% is a very significant number, and not something to simply overlook.
And I'm sorry, but I can't help but feel the author is attempting to white wash the issue, to prevent offending blacks.
Black voters slapped gay couples in the face. Plain and simple. It was bigoted, homophobic and small minded of them to vote "Yes" on Prop 8. And there is no need to worry about saying that, because it's simply the truth.
Regardless of whether or not black voters tipped the scale against gay marriage, they still stabbed us in the back, and they ought to be called out on their bigotry.
go to married in europe, jesus loves all, to be married it's the union of 2 pple
To Brandon: To stab someone in the back means that you had to be friends with them in the first place right? How many black friends or people do you interact with again? My guess from your tone is zero. What a surprise that they didn't come rushing to your support, especially when absolutely no campaigning or education was done to this often neglected and overlooked minority from gay whites.
Just wanna say it's a well-written analysis. Keep up the good work, I love the topic/event-based orientation, don't get too biased because we are far out on the pro-gay scale.
Dear Bot,
I'm not going to give an overly complicated argument to your ideas about why Prop 8 is good, however, i will say that here in Canada, it is legal across our great country for gays to marry. I assure you, with this passage of equal rights, our churches are still intact, people are still happy, and gays move towards greater equality. Our country isn't shattering, and in fact, we are the number one country holding ourselves together during this horrible economic state that the US and UK has caused! Bravo to Canada!
Other than that, i do have to comment on one other thing:
Pitirim Sorokin was a widely controversial sociologist, and you'll find that his theories are not heavily relied upon, or even studied in todays universities. Before you say it, just because he founded the Sociology department at Harvard in 1930, does not mean that he is not a bigot. Sociology may be the study of people, but theories, including Sorokin's, can be easily founded based on personal bias, unrealistic research, and bad case studies. Anyone can pull out enough facts that make one thing look like something else (in the case of his ideas that all revolutions have been post sexual revolutions which completely lacks looking at all other social issues of the times)
Finally, it is NOT the government's job to support religious beliefs, but to support the public of it's respective country. It is your religions job to support it's beliefs. THe USA has many different belief systems through out, and you CAN NOT expect the government to please all religions. This is why separation of church and state is of the utmost importance. Government is for society as a whole, including gays, not religious groups. Religion no longer runs the world. Maybe you should get your head out of the classical period.
In response to everyone that focuses so much on which race voted what in this election....get over it!
Race has absolutely NOTHING to do with beliefs. Depending on these nurtured environments is what made them choose to vote yes or no on prop 8, not their skin colour. You all should be ashamed of yourselves for focusing so much on which race voted for what. We are supposed to help our fellow minorities in reaching equality, not push them down and blame them. Yes, a large portion of African americans (i hate that term...because not everyone who is black is from Africa..) or Latino voters voted for Prop. 8....i'm willing to bet that many had no real idea what they were voting for based on how confusing the legislation was, or the fact that none of the advertising was direct at them about this issue. Shame on us for not educating everyone equally on why this was important to us. Shame on us for putting so many limitations on the advertisements. Shame on us for being racist and assuming that black and latino voters would understand our sufferings, and ignoring the need to talk to all of california.
Theres hardly any black people on this website, of course they are not going to feel part of the gay community.. They will just discriminate themselves, and be on the down low, why do you think they are still hiding their sexuality, maybe because the gay community is just focusing on straight white people accepting gay white people.
No wonder there is a need for GAY BLACK PRIDE.
[...] on the other side of the world, where people are supposed to be positively aggressive, they just made out a stand to ban the legality of same-sex marriages (for more in-depth discussion of topic, also called Proposition8, head over at NSFW Queerclick) [...]
While it seems to me that change is required from the top-down, I can say that as a friend to many GLBT's, but being heterosexual myself, that change from a grassroots level is also required. Most bigoted ideas are rooted in ignorance, that is, a lack of knowledge and understanding. Instead of focusing on the bigotry and the feelings of anger that it inspires, perhaps we could all try to find common ground, understand each other, and work from there. You are always going to find ignorant people who will never become open-minded, but instead of reacting to them, how about reaching out to those who we can change? Education and exposure is what's needed, and if that is given in a united, respectful way, then change will happen. But it may take time and patience- no mountain was moved in a day.
BTW, I wept in disbelief and sadness when Prop 8 passed, as did many other white heterosexuals in CA. I felt it was a major setback for this country and for human rights.