Frank Schubert

Name: Frank Shubert
Organization: Schubert Flint Public Affairs, Yes on 8, ProtectMarriage.com
Title: Campaign Manager, co-Chairman
Location: Sacramento, CA

Frank Schubert is president of Schubert Flint Public Affairs and was the campaign co-manager for California’s Proposition 8, a voter approved initiative aimed at banning same-sex marriages in the State of California by amending the state’s constitution to declare marriage between a man and woman only.

According to his company’s website, “Mr. Schubert lives in Lincoln, California with his wife and three children.  He is a graduate of California State University, Sacramento and is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Political Consultants and WIND Youth Services, Inc., a nonprofit group assisting homeless teens. He serves as Captain of the Catta Verdera Men’s Golf Club and previously served as president of the St. Francis High School Booster Club.”

Passage of Prop 8 couldn’t have happened without the expertise of Schubert.  From the start, he shaped a campaign that purposely obscured the anti-gay intent of the initiative while engaging in what can only be described as anti-gay Blood Libel, by using children to stoke irrational fears and hatred about a persecuted minority to take rights away from that minority.

Here are some examples:

“One of our campaign cornerstones will be the fact that if the initiative [to ban gay marriage in California] doesn’t pass that public schools will be forced to teach the difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage.” – Jennifer Kerns, Campaign Spokesperson for ProtectMarriage.com

“In health education classes, state law requires teachers to instruct children as young as kindergartners about marriage. (Education Code 51890). If the gay marriage ruling is not overturned, TEACHERS WILL BE REQUIRED to teach young children there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage.” – Text stricken from Voter Information pamphlet after lawsuit by the No on 8 campaign

“Ask yourself this: do you know of a single constitutional right that isn’t taught in the schools? Once gay marriage is established as law they have to teach it along side of regular marriage and they will teach it.” – Frank Schubert, Culture 11

“‘We bet the campaign on education,’ Mr. Schubert said.” – New York Times

Not all parents with children were pleased with Schubert’s use of children, especially their children, in the anti-gay effort to ban same-sex marriage.  In San Francisco, several parents (of their own volition) took their kids to the wedding of the children’s teacher who was married to her wife in a private ceremony.  When the Yes on 8 campaign obtained footage of the event, it was used to as further “proof” that schoolchildren would be indoctrinated that gay marriage was normal and that homophobic parents would have no choice in the matter.
 
When these parents attempted to confront Schubert in his office, he had them thrown out of the building.  Said one parent, “I want to ask him how he would feel if his children were manipulated like this.”  Schubert refused to meet with the parents.

Schubert himself denies that he is anti-gay, although a lesbian niece disputes that.  Two of his sisters and a niece are lesbians, although, as many of us know, having a lesbian or gay relative is not necessarily a pass when it comes to anti-gay prejudice.  After the passage of Prop 8, Schubert’s niece felt so disgusted that she wrote an apology to same-sex couples now prevented from marrying thanks to the work of her uncle.

Since the passage of Prop 8, Schubert continues to function as an anti-gay activist.  After massive, but mostly peaceful, marches and rallies against Prop 8 erupted in cities across California and the U.S., Schubert continued his public defamation of the lesbian and gay community by equating such demonstrations as “hateful”, “intolerant”, and (ironically) as “trampling on civil rights”; even going so far to use the “T-word” and while describing these events as “wildfires of hate going out of control.”

“It strikes me as quite ironic that a group of people who demand tolerance and who claim to be for civil rights are so willing to be intolerant and trample on other people’s civil rights.” – Time Magazine

“Amidst all this lawlessness, harassment, trampling of civil rights and now domestic terrorism, one thing stands out: the deafening silence of our elected officials,’ said spokesperson Frank Shubert of ProtectMarriage.com. – WeHo News

“This is a very disruptive, small group of fanatics protesting because they were unable to persuade Californians of their position.” – Fox News

Referring to the targeting of the Mormon church over their huge role in bankrolling the campaign and to envelopes containing harmless white powder sent to two of the churches (although no one has claimed responsibility for it nor is there any indication that whomever sent them was angry about gay rights):

“They mean to frighten and to intimidate the people who supported Proposition 8 and those who have stood up for traditional marriage. This is the very definition of terrorism and that is what is occurring in California today.” – KTLA.com

What the future holds for Frank Schubert as an anti-gay activist remains uncertain. It may be very likely that he will be involved in similar future campaigns aimed at dismantling what little civil rights the LGBT community has or curtailing through initiatives any chance at obtaining rights.

We’ll have to wait and see.