Editor’s note: Ed Vitagliano covered the fight over traditional marriage in California first hand, as a co-producer of AFA’s video Proposition 8 and the Battle Over Traditional Marriage. He also attended The Call in San Diego and covered election night returns in San Diego for AFA Journal and American Family News.

January 2009 – Both sides knew the stakes couldn’t be higher. Pastors, priests and ministers from various denominations conferenced and strategized. Christians from every background gathered by the thousands to pray and repent. Millions of dollars were spent on ads. Celebrities spoke out.

The lines were clearly drawn between Bible-believing Christians and traditional moralists on the one hand, and gay activists and secular progressives on the other.

The battle was over the issue of marriage and the day of reckoning was November 4 – Election Day. This battle would be fought, not with bullets, but with ballots cast for or against Proposition 8, an initiative that would restore the one man/one woman definition of marriage by amending the California constitution.

In the weeks prior to the vote, polls showed Proposition 8 trailing 49%-44%. Voters seemed intent on dooming the measure.

In the end, however, traditional marriage won as voters passed Proposition 8 by a 52%-48% margin. The vote reversed the state’s supreme court ruling on May 15 that said California’s constitution required the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Among the lessons learned, here are four that I believe are notable.

The call to prayer
Christians might argue that the battle was fought and won before Election Day, as believers across the state and even the nation fervently began praying and asking God for His intervention in California. Many congregations, for example, prayed on a regular basis for the 40 days prior to November 4.

One prayer event occurred just three days prior to Election Day. On November 1 in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium, thousands met for The Call, a cross-denominational prayer and fasting gathering. Over the last 10 years, The Call has drawn tens of thousands to similar events in Washington, D.C., New York, Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

San Diego was chosen this year because of the Prop 8 vote in California, and because the clergy of that city were instrumental in launching the effort to get Proposition 8 on the ballot.

Especially involved were Rev. Jim Garlow, Skyline Church; Rev. Miles McPherson, The Rock Church; Rev. Chris Clark, East Clairemont Baptist Church; and Bishop Salvatoré Cordileone of the Catholic Diocese of San Diego.

Lou Engle, founder of The Call and leader of the event in San Diego, said the pastors of that city called him far in advance of the vote. He told AFA Journal on the day of the event, “This is why we’re doing this, because we understand our fight’s not against people, we need God’s intervention, and this is a spiritual battle, so thousands are here, crying out and worshiping God in San Diego.”

The call to unity
One of the things I noticed about The Call – the first such event I have attended – was the diversity of the gathering. Both from the platform where praise and worship and prayer and repentance were led, and in the stands and on the field where attendees participated, it seemed that virtually every area of the body of Christ was represented. Denominations, races, nationalities, genders – all seemed present and unified by one goal: to seek God and to plead with Him for another chance for America.

“I think this crisis [over marriage] has brought us together in ways we never would have come together – evangelical, charismatic, Latino, black Americans – the enemies that fight against us are far greater than our differences,” Engle said.

One of those who was involved with The Call in San Diego was Rev. Sean Mitchell, pastor of New Venture Church and for the last 27 years chaplain for the San Diego Chargers – who play their home games in Qualcomm Stadium.

“A lot of things God will put up with but one of the things that breaks His heart is disunity,” said Mitchell. “Here we are seeing a move of God in unity like I’ve never seen in my 37 years of knowing the Lord and 30 years of serving here [in San Diego] as a shepherd. It is tremendous, because whether it is in Spanish or English or Samoan, you understand ‘Hallelujah.’”

It might mean, therefore, that as important as the battle over Proposition 8 might have been, far more was at stake.

“Prop 8 is critically important – this is going to be historic,” Mitchell said. “But beyond that, the church of Jesus Christ unifying, we hope [represents] the embers of national revival.”

The call to involvement
I believe prayer, repentance and Christian unity are critical ingredients in the effort to see America once again return to her spiritual heritage as a nation whose God is the Lord (Psalm 33:12).

