{"id":689,"date":"2008-09-25T17:24:37","date_gmt":"2008-09-26T01:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=689"},"modified":"2009-09-25T21:42:09","modified_gmt":"2009-09-26T05:42:09","slug":"hard-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/?p=689","title":{"rendered":"Hard Sell"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of a ruling by the Supreme Court of the State of California that required the state to recognize and effect same-sex marriage, there is a measure, Proposition 8, on the ballot to amend the state constitution to halt recognition of further same-sex marriages. I oppose this measure, though (as I have stated various places) what I really want is for the state to get out of the marriage business altogether, and to treat marriages simply as private contracts. (I think that participants<\/em> should see marriage as far more<\/em>, but that's not the business of the state.)<\/p>

This after-noon, I stopped at the San Diego headquarters of Vote No on Prop 8<\/a> to buy a couple of bumper-stickers, one to actually slap on a bumper, and one to put on the case of my note-book computer.<\/p>

The guy who greeted me there was a fool<\/em>. Instead of just selling me a couple of bumper-stickers, he tried very aggressively to get me to make a substantial donation, starting with the idea that I should give them the equivalent of a dollar an day for a year, by donatiing $365. There isn't a fr__king year left until the election; there's about 40 days. Had he begun by suggesting a $40 donation, well, I might have gone along with that; as it was, he had my back up, and I said no to the other sums that he suggested. I gave them $5 and they gave me the two bumper-stickers that I'd sought. In addition to the bumper-stickers, I left with considerable annoyance.<\/p>

Another irksome thing, not the fault of Vote No on Prop 8<\/a>, was that I had to fill-out a d_mn'd form, because I'd made a political contribution, however small. It was a gross violation of my rights as acknowledged by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but if I didn't fill-out that form, and truthfully, then the money could be confiscated by the state.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the wake of a ruling by the Supreme Court of the State of California that required the state to recognize and effect same-sex marriage, there is a measure, Proposition 8, on the ballot to amend the state constitution to halt recognition of further same-sex marriages. I oppose this measure, though (as I have stated […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,5,4],"tags":[154,47,202,392,391,155,156,157,442],"class_list":["post-689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-ideology-philosophy","category-personal","category-public","tag-bisexuality","tag-election","tag-everyday-frustrations","tag-freedom-of-expression","tag-fundraising","tag-gay-marriage","tag-homosexuality","tag-marriage","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oeconomist.com\/blogs\/daniel\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}