I'll make this simple and plain: Californians should vote "NO" on Proposition 8. (Check out this excellent compilation of information on the site Towleroad)
Though I am single, I still would like to have an opportunity to marry in my home country, if I choose. It would be heartbreaking to the thousands of my brothers and sisters who married legally in California, if their marriages were revoked by a vote (I am strongly against issues of civil rights being put on a ballot).
Same-sex marriage is only a religious issue, if the church is directly involved. Many faiths have a range of views on same-sex marriage, and I strongly believe that no church should ever find itself forced to perform any marriage that its doctrine opposes. Civil marriage, however, is an issue of the state. The overwhelming majority of marriages in this country are civil unions; folks obtained licenses from the state to get married. As a matter of principle, it should come as no surprise that the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be the lead on this issue.
I hope that in the enthusiam that certainly will be displayed by the black community in voting for BHO as POTUS will not also translate into the right amount of votes to wreak havoc for married gay and lesbian couples in California. Check out that video in the compilation on the Loving v. Virginia SCOTUS decision again. Finally, do not forget that the gay rights movement is a successor of the Civil Rights Movement. No black person should ever feel comfortable enough to engage in discrimination based on who one happens to be. That is a road with an ugly past, and the black community must always remember that the past is prologue. Discrimination in any form is always wrong.
1 comment:
Well said!
It has always amazed me how the lunatic fringe of the religious right seems to worm its way into the fabric of the Constitution.
When gay marriage was passed in Massachusetts, the conventional wisdom from the far right was that the very fabric of the nation was unraveling and Mass. would be the first casualty.
Still waiting for the calamity to fall.
I'd argue that the housing and credit crisis and the economic morass is doing much more to unravel the fabric of the country than a wedding between me and my beau (if that day ever comes).
The faithful who have issues with gay marriage have a right to say that I and those like me are going to hell; they have the right to say I should "get right with God" and follow the Str8 and narrow. They have the right to say I am not welcome in their church or partake of communion or whatever.
But they should never EVER be allowed to take a matter of faith and try to inscribe it into the Constitution.
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