John R. Lott Jr. and Bradley Smith Say Prop. 8 Supporters Face a Backlash – WSJ.com.

There are 2 points of this opinion: 1) is to say that full public disclosure of financial gifts to political campaigns is like taking away a person’s right to vote secretly; and 2) the future is to intimidate people who donate to controversial campaigns. There are a few very fallacious points made.

First, the issue that a person’s political preferences should or should not be protected is not truly at stake here. This isn’t a case of either voting republican, or democrat. THAT would be about political preference. The issue here is with backing a measure which in reality took rights away from a group of people. Unless, the authors want to go on record as saying that taking away a group’s rights is a political preference. They want to make that claim, then their argument stands.

This wasn’t about protecting a person’s vote. A person can give money to both sides of an issue- happens frequently- and their actual vote is still secret and protected. And a 1 vote per person situation, that deserves to be protected. However, financial contributions to groups- that is hardly 1 person- 1 vote. For it is too easy to give massive sums of money to a cause in an effort to influence the vote, and that should never be in secret.

What would help protect a person’s right to vote secretly, and protect the public would be to take money out of the campaign.

Second is the issue of what is really happening in California and elsewhere. This isn’t about intimidating people to stop them from voting one way or the other. It is about holding people accountable for their choices. It is allowing people to vote with their wallets. So, if a restaurant wants to take money from GLBT people and become successful with that business, but they want to act in ways detrimental to those customers- then the customers have a right to take their money elsewhere.

The joke has always been that America can’t function without her Gays. Who would do everyone’s hair? Who would play the church organ’s, etc. You get the drift. So America doesn’t get to have her cake and eat it too.

The authors state: “In the aftermath of Prop. 8 we can glimpse a very ugly future.” But many of us would say that “ugly” has been around for a while already. Ugly is treating people like second class citizens. Ugly is about a slim majority taking away the rights of a group of people. Ugly is the pouring of millions of dollars into campaigns to take away those rights.