But another ingredient binds the others into a powerful recipe for Godly change: involvement. And in this fight the church arose – along with those of a similar mind – and went to work.

Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council and a leading figure in the fight for traditional marriage in that state, said in a statement on the Protect Marriage Web site (www.protectmarriage.com): “The Yes on Proposition 8 campaign has been the single largest, most powerful grassroots movement in the history of American ballot initiative campaigns. We raised approximately $40 million from over 70,000 individual contributors. We recruited the active support of over 100,000 volunteers who gave tirelessly of their time and energies to our cause. … These dedicated volunteers have visited millions of homes, made millions of phone calls, distributed over one million yard signs and displayed one million bumper strips. The silent majority is alive and well in California.”

What was ironic – and some might argue providential – was that the huge numbers of African-American voters who came out to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama also were instrumental in passing Proposition 8. According to the Los Angeles Times, an exit poll of Golden State voters showed that blacks voted for Proposition 8 by a margin of more than 2 to 1.

Many of these African-American voters were Christian, according to Rev. Derek McCoy, a black pastor from Baltimore, Maryland, who spent three months in California working for Prop 8 on behalf of the Family Research Council.

“The interesting thing that you find is that the African-American Christian community is the strongest voting block supporting traditional marriage between a man and a woman,” said McCoy.

Even more than this rank-and-file Christian involvement, what seemed remarkable about the Proposition 8 effort was the involvement of Christian clergy on a large scale.

At Qualcomm Stadium, Prentice told AFA Journal that pastors rose to the task in California. “The communities of pastors that have come together – 3,000 of them in total have come together – they are starting to recognize that they are the shepherds not only of the congregation but of the culture,” he said.

The call to perseverance
After Prop 8 passed, Prentice said, “This has been a hard-fought campaign on both sides. Now that the people of California have decided this issue, we hope there can be a healing among all and a continued respect for the diverse views that have been expressed during this campaign.”

Unfortunately, the response from the homosexual community was immediate, angry and, in some cases, violent.

Tens of thousands participated in protests. In a couple of instances Christians were attacked.

Some churches and Mormon temples were picketed while others were vandalized. Mormons, according to one estimate, donated $20 million to the Proposition 8 effort, and they took heat for it.

According to numerous media reports, gay and lesbian activist organizations have been researching state campaign financing records to find out which businesses gave money in support of Prop 8. Some businesses have been picketed and boycotted. Other gay activists are calling for a tourist boycott of Utah, simply because it is home to the Mormon Church.

Most threatening to the Prop 8 victory is a new legal challenge claiming that Prop 8 represents not merely an amendment to the state constitution but a revision. California’s constitution does not allow revisions via ballot initiative.

The reasoning behind the lawsuit borders on the absurd, however, since most Christian observers – including legal experts – considered the May 15 California Supreme Court decision to actually be a creation of the right to same-sex marriage out of whole cloth. Now this lawsuit claims, in effect, that Proposition 8 is an unlawful revision of the judges’ revision.

It doesn’t get more bizarre than that – or more dangerous. If the California high court agrees once again with the gay activists and nullifies the results of Proposition 8, the matter will be settled. The decision in the new lawsuit could come as early as March.

So the battle is far from over, and that leaves the final lesson to be learned: Christians must persevere. The days ahead promise to be tough ones on the culture war front.

Of course, I want to make plain that I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with homosexuals protesting or applying financial pressure or even launching boycotts to make a point. Pro-family groups like AFA have been doing that successfully for decades.

But the vitriol spewed forth in the blogosphere and at protests after the passage of Prop 8 was only the beginning. And what judges are willing to do in twisting laws and founding documents in order to shill for the homosexual movement will not end. And the millions of dollars donated by homosexuals to promote the gay agenda will not suddenly dry up.

Christians must be in this battle for the long haul. Not just for one Prop 8 fight but for a hundred if necessary. If the activists keep yelling, we must keep loving them. If the protests continue, so must our prayers. We must not wither away under the pressure of this hour.