Last week, I was one of more than 12,000 people who arrived in San Diego for the 136th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.  Doctors, nurses, scientists, healthcare professionals, advocates, and students from all around the world came together for a common purpose: To celebrate our work in public health, and to promote research and activities that help improve the health of our nation at the federal, state, and local levels.

When I arrived at my hotel room last Saturday, the first thing I saw when I flipped on the TV was a commercial in support of Proposition 8.  The ad was designed to dredge up voters' worst fears about a future where homosexual couples are allowed to marry.  With an ominous soundtrack playing in the background, the narrator warns the audience about the danger of allowing young children to be taught about gay marriage in school, as though voting No on 8 would open the floodgates that would threaten not just traditional marriage, but our educational system and our kids.

The next day, I had a conversation with a fellow APHA member and a resident of California.  This is a person whose political views I would describe as left-of-center.  He spoke passionately about how our broken health care system prevents women in low-income communities from getting appropriate access to care, and that it needs to change.  He joked with me that he wonders if George Bush will leave the office of the President by giving the country just one more economic or foreign policy disaster in his last two months in office.  And when I brought up the recent $7 billion loan requested by the California governor, he told me, "Hey, don't blame me.  I didn't vote for Schwarzenegger."

At some point in our conversation, the issue of Proposition 8 came up.  It turns out that prior to the convention, there had been a controversy surrounding Doug Manchester, a San Diego developer and owner of the downtown Manchester Grand Hyatt, where hundreds of APHA members were staying and in some cases presenting their work.  Manchester had recently made a personal donation of $125,000 to the campaign supporting Proposition 8.  I had been planning on attending an alumni reception for my grad school with some friends, which was conveniently being held later that night on the second floor terrace of the Hyatt.  But I mentioned my concern that, despite my opposition to the bill, I would be harassed by protesters simply by entering the building and, by association, supporting a hotel owned by a homophobic bigot (although an organized protest never materialized).

My colleague turned to me and said, "You know, I've decided how I'm going to vote on every issue except that one.  I'm torn on Prop 8."

My head jerked up.  "Really?" I said, thinking, you've gotta be kidding me.  "Why is that?"

"Well," he said, "I don't have a problem with gay marriage.  But I'm worried about kids getting taught things like gay marriage in school.  I think parents should be the ones to discuss that with their kids, not teachers."  My mind immediately flashed back towards that ad.  The APHA conference was comprised of a predominantly liberal audience, yet here was a member who still seemed to buy into the narrator's talking point, which is exactly what the ad's goal was.  "But I don't know," he continued.  "When I think about discrimination and human rights . . . I really don't know how to vote on that."

I had always assumed that anybody who would vote for banning gay marriage was really voting for no other reason than fear and prejudice towards homosexuality.  How shocked I was to realize that even progressive-minded people might still support such a ban.  How strange it is to think that good, reasonable people with no history of intolerance towards the gay and lesbian community - the farthest thing from senseless bigots - might still vote to deny homosexual couples the same marital rights that heterosexual couples enjoy.

I tried my hardest to see it from his point of view.  Perhaps some hot-button political topics are too complex or too controversial to be taught to children in school.  Perhaps they are too young and there is too great a risk that a biased school teacher will force-feed them only one side of the argument.  Perhaps for the sake of consistency, schools should not teach kids about straight marriage either, and leave the entire issue of marriage up to the parents.

The problem with this line of thinking is that unfortunately, too many parents continue to teach their kids that homosexuality is scary, immoral, and a choice.  Prohibiting the discussion of gay marriage in schools still allows prejudice towards homosexuality to fester in the homes of intolerant parents.  When I asked for his opinion, one member of the APHA's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Caucus put it this way: "Look, children are going to learn about gay marriage anyway.  Are teachers supposed to ignore kids that have two mommies or two daddies?  Are they supposed to tell them that they're different or inferior to the kids with straight parents?"

Furthermore, for millions of gay and lesbian people in this country, the issue of same-sex marriage is more than just a hot-button political topic - it's a civil and human rights issue that affects their daily lives.  The rationale that voters must support Proposition 8 to protect children's education cloaks the bill's true intent.  Section 7.5 of Proposition 8 contains only fourteen words and it reads as follows:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

That's all it says.  Nowhere in this bill does it say anything about children's education and same-sex marriage.  The threat of gay marriage infecting our kids' schools is just another slippery-slope tool in the family values arsenal against homosexuality.  The Yes On 8 ad that I saw in my hotel room, along with many others like it, employs the same scare tactics on display in one of John McCain's more infamous ads this political season - specifically, the attack ad that accused Barack Obama of supporting a bill in the Illinois state senate that would force schools to teach comprehensive sex education to kindergarteners.  Contrary to McCain's claims, the sex education bill actually stipulated that children should be taught how to recognize inappropriate touching and behavior by sexual predators.  Several news outlets rightly called McCain out on his lies in the days following the ad's release.  Similarly, the ads for the Yes On 8 campaign distort the real issue at hand.  Proposition 8 is not a bill that would simply ban teaching the issue of gay marriage in California schools; it would ban gay marriage in California altogether.

Before and after Election Day, progressive voters - both gay and straight - need to do everything possible to challenge the conservative notion that permitting same-sex marriage is somehow dangerous for our children's education.  As a voter in Pennsylvania, I do not have an electoral say on the California ballot.  But I did ask my APHA colleague to consider two questions when he votes on Proposition 8:

1.  How would I vote for this bill if I had a gay child?
2.  How would I vote for this bill if instead it were a bill to ban straight marriage?

I don't know if these questions will help sway him one way or another.  But I do know that I respect him for his work and service to public health, and will continue to respect him regardless of how he votes.  I sincerely hope that in his heart of hearts that, if he feels that discrimination against gay and lesbian couples is wrong, he will vote No on 8.  The real question is, how many other voters with no ostensible prejudice will show up on November 4 with a similar, conflicted mindset, and then vote Yes?  The worst outcome for opponents of Proposition 8 might not be that the bill passes because of pushback from religious, conservative groups.  The real nightmare might be that the bill could pass because enough liberal-minded voters supported it.

At the APHA's closing session, former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona spoke about his mentor C. Everett Koop's heroic 1986 report on the AIDS epidemic.  According to Carmona - no stranger to political controversy in the office of the Surgeon General himself - Koop's inspirational turning point was when government officials went on TV declaring that AIDS was God's way of punishing homosexuality.  The urgency of the AIDS epidemic compelled Koop, a politically conservative physician with strong religious convictions, to make the following statement to Congress: "It is time to put self-defeating attitudes aside and recognize that we are fighting a disease - not people.  We must control the spread of AIDS, and at the same time offer the best we can to care for those who are sick."

The wisdom of Koop's words is all the more impressive given the context of the national AIDS crisis.  Despite pressure from the Reagan Administration, Koop chose science over ideology, health over inequity, and reason over bigotry.  On November 4, voters in California will have a similar choice.  They have the opportunity to reject the smears and the divisiveness of Proposition 8, and embrace a culture of acceptance and love for the gay and lesbian community.  I will hope and pray from the East Coast that they do.