Students Mourn Gay Marriage Ban in California

I think that people totally miss the point when they naively question, "why not?" "Why can't gay couples marry?" As if the majority support for prop 8 could be oversimplified to base homophobia and prejudice. This question oversimplifies the issues behind prop 8, because the real issue for most prop 8 supporters is not simply gay marriage itself. If gay marriages were performed in a vacuum and had no real effect on the rest of society, this wouldn't be a ballot measure. However, the ban on gay marriage confronts what is, in the majority's point of view, the moral, ethical, and value-based implications of sanctioning a law that allows gay marriage. For the religious, it's an issue of religious freedoms: churches could possibly lose tax-exempt status if they refuse to marry gay couples. Now what happened to the freedom of religion, one of our constitution's oldest rights? For concerned parents, it's an issue of having others force their children to believe in a value that they do not agree with - when a Massachusetts school taught gay marriage, two parents were prosecuted and sued because they wanted to take their kids out of school because their child was being forced to agree with a value they didn't believe in. If the freedom to choose your beliefs and exercise religion is really a civic virtue, then prop 8 directly confronts what would threaten these rights under a pro-gay marriage law. Although prop 8 protestors contest that prop 8 threatens the "right to marriage," prop 8 defends another institutional right. It's not about homophobia. The real issue behind prop 8 is the freedom to choose, for majority voter base, the right to legislate their own moral and ethical thoughts in their lives, or for a dissenting minority, the right to marriage. It boils down to a simple [and $70 million] clash of ideologies over an ethical issue. Only one side can become law. Unfortunately for gay marriage supporters, in a democracy the majority often - and in this case did - win.

Paula of CA 7:10PM November 07, 2008