Erin says:
I feel very strongly about voting No on Prop 8.
I am writing this not only to reach out to everyone and urge you to vote No on Prop 8, but also hopefully to provide some talking points and facts for speaking with friends and family about this proposition, and please DO speak to friends and family abut this.
If you don't have the money to donate for TV ads, use the voice that you do have. Talk to everyone you know, give them facts and dis-spell myths, then ask them to talk to everyone THEY know. I know that most of us don't have the millions of dollars it takes to bombard the public with television commercials(the mormon church alone has donated over half of the more than 40 million that has gone into the yes on 8 ads), but what we do have is the grassroots power to talk to each other.
When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same sex marriage back in May, I was proud... proud to live in this progressive state, a state that values and protects an individual's right to life, liberty and most importantly their right to pursue happiness.
What is going on now is disheartening, the yes on 8 campaign has launched a well funded and faith based smear campaign that diverts attention from the actual proposition and misleads viewers to believe that prop 8 will educate kids about homosexuality in public schools, and that churches will lose their non-profit standing. Both of these points are completely false, but I suppose it is pretty hard to run a campaign that is asking people to vote FOR discrimination. No matter how you feel personally about gay marriage writing discrimination into our California constitution is wrong.
Just in case you, or anyone you speak with is grappling over whether this is really the right thing to do, I would like to reference miscegenation laws. Miscegenation laws banned the marriage of interracial couples until the case of Loving V. Virginia overturned those laws in 1967. Almost 20 years before that- in 1948- California was the first and only state to throw out statewide miscegenation laws.
In 1948 the California Supreme Court held that "marriage is ... something more than a civil contract subject to regulation by the state; it is a fundamental right of free men ... Legislation infringing such rights must be based upon more than prejudice and must be free from oppressive discrimination to comply with the constitutional requirements of due process and equal protection of the laws". The California Supreme Court further explained that "the right to marry is the right to join in marriage with the person of one's choice". That quote is so powerful that I have to give it it's own separate line, I want to scream it from a California mountain top.
"THE RIGHT TO MARRY IS THE RIGHT TO JOIN IN MARRIAGE WITH THE PERSON OF ONE'S CHOICE"
Just as 1967 seems quite late in our history to have waited to finally, and legally state that interracial marriage could not legally be denied to two willing parties. Similarly, 2008 seems like it has been a long time coming to finally say that the constitution protects everyone's right to marry, and does not discriminate based on sexual orientation.
In case you have come across some people who have dragged religion into this, here is a fun quote from the sitting judge for the Lovings, years before their case was finally taken to the supreme court.
"Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix."
Sounds oddly similar to 'God intended marriage to be between a man and a woman'.
The reason that Loving V. Virginia was able to overturn miscegenation laws in this country was not because it was a popular idea, but because it was found that no matter what a popular vote decided, it was unconstitutional to deny two persons the right to marry because it infringed on their due process as well as equal protection under the law.
The constitution is not the bible, nor should it be treated as such, and vice versa. Religious arguments that cite the bible are completely out of context with the issue at hand. The issue is discrimination, and we have a long history in this country. The bible should not be used as justification for personal discrimination, and furthermore has no place as a justification for writing discrimination into the constitution.
Please- I urge you, aside from taking your voice to the polls on Nov 4th, please take it to everyone you know. Talk to friends and family, write an e-mail(or just copy and paste this one, you have my full permission), and volunteer at your local No on 8 phone banks.
Do every little thing you can to stand up strong in this fight against discrimination, and protect ALL families by voting NO on 8.
Further Reading:
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/something_smells/7431/
(Thank you, Erin, for the eloquently written email.)
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6 comments:
While there are strong similarities between the gay rights movement and the civil rights movement, believing that gay unions are equal to heterosexual unions and that opposition to gay marriage is equal to the discrimination of race is a misconception.
If the state legalizes gay marriage, then suddenly marriage changes from a protected belief of a small minority, to the false impression that the state (which is an extension of the people) believes that it is morally acceptable to practice homosexuality.
As individuals, law abiding homosexuals should be entitled to every inalienable right held by any heterosexual; but as couples, gay relationships no longer hold an equal stance to the synergy of a heterosexual relationship. The answer lies in procreation—the primary responsibility of a family.
