Nov 28, 2008  |  By: CHRIS JOHNSON  | COMMENTS     

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said he’s “not proud” that he was featured in an advertisement aired by Proposition 8 proponents, but noted he is not “regretful” of delivering with such excitement the speech that was used in the commercial.

In a commercial aired by the “Yes on 8” campaign, Newsom was shown publicly praising the Supreme Court for ruling in favor of same-sex marriage. The mayor declared in his speech that same-sex marriage was “going to happen, whether you like it or not.”

Gay activists have said the ad was effective in moving poll numbers in favor of the measure, which California voters approved on Election Day.

Newsom told the Blade in an exclusive, 70-minute interview Wednesday that use of his image by Proposition 8 supporters was difficult for him personally to accept and made him “cringe” every time he heard it.

“I’m not proud of that moment, but I’m not regretful of what I said that day,” he said. “The history of civil rights success is not majority rules. It’s been the principles of the Constitution that protects the rights of minorities against the whim of the majority.”

He noted that he “could have said it more soberly,” but was “caught up in the moment.”

“I am emotional about this issue because I’ve dealt with it on a very personal level, because I’ve seen the faces of real human beings whose lives have been changed for the better,” he said. “Sometimes that passion gets in the way of the message and clearly that was the case here.”

Newsom, however, said he thought the commercial supporting Proposition 8 “was incredibly effective” and said “it was understandable why they would use that clip and take it out of context.”

“They took that out of context to effect and I don’t criticize them for that because it was effective,” he said.

Newsom said his speech was about “the history of civil rights struggles,” and his reference to “whether you like it or not” was not “exclusively to the issue of marriage equality.”

“I was referencing in that speech the struggle to get a majority of people to agree, and ‘whether people liked it or not’ — in most cases they did not — was my point,” he said.

Newsom noted that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned bans on interracial marriage in the 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, even though the majority of people did not support interracial marriage at the time.

In addition to repurposing his speech, Newsom said ban proponents were effective in “the fear they instilled in parents’ minds about teaching their children.”

“I thought it was extraordinarily misleading and extraordinarily manipulative and wrong, but effective nonetheless,” he said.

Newsom said he spoke with someone at the “No on 8” campaign who told him two people called to apologize because fear for their children led them to vote in favor of Proposition 8.

“And these were our voters,” he said. “They should have been ‘no’ because they actually believe in marriage equality, but they bought into that fear.”

‘Tremendous optimism’

Newsom said the passage of Proposition 8, “at the end of the day,” didn’t set back the cause of same-sex marriage rights on the national stage because “the more people talk about this issue, the more people reflect on the fact that they have friends and neighbors who are gay or lesbian.”

“The fact that people across this country are talking about the rights of gays and lesbians is, in and of itself, a very positive thing,” he said. “The more people talk, the more people realize that the gay and lesbian community is not a threat.”

Responding to conservative arguments that gay marriage devalues traditional marriage, Newsom said many “farcical” opposite-sex marriages have “diluted” the institution of marriage and “the only people who have destroyed the sanctity of marriage are straight people.”

“The gay community can actually strengthen and show by example what lifelong commitment is all about,” he said.

Newsom said protests across the country following the passage of Proposition 8 gave him “tremendous optimism,” and the protests could be effective in changing the situation in California if they’re sustained.

“If we can share that passion with real action over the next few years, then we will prevail and we will change history again, but only if it’s sustained,” he said. “Unless we keep this going, then we’re going to suffer for a longer period of time.”

Newsom said he believes many California voters who backed Proposition 8 are “regretting their vote” because “they didn’t just lock a door that was never opened, they actually closed a door that ...