Gay and lesbian activist groups are working hard to defeat an experienced candidate who is running for District Attorney in Sacramento–despite the fact that she herself is a lesbian with a stack of law enforcement endorsements. The reason: they want to punish her for not speaking out against Proposition 8, the now-defunct constitutional amendment enshrining traditional marriage in California, when it was an active issue on the ballot in 2008.
The candidate, Anne Marie Schubert, is the younger brother of Frank Schubert, the Associated Press reports, who was a leading figure behind Prop 8. “She’s not a political activist in that arena and never has been,” her political consultant, Dave Gilliard, told the AP. After Prop 8 passed, she continued to decline to comment on it, partly because she was running for judge, and California discourages judges from expressing political opinions.
That is not good enough for gay and lesbian political organizations. They believe she should have “held a news conference with her then-partner and their two children denouncing the [Prop 8] initiative,” according to the AP’s Don Thompson. They have also “wanted an opportunity to punish Frank Schubert for a long time,” gay legal activist Kathleen Finnerty told Thompson–even though Prop 8 was long since struck down by the courts.
Schubert’s struggles reflect an increasing political radicalization of the gay community, which has moved far beyond arguing for tolerance and equality, and now increasingly backs efforts to enforce conformity. The same tendency has surfaced in debates over whether business owners should be forced to serve gay weddings.
If she wins, Schubert would be “the highest-ranking openly gay official in Sacramento County’s history,” the AP notes.
Photo: Schubert campaign/Facebook
This article has been corrected to reflect that Schubert is a Republican, not a Democrat.
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