SAN FRANCISCO — As in the rest of America, the Nov. 4 election is the talk of this city's famously gay Castro District.
The discussion is less about presidential candidates John McCain or Barack Obama, though, than about the ballot initiative known as Proposition 8.
Six months after California's supreme court made gay marriage legal in California, voters in the nation's biggest state will decide whether to make it illegal again. The outcome could help determine the future of gay marriage across the country.
Inside the Twin Peaks Tavern, a well-known gay bar here, Matthew Dimita equates the fight for same-sex marriage to the equal rights and civil rights movements.
"This is a human rights issue, really," Dimita said.
At the other end of the state, San Diego-area pastor Jim Garlow sees it as much more than that. Same-sex marriage, Garlow says, is nothing less than a threat to human society.
"If I were Satan, I'd want to destroy marriage as we know it on Earth," said Garlow, who heads a group of more than 1,000 religious leaders from all faiths campaigning to strike down gay marriage.
Fervent feelings on either side of the gay marriage issue aren't unique to California, of course, and this isn't the only place where the idea of same-sex unions will be put to voters Nov. 4.
Voters in Florida and Arizona also will consider bans on gay marriage. Other states, including Georgia,Texas and Ohio, already have bans on gay marriage.
What's different about California is that it already allows same-sex marriage, but is considering a measure that would take that short-lived right away.
"Always before it's been sort of an abstract discussion about marriage," said Steve Smith, campaign manager for No On 8, a group of activists trying to stop the ballot initiative. "In this case, voters are being asked, 'Should you prohibit something that in fact already happening?' "
Whatever the outcome, it could have significant national implications, supporters on both sides say. Passage of a ban here could reaffirm bans in other states. Failure could help gay rights activists convince voters in other states to reconsider.
As a result, backers on either side from around the country have been pouring money — and sending armies of people — into California.
Californians have voted against gay marriage before.
In 2000, voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the California Family Code that formally defined marriage as between a man and woman.
Four years later, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom declared his city would recognize and allow gay marriage, saying not doing so would violate the state's equal rights laws. Newsom's action prompted a firestorm of controversy and sent the issue to the state courts.
On May 15, the California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that limiting marriage to a relationship between a man and woman violated the right of equal protection guaranteed to all Californians under the state constitution.
Anticipating the judges' ruling, gay marriage opponents launched the Proposition 8 drive to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and woman.
Polls earlier this year showed that a majority of Californians opposed Proposition 8. But more recently, polling has swayed back and forth, making it anybody's guess what might happen Nov. 4.
A poll released Wednesday (Oct. 22) by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that 52 percent of voters were against a gay marriage ban, compared with 44 percent for it.
But smaller polls earlier this month by SurveyUSA showed a slight advantage for voters favoring the ban.
Chip White, spokesman for the Yes on 8 campaign, said a late push by his group has started to sway more voters. The group recently launched a major television campaign and a statewide bus tour and has organized an army of supporters who stand on street corners daily, waving signs.
At Garlow's 2,500-member Skyline Wesleyan Church east of San Diego, volunteers work almost nonstop running phone banks, producing Web seminars for organizers and church leaders, and distributing truckloads of signs and placards urging voters to approve the ban.
They've also been fasting and holding nonstop prayer sessions during the 40 days leading up to Nov. 4.
Proclaiming on its Web site that "As California Goes, So Goes the Nation," the church also is asking worshippers worldwide to convene Saturday (Nov. 1) at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, where the NFL's Chargers play, for 12 hours of praying and fasting in support of the gay marriage ban.
"Our prayer and fasting is not merely to win an election," Garlow said. "We want to see a spiritual renewal in our state and in our country."
Garlow and others say the question of gay marriage is about much more than just letting two people of the same sex get married.
If gay marriage is allowed to continue in California, he said, schools could be forced to teach children about same-sex marriage. Churches that don't perform gay marriages could be sued or lose their federal tax breaks, and ordinary citizens and small business owners could be sued for discrimination if they speak out against or choose not to work with gay couples, he said.
"This is not about two people being left alone when they quote-unquote love each other," Garlow said. "When you change the definition of marriage, you make a protected class in America, ... and if you're against it, you're automatically labeled a bigot."
California's schools aren't required to teach anything about marriage, according to the state's superintendent of schools, who has publicly criticized Yes on 8 supporters for saying otherwise. And in its May ruling, the California Supreme Court explicitly stated that churches won't have to change their policies or require officiants to marry gay couples.
Problems like the ones Garlow describes haven't occurred in California since the state started allowing gay marriage. But such problems have cropped up in other states and countries that allow gay marriage, he and others point out.
At the Twin Peaks Tavern here, Matthew Dimita said the only thing that has happened in California since gay marriage was legalized is that it has made life better for gay people.
Dimita is hopeful Proposition 8 will fail, but adds that he doesn't think controversy will end until there's federal legislation on gay marriage.
"I'm not holding my breath" for that, he said.