Barbara Boxer: Marriage Fight Not Over

In a post-Election Day press conference in Los Angeles, California U.S. senator Barbara Boxer said the passage of Prop. 8 by voters was not the end of the civil rights struggle for marriage equality.

Boxer said that despite fellow Democrat Barack Obama's historic presidential win and gains in both the U.S. House and Senate for her party, Prop. 8 "put a damper effect" on her election night.

Prop. 8 bans same-sex marriage in California. Though Yes on 8 claimed victory this morning, No on 8 has yet to officially concede, saying 3 million provisional ballots have yet to be counted by the secretary of state.

"This is so not over," Boxer said at a Wednesday press conference held jointly with California Democratic Party chairman Art Torres. "The fight for equality goes on and on. The fight for a more perfect union goes on and on."

Boxer said she did not appear in TV ads that urged voters to vote no on Prop. 8, like fellow Californian U.S. senator Dianne Feinstein did, because she was not asked.

"The campaign asked me to do certain things, send e-mails, do calls," she said. "I did whatever they asked me. I would have done anything."

Boxer said she "was very proud of Dianne. Maybe they felt one senator spoke for both of us. She surely did speak for me; I was very proud of her words, and by the way, I thought her words were very persuasive."

Boxer pointed out that all the votes still had to be counted. She also suggested the fight might go back to the courts.

"There may be some inconsistencies with our law and our constitution still, so there will be legal challenges that will move forward," she said.

When asked by a reporter if she thought the use of San Francisco mayor and marriage equality supporter Gavin Newsom in Yes on 8 spots was a factor in the voting, Boxer snapped, "I'm not going to comment on that. You're the pundits -- you take your polls and point out what works and what doesn't."

Boxer noted that she recently saw the film Milk, a biography of slain San Francisco gay rights leader Harvey Milk.

"What I came away with was what a struggle it's been, going back to the olden days where people had to hide their faces from the cameras and get thrown into jail just for being who they are," she said. "It was a terrible time in our country.

"And if you brought someone back from those days who had been asleep all those years, and they saw how far along we progressed, they would say, 'Wow.' And then you'd say, 'Yes, but we lost gay marriage by two points or three points.' They would say, 'Keep on working.' "

A Rematch in 2010?

After the press conference, Torres said he wanted to look carefully at the voting data to see exactly where and how Prop. 8 passed.

"The analysis now will give us lessons in the future," Torres said, while adding that Democrats need to make sure all the votes are counted in the race. "We have to look back and figure where the numbers are."

One tactic used by the Yes on 8 campaign particularly frustrated Torres: a robocall featuring the voice of Obama that seemed to indicate the Democratic presidential nominee was for Yes on 8.

Obama has stated he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, but he encouraged voters to vote no on 8.

"There was a lot of confusion," Torres said, noting that the amount of money spent by Yes on 8 supporters the Knights of Columbus and the Mormon Church was "obscene."

"I guess they don't need to fund the choir anymore," Torres said of the Mormons, who encouraged their members to donate tens of millions to the Yes on 8 campaign. "These people should be thinking about charity at home, not taking away human rights."

Torres thinks the next potential same-sex marriage political battleground may take place in 2010, when another ballot measure could be introduced to overturn Prop. 8 and remove the ban from the state constitution. But that scenario does not come without a price for Torres, since reigniting the marriage debate could make life difficult for many important Democrats running for office.

"Obviously it is going to be tough on Democrats, because it's a gubernatorial year and [Boxer] is up for reelection," he said. "But this issue is more important than all of that, in my opinion. We need to look at 2010 as a potential initiative drive again."