Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, October 14, 2008 8:16:43 PM
Today, the Orange County Register ran a few letters on Prop 8 in response to the article on Chemerinky’s talk to a church, and I didn’t want to let them go unnoticed this time.
Derek Baker of Rancho Santa Margarita wrote:
Same-sex couples will have the same civil rights regardless of the outcome of the Proposition 8 vote.
True. The only thing Prop 8 deprives them of is a tool to wreak havoc in other states. But then there’s always Connecticut.
Baker goes on to cite specific examples of how a defeat or Prop 8 will actually infringe upon rights.
In Massachusetts, Catholic Charities, which had offered adoption services in the state since 1903, suspended those services rather than face state-mandated adoption to same-sex couples. Also in Massachusetts, a father who objected to having his kindergartener taught about same-sex marriage was arrested and jailed for not leaving a meeting with school officials who refused to tell him when the curriculum was going to be taught.
In New Jersey, a Methodist church lost its tax-exempt status for refusing to host a same-sex marriage on church property. And in our own state, the Oakland city government reprimanded a group of employees for using the sentence, "Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values," saying that it was akin to hate speech.
You see, when you marriage neutering activists try to tell us that the California Supreme Court’s decision won’t infringe upon our free speech and freedom of religion, we don’t believe you. We don’t believe you because you’ve lost credibility. Homosexuality advocacy groups have used court decisions and laws like sledgehammers to tear at the foundations of our society and deny conscientious objectors to your agenda their freedoms. Past assurances of your intentions turned out to be false. It wasn’t that long ago that we heard “We just want to be left alone”, which would have been fine except you said the only way for that to be possible was for a court for find a right to commit sodomy with each other (how is anyone supposed to know unless you do it in front of them?). Now, instead of asking to be left alone, you are demanding official public sanction of your non-marriage as marriage.
You should definitely have the same right to your life, liberty, and property as anyone else. I want the book thrown at anyone who violates your rights. But you do not have the right to have other people “affirm” your behavior against their will, nor should you be able to redefine marriage, legally other otherwise, against the wishes of the majority.
John McKinney of Anaheim had a good point:
UCI's Erwin Chemerinsky talks to 100 people about Prop. 8, and it makes the front page of the Local news section?
Dr. Frank Patti or Santa Ana wrote:
As a family therapist with an undergraduate degree in political science (from UCLA the rhetoric about Prop. 8 fascinates me. Whether or not the gay guys down the street are allowed to get married will have no impact on any one else's marriage.
So you won’t mind if I call myself Doctor, then? I mean, after all, how does that impact you?
To protect the sanctity of marriage, couples would be well-advised to work on strengthening their own marriages.
And why should they do that? If marriage is the union of two people who love each other and or attracted to each other, then they should go their separate ways if they don’t feel those things anymore, right?
With approximately one in two marriages ending in divorce, focusing on gay marriage is a distraction.
The Secret Service still goes after counterfeiters, even though there are terrorists in the world. We can do both.
Well there’s one family therapist I’ll never visit.