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When activists went to places like Fresno and Modesto, it wasn't to shout, but to discuss, says Rebecca Prozan, who works in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.
Prozan, as much as anyone, is aware of the shifting activist strategies that emerged post-Prop. 8: She organized the first public civil-union ceremonies in 1996 as Mayor Willie Brown's liaison to the LGBT community. The first 100 ceremonies were filmed in the Herbst Theatre; those videos gave the nation an early glimpse of same-sex commitment ceremonies. Hundreds of civil unions followed.
Sixteen years later, she emphasizes how a face-to-face meeting can spark larger transformations than watching something on a television screen. After Prop. 8 passed, and activists visited people in California's conservative strongholds, those conversations made a lasting impression. "You see that that kid was nice, that he didn't have horns on his head," Prozan says. Perhaps the movement's greatest success was in the activism of personal relationships.
Jessica Hopen had seen plenty of gay marriage in the media, but it wasn't until she encountered it in her everyday life that things changed.
Hopen was 20 when she converted to Mormonism to marry her Mormon boyfriend. Although she went through periods of distance from the church, she still went to temple, followed the Word of Wisdom, and tithed 10 percent of her income.
She later divorced her husband, but when she moved from Washington state to Sebastopol in the wake of Prop. 8, she sought out the local Mormon church. At the same time, she befriended a gay couple, Robert and Maben Rainwater, who had three kids, just like she did. They became close enough to drive Hopen home after a surgery and help her new husband with a backyard construction project. Their friendship made Hopen confront her stereotypes about gay men, but she still didn't think they should marry.
Last June, the Rainwaters invited her to a local production of Prop. 8 Love Stories, Brian Glenn Bryson's play crafted around interviews with same-sex couples. Those couples included Equality California's Molly McKay and her wife, and the Rainwaters. In one scene, a gay couple is portrayed by a man and a woman, and something clicked in Hopen's mind.
"It dawns on me that, 'Oh my God, they're just like me,'" Hopen says. "I had blown off the fact that my church had given $20 million towards Prop. 8. I realized, I can't ignore this anymore. This really hurts my friends. So I stopped going to church."
Hopen left the Mormon church in 2011 after explaining her feelings to her priest. She says there's still a huge hole in her life where that structure and support is missing, but she doesn't regret her choice. "It's wrong. It's not God's church," she says.
It's a significant gesture, considering that nearly $2.8 million of the $39 million backing Prop. 8 came from the Utah headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Heterosexual marriage is "at the heart of God's plan for His children," church spokesman Eric Hawkins says in an e-mail. Hawkins is untroubled by the dramatic shift in public opinion over the past four years; the church will continue to defend the idea of "traditional marriage," he writes.
For people like Hopen, that means leaving the church behind.
In the past four years, many people must have had similar changes of heart. In 2008, 39 percent of the nation supported same-sex marriage, and 51 percent opposed it, according to Pew polls. By 2012, the numbers had almost flipped; 48 percent backed same-sex marriage, while 44 percent opposed it.
In California, the shift is even more dramatic. In 2008, Field Poll reported that 51 percent of Californians supported same-sex marriage, and 42 percent opposed it. In 2012, support rose to 59 percent while the opposition shrank to 34 percent.
To some extent, the change in public opinion can be chalked up to demographics, according to Pew. Millennials, born after 1981 and known for their relative liberalism, show large numbers of same-sex marriage backers, increasing from 54 percent in 2008 to 63 percent this year. Perhaps surprisingly, 10 percent more of America's elder Silent Generation also endorsed same-sex marriage in the same period.
But while same-sex marriage is legal in six states — Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont — and Washington D.C., 30 states have adopted constitutional amendments banning it, and voters in nine other states have approved statutory bans.
Those laws suggest that the numbers shown by Pew and Field Poll are bogus, says Frank Schubert. Schubert is the consultant behind Prop. 8 and marriage bans in Maine and North Carolina. He's running four campaigns this fall for the National Organization for Marriage, either banning same-sex marriage or fighting marriage-equality initiatives in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington state.
To date, Schubert hasn't lost a campaign. But this is the first time he's worked four at once. Volunteers and signatures have been easy to come by, but fundraising has been tough. NOM is "stretched thin" by the effort, he says.
"I don't agree there's growing support for same-sex marriage. What you see in these polls is a reflection of how questions are asked. We're seeing questions such as, 'Should same-sex marriage be legal or illegal?' That's a biased question." He also predicts that once more Millennials reach marrying age, they'll prefer heterosexual definitions of marriage.
While Schubert and NOM are sticking with the scare tactics that have worked for the past 12 years — such as claiming that children will be forced to learn about same-sex marriage in kindergarten — Equality California is testing another grassroots approach to fighting back. Lately, it's experimenting with a concept called "breakthrough conversation," in which LGBT people point out to friends and family — people who already consider themselves egalitarian — instances where they're not treating others equally.
