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“Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”  

 

Simple, declarative and of singular purpose.  Incendiary, exclusionary and of singular purpose.  These fourteen words, perhaps the least amount of words in the history of California’s voter propositions, will have perhaps the greatest impact on our state since the passage of Prop 13 in 1978.  Since the California Supreme Court’s ruling in May of this year striking down the State’s ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional, the anti-gay marriage groups have been working to write these fourteen words into our State’s Constitution; “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

 

Last May I wrote a post titled “Gay Rights and Wrongs” .   In the post I stated rights that illegal immigrants to our state and country enjoy that gay couples do not; in conclusion I said of gay couples, “You can live among us, but you cannot live equal to us.”  Proposition 8 has as its singular purpose to codify that statement; gays you may live among us, you may work hard and pay taxes to support our governments and their programs, you may volunteer your time and contribute to charity for better communities… but you cannot be equal to those of us who are not gay. 

 

This morning my children stood up in their homeroom, placed their hands over their hearts and said the Pledge of Allegiance.  They said, “with liberty and justice for all.”  They will say this phrase every day until they graduate high school.  With liberty and justice for all.  There is no modifier in this statement. It is not “with liberty and justice for all, unless you are black.” Nor “with liberty and justice for all, unless you are Jewish.”  Nor, “with liberty and justice for all, unless you are gay.”  But Proposition 8 intends to add that modifier, to say to our homosexual citizens that you do not enjoy the liberty and justice non-homosexuals do—we wish to modify our constitution to discriminate against you.

 

I love my wife Leslie.  She is my best friend, she is my confidant, she is truly my soulmate and daily, when I offer my prayers, I thank God that she is in my life as my partner and lover, that she is the mother of our children, that I am able to enjoy many more decades as her mate.  Love, commitment, devotion, loyalty and shared values and visions, these are the basis of our marriage; just as those principals are the basis of tens, hundreds of thousands of gay couples throughout California and the United States.  Their devotion to another person of the same sex does not diminish my devotion to Leslie—whether sanctified under the laws of California or not.  What is diminished is the legal capacity to which they exercise their love and devotion to one another.  And keeping those legal rights diminished somehow validates the marriages of those in favor of Prop 8; somehow discriminating against our gay neighbors and vendors and teachers and firefighters somehow makes the pro-Prop 8 supporters more secure in their own marriages.  I say this because of the numerous times I have heard individuals against gay marriage say, “legalized gay marriage devalues real marriage.”  How?  Why?  My marriage does not derive any value or worth from what others think of it, it derives its value from how I think of it and how Leslie thinks of it.  We define the value of our relationship and that value only matters to four people: myself, Leslie, Blaire and Jenna. 

 

Carlton Pearson was a Pentecostal Minister who was defrocked by his church for preaching inclusion, for preaching that his religion, his God, is one that should include others—not discriminate.  Pearson saw that his denomination was using discrimination as a tool of its religion and he rebelled against what he saw as anti-Christian.  Regarding marriage Pearson says, “If you see it as a moral issue, I remind you that you cannot legislate morality, neither can you, in actuality, educate it.  The best you can do is demonstrate it.”  Codifying marriage as valid and recognized only if it is between a man and a woman does not make a heterosexual any more or less moral, it just makes it more discriminatory. 

 

There are many who say that civil unions act as marriages and offer the same rights as marriage; this is not true.  In my industry alone there are many differences and disadvantages that gay couples undergo that heterosexual married couples do not—despite the presence of civil union and gay marriage rights in California.  Until and unless all couples are given the same privileges, the same rights, the same legal standing we are not upholding our Constitution, we do not have liberty and justice for all.

 

Join my Facebook Group “Republicans Against Prop 8”.

 

 

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