Mike Tidmus

Despite the shrill yammering of the ProtectMarriage/Yes-on-8 crowd about damaged and stolen yard signs, the pro-8 thugs have been on the attack in the last few days. 

In Bakersfield, Ken Mettler, a Kern High School District trustee and Kern’s Yes-on-Prop-8 campaign leader, assaulted a No-on-8 protester Friday night. The incident, reported in the Bakersfield Californian (via UK Gay News) was captured on video.

From The Bakersfield Californian:

Mettler, 55, said Friday night that he went to the corner where the Prop. 8 protesters were gathered to retrieve signs he thought his side had left behind. In the video, which was recorded by a Proposition 8 protester, people are shown trying to confront Mettler who is holding a defaced “Yes on 8” sign.

“I was physically accosted and defended myself,” Mettler said. “I was not trying to set up a confrontation.”

But Rob Badewitz, 20, says he was trying to grab a stack of signs Mettler had gathered when Mettler kicked him and punched him in the jaw.

“I thought it was ridiculous,” said Badewitz, who was not injured. “Why do we have to be fighting over this?”

Mettler then walked across the street and said he was attacked first, according to the person who shot the video and provided a copy to The Californian.

Police were sent to area at 7:13 p.m., but neither Mettler nor Badewitz wanted to press charges and no arrests were made, according to a release from Bakersfield police. The demonstrations continued peacefully after the incident, police said.

In San Francisco this week, two same-sex wedding ceremonies at City Hall were interrupted by hecklers.

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Two same-sex weddings were interrupted Tuesday afternoon, one shortly before 2 p.m. and one twenty minutes later.

In both instances, same-sex couples were saying their vows when two different men approached them and screamed at them. Sheriff’s deputies nearby responded promptly, admonished the men for disrupting city business and escorted them out of City Hall. Neither man was arrested.

Eileen Hirst, spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, said she didn’t know what the men were shouting, but she assumes they were supporters of Prop. 8, which would ban same-sex marriages in California.

“Clearly it was two people unhappy with same-sex couples getting married,” she said.

Could this ugly incident help turn the tide against Prop. 8? Nate Ballard, spokesman for Mayor Gavin Newsom, seemed pleased to talk about it after the mayor has unwittingly been used to support the marriage ban. First, Newsom showed up in a pro-Prop. 8 television commercial, and then he presided over a same-sex wedding attended by first graders.

“Disrupting somebody’s wedding is deplorable behavior,” Ballard said. “If these protesters believe that shouting during a wedding ceremony is a smart way to make their point, they are sorely mistaken.”

Ballard said security at City Hall will be ramped up if there’s any indication the protesters are planning to return.

So much for respecting the sanctity of marriage and that load of poor oppressed us malarkey the Protect Marriage mob has been feeding the media.