G eorge Eliot once said of marriage, “What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined together to strengthen each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow, to share with each other in all gladness, to be one with each other in the silent unspoken memories?”

Forming meaningful relationships is one of the most fundamental human drives; we meet, we fall in love, some may raise families. We want to share our lives with those we love. For many, that means choosing to marry.

Romantic nonsense? Childish dreams? Fairytale dribble? Perhaps. Yet millions of people worldwide grow up dreaming and hoping they will find and marry the right person. In America and in California, however, GLBT Americans are denied the opportunity to make this choice or fulfill those dreams. In fact, there are large groups of people dedicating their time, energy and resources to making sure we will be forever denied the right to marry. Whether you would make a personal choice to marry, GLBT Americans should have the same choices other Americans do.

You’ve probably heard that there are paid and volunteer signature gatherers in San Diego gathering signatures for a petition to put a California State Constitutional Amendment on the November 2008 ballot to limit marriage in California to a man and a woman. This is a better funded effort than we have seen in the last two years, including funds from some well-known San Diegans. Gatherers have until April 21 to obtain roughly one million voter signatures and submit them for verification.

Signature gatherers are in many parts of the county, including Hillcrest. Some of the signature gatherers are reportedly overtly misleading voters into believing that they are signing a statement in favor of marriage equality, others are reportedly hastily shoving a number of clipboards in front of people so they sign without realizing what they’re supporting.

We have managed to keep this amendment off the ballot for two years. In that time, public opinion has been moving rapidly toward support of equal marriage rights. Now, the same people who fought to pass Prop 22 are worried the California Supreme Court may rule in favor of marriage equality, so opponents want to make the Court’s upcoming ruling, whatever it may be, irrelevant. They want to change the state constitution to make it impossible for us to change California’s marriage laws so that our families are treated equally. They want to make certain that we will never be able to adequately protect our families.

We cannot simply sit, watch and wait while these extremist groups try to qualify such a devastating amendment, and we certainly can’t sit idly by while they trick or manipulate people into signing things they don’t understand. We need to educate all San Diegans about their right to decline to sign.

And we need your help now! The time period is short (only nine weekends left) but we can help San Diegans understand and refuse! How can you help? Volunteer to help educate shoppers.

We’ll be training and sending volunteers to store locations where petitions are being circulated. We won’t be engaging or discussing the petitions with the paid or volunteer gatherers. Instead, we’ll be talking to the shoppers about why they may want to decline to sign. For more information and to volunteer, please call The Center’s coordinator Caroline Dessert at (619) 692-2077, ext. 111, or e-mail her at cdessert@thecentersd.org.

You can also help us track the petitions.

We need you to be on the look out for people gathering signatures and report back to Caroline Dessert at her number and e-mail listed above.

Here is what you can do:

1. Please ask what petitions signature gatherers have. In many cases, the signature gatherers will have more than one. It is OK to ask them, “What petitions do you have?”

2. Please ask them if they are paid or volunteer – that’s also OK to ask.

3. Take samples of any literature they are offering.

4. Do not engage in debate! If the conversation feels tense, move on.

5. Please report back. When you encounter signature gatherers, please e-mail the date, time, location and paid/volunteer information to cdessert@thecentersd.org.

6. If the signature gatherer misrepresents the limitations on marriage petition (e.g., tells you it is something else), please report that as well.