Surprise, Surprise... Elisabeth Hasselbeck Supports Prop 8

Surprise, surprise, The View’s resident conservative and Rosie O’Donnell’s former on-screen sparring partner Elisabeth Hasselbeck supports Prop 8.

In a week rife with post-election excitement and continual protests throughout California after a narrow margin of the electorate voted in favor of Proposition 8, the ballot measure that once again bans gay marriage in the state, the women of The View had plenty to say.

Friday the conversation turned to gay marriage, with the show’s creator Barbara Walters and moderator Whoopi Goldberg arguing in favor of equal civil rights for gay people, Sherri Shepherd concluding she’s on the fence because of her deep Christian beliefs and Hasselbeck circuitously saying she’s in favor of the ban.

“I guess 5 million people voted and wanted to protect the definition of marriage as it had been stated, and I think that people felt a victory in California because it was -- it came from the people, that these people came out and voted,” Hasselbeck said. “But their argument there I guess was -- are you to legislate from the bench. It kind of goes back to that argument, and that the actual amendment should come -- if they're going to do anything to the constitution, it should come from the people, as it is for the people.”

The show's creator Walters began the conversation with the personal. "The state Supreme Court voted that gay marriage was legal," Walters said. "Our friend Ellen DeGeneres, for example, got married, and it was extremely important to her and her partner, of course, and now Proposition 8 proclaims that -- puts a ban on gay marriage."

Hasselbeck kicked off her argument with the example of priest in Sweden who was once jailed for refusing to perform a same-sex union in that country, where gay marriage is legal. She extrapolated that out to imply that priests in the United States could be subject to similar treatment should they fail to perform gay marriages.

Goldberg responded to Hasselbeck’s assertion and to the ‘Yes on 8’ campaign’s scare tactic using children saying, “Well, the people should also be given all the information, and not frightened into things. Now, I think if kids who are the product of a gay couple are asked about it in school, they should be able to explain it, and that's shouldn't be afraid -- that shouldn't be something that frightens people. I always say, look, if you think gay marriage is wrong, don't marry a gay person.”

When the discussion turned to the churches Hasselbeck jumped on the opportunity to point out the issue of race that the media has been injecting into the conversation about why Prop. 8 passed.

It's interesting that the actual majority of the votes -- I mean, I guess it was at the urban minority communities voted overwhelmingly for this proposition,” Hasselbeck said.

But Goldberg countered that the Prop. 8 campaigns -- which the Mormon Church and other religion based organizations primarily funded – fed lies about gay marriage to parishioners.

Meanwhile, Shepherd expressed her ambivalence about gay marriage as a devout Christian and as someone who has gay people in her life that she loves.

“It's something that I struggle with because, you know, I have my friends who are gay, my uncle Tommy, uncle Jimmy, as Jeffrey likes to call them. And it's something that I struggle with because I don't want rights taken away from people, you know, being able to care for their partners and, you know, rights that they have,” Shepherd said. “And then also, too, I am a Christian and I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. So it is a struggle that I have.”

But Goldberg brought the conversation back around to the issue of church and state. “…this was so important to folks because it's not just about being gay, and it's not just about partnership. If the state and the country were to allow gay partners the same rights as married people have, this wouldn't be an issue,” Goldberg said.