California, you”ve got to be freakin” kidding me. I have to keep this shorter than what this should be. Otherwise, I”ll pop a blood vessel. OK, I”ll try to touch on the main points. Here goes:
Heterosexuals ruined marriage. Homosexuals didn”t.
Heterosexuals invented divorce, annulments and pre-nups. Those things are what took the sacred bond out of marriage.
Prop 8 supporters were spouting that it”s just the tradition of marriage. Hachi machi. Isn”t everyone aware that women were once property in marriages and that it was only 40 years ago that the U.S. Supreme Court had to finally say that there couldn”t be a law banning interracial marriages?
It”s not rivaling tradition. It”s advocating progress.
People used to think that the Sun revolved around Earth. Did people stick to that because that”s what they had always believed? No. They went with the right answer and called it progress. I can”t believe this is even an issue. I can”t believe Prop 8 passed. I can”t believe California is still this far behind.
I”m looking at my Official Voter Information Guide right now as I type this and the first two words of the Prop 8 description are “eliminates rights.” For those of you who voted “yes,” I want you to know that you messed up and the history books will say so when this state wises up. You voted for inequality. You made second class citizens, as my friend Anna says. You didn”t protect marriage; you institutionalized hate.
Actually, let”s talk about my friend Anna”s family. Her uncles Doug and Joe have been together and loved each other for 28 years and were finally married. Now, let”s compare that marriage of two gay men in love to Britney Spears and her 55-hour drunken slur of a marriage. You”re telling me (you”re seriously telling me) that the more sacred marriage belongs to Britney and it”s only because hers involved a man and a woman?
Did you vote for Prop 8 because you believe marriage is ordained by God to be between a man and a woman? Well, I have the following to say to you:
For those who”ve argued for Prop 8 on the basis that marriage is in itself a religious institution, and civil unions are reserved for the absence of religion in the ceremony, they fail to realize the significance of marriage not as a Christian institution alone, but one in many religions around the world.
The “marriage” lifestyle that our state sanctions currently is the result of common consensus of civilized people. We as a collective decided that “marriage” would come to mean certain things: (a), (b), and (c). None of these were the codification of the sanctity of the institution in the eyes of God. Rather we as a society have adopted a broader definition, where whether you believe in Abraham”s God, the Hindu triad, or Buddhism where there is no God, you have the ability to get married. Indeed, many of us have secular agnostic or atheist friends who have gotten married.
Thus, our societal norms have come to dictate marriage as something all together different. The repercussions are vast, and perhaps offensive to some religious individuals. But the implications of denying this right that means (a), (b), and (c) in our society does in fact adversely impact homosexuals by transforming them into a legal and cultural anomaly (the second class citizens I referred to earlier). And I would argue further that extending the arm of the law to deny such a right that has been granted by the California Constitution should not turn on a 50 plus 1 vote, but that is a completely different argument.
That said, I do not want my children growing up in a world where a gay couple have a fundamentally different relationship than a straight couple in the eyes of the law. Marriage no longer means a religious union except to those who are still religious.
I finish with some uplifting words to those most deeply affected by Prop 8 passing: As President-elect Barack Obama told the nation on an historic night: through the heartache and the hope, the struggle and the progress, the times we were told that we can”t ? people pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can.
Elizabeth Wilson
Irvine
Editor”s Note: Wilson is a former staff writer of the Record-Bee, who now lives and works in the Greater Los Angeles area.