The gay agenda wants to redefine marriage as simply commitment, honesty, affection, and warmth between two loving individuals. If so then it simply becomes an equal protection issue and the gay couple argues they are being discriminated against for a relationship they claim holds equal commitment and value to the heterosexual relationship. This argument breaks down because it ignores posterity and procreation. Children are what differentiate the marriage contract from all other consensual adult arrangements. The state has always had a keen interest in the bearing and rearing of children. Indeed that is why the state got in the business of registering and recognizing marriage in the first place.
The point, both legally and historically, the gay family can ONLY exist as a product of government policy and modern science, and a dependence on the natural family. It is very clear that there is no natural procreative ability between gay partners. The procreative ability between heterosexual couples is, by contrast, perfectly natural, and dates back to the start of recorded history. The natural family would continue whether the government or science became involved or not. Thus, we see that a homosexual relationship is not naturally equal to a heterosexual relationship.
The Declaration of Independence proclaims that we are endowed with unalienable rights, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". John Locke, called this "natural law". Natural law is not a creation or product of the state, but was to be protected by the state as these are the natural rights of all men inseparably connected to being human. Gays may argue that they are in the pursuit of liberty and happiness, yet there is no logical means by which they are naturally in the pursuit of life. Indeed we may argue that the gay movement, by its very nature, is a movement in pursuit of death, its own extinction, for without the intervention of the state and modern science, homosexuality results in the termination of posterity. Thus, from the perspective of both science and state we can see that the union of man and women, with their resulting children compared to the gay union are polar opposites both in origin and fruit.
What about couples who are infertile? Many married heterosexuals choose not to have children, and others cannot because of medical problems or physical handicaps. But gays fought furiously to convince the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from their books as a "disorder", or medical problem. The majority of the United States will now agree that homosexuality is not a medical problem or disorder. Even in perfect medical condition, a gay couple cannot procreate without the help of a third party. Therefore homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships are inherently, and naturally, unequal. Gays should NOT shunned because of their beliefs and tendencies. Nor does this fact infringe on their God given rights. The argument is that the two relationships are very different from one another and for that reason they should be defined differently.
More here
jeff,
would you just say what you are trying to say? you are against gays getting married and have no problem changing our state constitution. there was that so hard?
i could care less about the history of marriage, please spare me. because nowadays marriage isn't about children. you don't have to be married to have kids, to procreate. heterosexual relationships are not about procreating/family, they're about love. i think you forgot the most important factor - LOVE. and the reason most people marry nowadays, it's not for children/family/procreating, they get married because they love one another. and i do believe that is why most homosexuals want to get married, it's an exression of their love and commitment to one another. what is so wrong with that?
and if procreating is the issue they why don't we have laws against those people who aren't procreating? or those heterosexual couples who get married because they love each other not because they want to procreate? why don't you go after them and explain to them the history of marriage and what marriage is REALLY about? start preaching to teens that marriage is about babies not love. why are you just preaching to the homosexuals?
and please do not marry someone just because you want to procreate - we do not need anymore people on this planet.
the whole issue of marriage equals procreating/children is obsolete. get in the now, jeff, please.
here's a wonderful blog talking about prop 8: http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfour/2008/10/ill-never-stop-talking-about-this-i-fear.html. i suggest jeff and whoever else to please read it.
also alegra you quoted the bible, not god, wrong, it says, "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall be put to death. Their blood is upon them." Leviticus 20:13
so the bible does not mention marriage.
also it's an abomination to eat shrimp and rabbit, oh and pork.
Thank you, Jesi, for your well-informed comments and for pointing out that Jeff is long-winded and often besides the point.
Jeff, you said "The gay agenda wants to redefine marriage as simply commitment, honesty, affection, and warmth between two loving individuals."
If the straight agenda argues that marriage is not "commitment, honesty, affection, and warmth between two loving individuals," then the straight agenda has a MAJOR problem.
Because, back to Jesi's points, straight people don't always procreate, and yet you don't want to tell infertile people or child free by choice people that they are unable to get married.
Therefore, your arguments are, in fact, discriminatory.
The real problem lies in the fact that "marriage" is considered a religious concept. I actually don't support state-sponsored gay marriages, not do I support state-sponsored straight marriages. The state should offer civil unions ONLY. This would clarify the whole mess by separating church and state, as it should be.
P.S. The deleted comment was spam. I welcome all thoughtful commentary from either side, though I won't tolerate spam or inflammatory commenting.
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