Prop. 8 sides tread lightly for swing voters

Supporters of the November ballot measure to overturn a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage in California targeted justices on the high court - not gay couples - in their first TV advertisement. On the other side, ban opponents opened their TV campaign with a 30-second spot featuring a straight couple in a long-standing traditional marriage. The question of same-sex marriage splits Californians, forcing both campaigns to tiptoe through a political minefield in an attempt to avoid angering the swing voters each side needs to win Nov. 4. While a Field Poll last month showed only 38 percent of likely voters backing Proposition 8, with 55 percent opposed, those figures may not reflect how Californians feel about same-sex marriage. A Field Poll in May, for example, found that 51 percent of registered voters opposed giving same-sex couples the right to wed. "If Californians were forced into a straight-up vote on same-sex marriage, we win," said Jeff Flint, a political consultant for the Prop. 8 campaign. But that's not what's on the ballot. Prop. 8 would overturn the California Supreme Court's ruling in May that gave same-sex couples the right to marry, and the measure asks voters to change the state Constitution to bar such nuptials. "Californians won't be willing to take away rights the government already has granted," said Steve Smith, consultant for the opposition campaign. "These are folks who are our neighbors, our co-workers, our family, people just like you and me." Local election officials were validating the signatures for the initiative that became Prop. 8 when the state's highest court, on a 4-3 vote, overturned voter-approved Prop. 22, which banned same-sex marriage in the state in 2000. (Prop. 22, unlike Prop. 8, was not a not a constitutional amendment.) Starting June 16, same-sex couples across the state were allowed to wed, and such marriages now take place everywhere in the state. SOURCE:SFGATE.COM