An Important Issue This Election Year

I was recently asked by a Fox 26 reporter whether I felt this election was the most important of my lifetime. Her question was obviously about the presidential prospects: the economy, the world standing of the U.S. and all the lovely things that bring people to the polls every four years. My answer was, of course, yes, but not for the reasons she thought. Beyond the classless campaign of Senator McCain and the skin color of Barack Obama, hiding under the radar like a stealth bomber ready to wreak havoc on California and the nation is a Civil Rights issue that makes this November truly the most important voting opportunity of my life.

You have seen them. Driving around town they sit, decorating roadsides, house fronts and the like. They look very innocent, to me at least. Yellow signs with calm blue imagery and text. They show a family, Mom, Dad, Jr. and Little Sis. They hold up a banner that says “Yes on 8, Protect Marriage.” Ahhh… What can be more positive? A family. Ahhh… With the economy in the dumps, and two wars having taken the lives of more than four-thousand of my fellow Americans (let’s not even start on foreign losses), if there is one easy little thing we can protect, dammit if it isn’t marriage.

But then there is the small print. You see, in “protecting marriage,” we are only protecting a certain kind of marriage. We are only protecting some marriages. The language of the amendment reads as follows: Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Fourteen sinister words to define our state’s collective conscience.

And so we have it. This positive affirmation of “marriage” is specifically a restriction. It is an explicit denial of marriage to anyone who wishes to marry someone of the same sex. A red rubber DENIED stamp to anyone who wants to enjoy the rights and privileges of marriage with someone who has the same body parts. Proposition 8, is a state Constitutional amendment (or revision) that tells an entire group of Californians that they are less important, less worthy, less deserving of the rights and responsibilities of marriage than anyone else simply because of their sexual orientation.

I was not here in 2000, when California made its first attempt a Jim Crow legislation. I was shocked to find out that 61% of voters said that they will only tolerate marriage between a man and a woman, but the gays can have their “civil unions.” They can have all the rights of married couples, well most of them anyway. They are different (separate) but equal. And then I was proud to see the machinery of our government in action, the checks and balances in place, when earlier this year the State Supreme Court ruled this law in violation of the State Constitution. These are not “activist judges” as the rhetoric would have you believe, but men and women who are doing their jobs to ensure that no law is enacted that violates the very charter that makes us a state in the Union.

Want to read more rhetoric? Okay:

1. That gay marriage is okay will be forced on our children in schools. WRONG. In California we have the woefully irresponsible choice to “opt out” of any given lesson. So if your school were foolish enough to teach an opinion of marriage (vs. say that marriage is a contract/institution/whatever between PEOPLE) then you can be equally as foolish and say, “Send my kid to the ligh-berry during all that gay talk.”
2. Churches will lose tax exempt status.WRONG. “Finally, affording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person; no religion will be required to change its religious policies or practices with regard to same-sex couples, and no religious officiant will be required to solemnize a marriage in contravention of his or her religious beliefs. (Cal. Const., art. I, § 4.)” That’s the court ruling, Son. Deal.

I could argue rhetoric all day. That’s not boasting, mind you, I’m just saying it would get exhausting. In fact, I would love to hear a single argument that doesn’t root itself in religious dogma. Then we could have a reasoned discussion.

To me it comes down to a simple question of equal rights. The drafters of this revision/amendment want us to call it “Marriage Protection Act.” Protection from what? Terrorists? Communist ideology? Zee Germans? Shenanigans. It’s about civil rights. Civil rights and their unwillingness to have uncomfortable conversations with their own kids. If you are undecided about Prop. 8, ask yourself one question. Am I willing to amend the state Constitution for the express purpose of RESTRICTING CIVIL RIGHTS to a section of my community? If you don’t think this affects you, you’re wrong. If you don’t think you have a say in this matter, you’re wrong. Prop. 8 is a direct attack on Reason and Enlightenment. It is a way for a dogmatic section of society to impose their will on another section of society.

Please, recognize that Marriage is a sacred rite as much as a legal right. While the two concepts have much in common they are fundamentally different. One is an act ordained by God to be performed under certain conditions which are arguable, definable and certainly interpretable based on the faith/church to which one subscribes. The other is a legal status defined and protected by the State such that, “the right to marry is not properly viewed as simply a benefit or privilege that a government may establish or abolish as it sees fit, but rather that the right constitutes a basic civil or human right of all people.” Proposition 8 seeks to impose the intention of the former onto the latter, a direct violation of the separation of Church and State. Please, PLEASE vote NO, on Proposition 8.