Opponents of gay marriage stay mostly quiet – for now

Opponents of gay marriage made a pointed effort today to keep a low profile on the first full day of same-sex ceremonies.

Ron Prentice, chairman of ProtectMarriage.com, wrote in an e-mail to supporters that they will battle in November with a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage.

Prentice had a cautionary message for those protesting Tuesday’s ceremonies. Media outlets, he warned, “would love to see us engage in fierce protests and hostile demonstrations of outrage. … We must not fall into this trap.”

There were only a scattering of isolated protests around the state.

A few people carried placards at the county facilities in Norwalk and Santa Ana. In San Diego, a lone protester stood on the sidewalk and cried out a message against same-sex marriage. “It’s just not right for a man to marry a man; it’s just not normal,” said the protester, Dennis Agajanian, a member of Bikers for Christ.

But his protest was largely drowned out by supporters and well-wishers. “Love is in the air today,” said Margaux Lanoie, a volunteer with the Equality for All Campaign.

At the Glendale studios of KRLA, conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager fielded questions on same-sex marriage throughout the morning and argued that its legality undermined the will of California voters.

He described marriage as “the central institution of Western civilization” and said he believed “the cavalier treatment of it will come to haunt us.”

“If love is your criterion, why do you have the chutzpah to ban polygamy?” he asked a caller.

Randy Thomasson, the founder of the Campaign for Children and Families, said one reason why there was no organized opposition to the marriages Tuesday was that the spectacle of men marrying men and women marrying women needed no elaboration. “If someone is singing a good song, you don’t go and try to interrupt it,” he said.

Political strategists said the decision not to have organized protests was a good one.

Rob Stutzman, who ran the successful state ballot initiative in 2000 that defined marriage as between a man and a woman, said that the anti-gay marriage side has to be careful not to alienate voters by appearing right-wing. “These campaigns should be seeking to run their messaging as mainstream as possible,” he said.

Still, ProtectMarriage.com did take advantage of the political spotlight to send out a fundraising appeal Tuesday. Saying that the debate about same-sex marriage “is not over,” Prentice asked supporters to help fund television and radio advertisements in support of a November ballot initiative that would define marriage in the state as a union between a man and a woman.

The group, a coalition of conservative organizations and churches, including Focus on the Family, submitted 1.1 million signatures earlier this year for the ballot measure, which would amend the state constitution. If the initiative passes, it would undo the California Supreme Court ruling that found that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was unconstitutional and which allowed same-sex couples to marry, starting Tuesday. It is unclear how that initiative would affect same-sex couples married before November.

“Our purpose is to reaffirm the traditional definition of marriage,” Prentice said.

Jeff Flint, the spokesman and strategist for the campaign to amend the constitution, said his group would not be protesting because it did not want the campaign to be about the weddings taking place this week. As he saw it, the campaign is about whether marriage should be defined as only between a man and a woman. “We don’t need to complicate it,” he said, before the weddings began.

The small protests that did occur today generated little excitement.

“They’re saying, ‘I’m for Jesus.’ But nobody’s really responding,” said Eileen Shea, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder in Norwalk. “It was a very happy day for lots of folks. I think it’s going to take a lot to take the cheer out of the atmosphere for these folks.”

In Lancaster officials said that as many as 10 people gathered to protest gay marriage at a county building but that they were gone by lunchtime.

“We were notified of it. We went over there,” said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. David Chambers in Lancaster. “They didn’t cause any problems. We didn’t have to kick anybody out.”

Chambers said he thought their choice of locale was odd.

“We don’t have marriages” there, he said. “But that’s OK; they can protest.”

 cara.dimassa@latimes.com

 jessica.garrison@latimes.com

Times staff writers Christopher Goffard, Evelyn Larrubia and Tony Perry contributed to this report.