SAN FRANCISCO — At churches, shopping centers, schools and local Tea Party meetings in California, fired-up volunteers have started gathering signatures for a ballot referendum that would repeal the nation’s first law requiring public schools to include prominent gay people and gay- rights milestones in school lessons.
Organizers of the Stop SB48 campaign— Senate Bill 48 was the law approved by the California Legislature and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in July — are telling would-be voters the mandate would inappropriately expose young children to sex, infringe on parental rights and silence religion-based criticisms of homosexuality.
Those are talking points successfully used by proponents of Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage in California.
But so far, Mormon and Catholic church leaders and conservative groups who spearheaded the Proposition 8 campaign have not joined the effort.
Political operatives say they can’t recall any citizens’ initiative that made the state ballot without professional petition circulators in almost three decades.
“If someone wrote a million-dollar check, we would be guaranteed to get this on the ballot,” said Pacific Justice Institute president Brad Dacus, whose legal aid firm wrote the proposed measure. “That’s not the case at this point.”
Supporters have until Oct. 12 to collect 504,760 signatures from registered voters to qualify the measure for the ballot.
