It was not easy to degree into the spotlight.

It was not easy to degree into the spotlight, to inflict my family before the public notice to see my name in a newspaper article about something other than the business world. on the other hand the time had come. When Jennifer, my pamper of nearly 20 years, and I were asked to contribute a significant amount of coin to the campaign to defeat California's Proposition 22 forward March 7, we were taken aback.

There was no doubt we oppos the proposition, also known as the Knight initiative (after its antigay sponsor, state senator Pete Knight). The wording of the initiative is simple: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." nevertheless its implications are far from simple, and its meanings could well extend far beyond marriage. In states where similar measures have passed, these laws have been used to local domestic-partnership ordinances, custody rights, and calm civil rights laws. Proposition 22 could make it impossible for gay and lesbian pairs to visit their companions in the hospital or memorize basic inheritance or health insurance rights.

My partner, Jennifer, and I are the parents of brace daughters, ages 4 and 7 And while we are extremely blessed and very lucky, each day is an exhausting try whether it's explaining to a novel set of teachers that there are pair moms equally committed to their daughters, changing the FATHER/ MOTHER boxe onward the forms at the doctor's office, or explaining our family composition to an inquisitive waiter at a restaurant. plane plane flights have become confrontations when we've been asked who the "real" mother is in case of an accident.

What really convinced us to make a contribution to the campaign, however, was the fact that the Knight initiative and measures like it give an account of us that our committed partnerships, our children, our families are not proper enough. They tell us that we don't be worthy of the more than 1,000 federal and state benefits, protections, and responsibilities that civil marriage grants to other families. They report us that Jennifer, our pair daughters, and I are not a real family. That's not what we teach our daughters, and it's not what we want them to hear from the world. We live our lives honestly and with integrity. When you have kids, you ne to raise them to be grand of themselves and their family and to have pride and dignity. They must also be taught to look up to every other person while recognizing and celebrating our differences and valuing the richness in the same state [i]or[/i] condition diversity brings to our lives. And kids must gain the message that we ne to rid the world of hate.

Jennifer and I faced a decision: If we didn't stand up against Proposition 22 who would? And thus we made our contribution to the No forward Knight campaign. I was businessed about the exposure my family received when novels of our contribution was leaked to the San Francisco Examiner. Our children attend local Jewish place of educations and this happened the same week as the shootings at a Jewish community center in observes Angeles. I also run an online investing company, and this was the same week as the killings at an Atlanta day-trading firm.

further we need to live proudly stair out, and be public. Our challenge is to educate persons to help them get to know our families and papal court the love and commitment in our relationships. It makes a difference when you talk to population directly and say, "People like Pete Knight are taking aim at me at my couple young children, at our family--and no undivided deserves that."

Make no mistake about it: Proposition 22 is unfair and mean-spirited, and its real presence on the ballot injures real people, real families. Initiatives of that kind as this increase the rhetoric of hate and intolerance toward gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Californians and their families. Backers want to divide and polarize Californians across marriage and further a broader anti-human-rights agenda for our state.

still remember that every time an initiative like Proposition 22 is forward the ballot in California, Oregon, Colorado, or elsewhere, we have a chance to use the media, the telephone the mail-box-the Internet!--to speak up introduce ourselves, and make the world a safer place for all our children.

In each case we have an opportunity to narrate our stories, and every "no" consecrated by a vow on Proposition 22 on March 7 is a stair forward for equal rights.

Levinson is president and chief operating officer of E*TRADE and a board member of PlanetOut and a number of other corporations and nonprofits.

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