Opponents of a campaign to ban same-sex marriage in California said Tuesday that a new poll shows them in danger of losing -- unless people step forward with more contributions to pay for No on 8 television commercials.

"The Mormon Church teaches that we should be building families," said David Melson, assistant executive director of Affirmation, a group of gay and lesbian Mormons. "Through measures like Proposition 8, they are working to tear families apart."

”Absolutely NO on Prop 8 because I believe that gay people have every right to get married and share their lives. George and Brad have been together for many years. They have every right to be together in any way they choose.”

Calling homosexuality a choice is the time-tested way politicians signal their belief that it is the wrong choice.

Typical was a Washington Post opinion piece saying that "no one would choose to be part of a marginalized group whose members have to sue their way to basic rights."

Why should equal treatment of gays and lesbians hinge on whether they have chosen or inherited their identities?

How one responds to these stirrings may be largely a matter of choice, just as one may choose whether to act on a belief or whether to practice a faith. But American institutions properly protect our right to practice the religion that speaks to our soul. Why not champion a homosexual's right to honor erotic, romantic and emotional callings in the same way, so long as doing so doesn't harm others?*

"You seem to think a couple is valuable only insofar as this couple is capable of procreation."

"One way that same-sex couples contribute to society is by adopting and raising children that other people are unwilling or unable to raise."

"It is also seems to be your opinion (which is different from fact) that all gay and lesbian relationships are harmful to those involved in them."

"Basically, I hear you saying that the state should not sanction same-sex relationships because it offends your religious sensibilities."

"I also think it is sad that gay men have higher rates of HIV/AIDS than the general population. (Lesbians, as you know, have the lowest rates of HIV/AIDS/STDS of all groups). Regarding substance abuse, etc. you cite no sources and merely speculate that it's your opinion that these phenomena correlate more with homosexuality than a repressive society. I can respect that that's your opinion. But let's not mistake your opinion for fact."

Ken wrote: Socially, as I’ve pointed out before, I expect an even higher percentage of children to be born out of wedlock, raised out of wedlock, or to have divorced parents, as we will have it in our laws and as official public policy that marriage can’t be about children."

Fannie wrote: “Okay, but again, that's your opinion. And while we're admitting that that's an opinion we should be up front and acknowledge that it's really nothing more than a prediction.”

"The reality is that the reasons for divorce and out-of-wedlock births are numerous and include things like infidelity, lack of sex ed, lack of communication between spouses, substance abuse, physical/emotional abuse, mental illness, and incompatibility."

"To argue that heterosexual married couples would choose to get divorced because the legal definition of marriage now includes same-sex couples just doesn't jive with the reality of why people get divorced."

Battling for America's Soul
How Homosexual “Marriage” Threatens Our Nation and Faith  

Same-sex “marriage” is now being imposed upon the nation by government fiat.

The Acceptance of Same-Sex “Marriage” Is Incompatible with Christianity

The Catholic Church’s Perennial and Immutable Moral Doctrine Condemns Homosexual Practice

Same-Sex “Marriage” Harms the Common Good

TFP Calls for Lawful, Conscientious Resistance to Same-Sex “Marriage” and the Homosexual Movement

A two-page ad in Thursday's print Times has brought more than 50 e-mails and calls of protest.

Reader Randall Gellens in San Diego wrote: “Would The Times have done so if the ad attacked equal rights on the basis of skin color or religious preference, or is only sexual orientation fair game?"

Nick Duretta of Pasadena wrote: "How jarring it was to see in my morning Times, between the usual Macy’s and Verizon ads, a two-page paid diatribe essentially calling for the denial of my rights and devaluation of my very existence.”

“I wonder if you’d run a similar paid ad from a Holocaust denial or white supremacist group attacking other disenfranchised minorities (with appropriate Biblical justification).”

Jack Klunder, who as Los Angeles Times president oversees the advertising department, wants to make this clear: The Times' decision to publish an ad does not mean the Times supports or endorses the ad's point of view.

Klunder's department felt that the two-page spread did not cross the line to hate speech or attacks on individuals, but rather saw it as taking a stand on a controversial, topical issue and giving TFP's reasons for why it opposed same-sex marriage.

Along those lines, reader Jeanette Hanisee Gabriel of San Pedro wrote: "My first response at seeing the TFP 'ad' opposing gay marriage was to cancel The Times for printing such tripe. Then I realized that by printing it, The Times was demonstrating its advocacy of precisely the personal rights that the TFP suggests we abolish."

How can you possibly claim this is not hate speech?

Then you have the nerve to add that you wouldn't print anything "...promoting issues or objects that are... discriminatory." Nice. What do you think this amendment campaign is about?

As a matter of fact the first thing out of these groups' mouths is usually that they don't hate gays.

Then they go on to say all the other things that people who hate gays or homosexuality say.

A few months ago when 14 year old Larry King was shot to death in school, the LA Times did an article trying to decipher how such a tragedy could take place. Thursday's ad "Battle For America's Soul" by the TFP is exactly how. Such hate speech and bigotry directed towards homosexuals only results in intolerance and violence. The next time a gay person is harassed, abused, or killed you need only look to the issue of June 5th to see why. I know newspaper subscriptions are down and ads help pay the rent, but this was blood money.

It seems all those who commented did not read the ad.
All the ad did was reiterate the position of the Catholic Church. I think it was well done and found absolutely nothing wrong with it. I was put off by the hatred of those who commented.

From its condescending use of quotation marks in every mention of the words same-sex marriage to its dubious conclusion of religious persecution against opponents of gay unions,

the ad is a slap in the face to every forward-thinking person, gay or straight, who reads it.  How interesting that the wedding photo of the heterosexual couple featured in the ad shows them with their eyes shut.

Like many other Californians, I am not in the habit of allowing other people to tell me what to think or how to vote.

The suggestion that California voters should abide by the cited biblical evidence of this religious group is about as convincing as suggesting we have multiple underage spouses.

I am sure the Texas FLDS sect had verse and chapter to support its views as well.

As a pastor, I occasionally get crazy tracts sent to me in the mail -- "irrefutable" evidence of this or that being proved by the Bible. This ad resembles those crazy missives.

It contains five headings, 25 subheadings, a conclusion, end notes, an ad and a photo of their medieval banner with a lion.

I suggest that readers save it to show their children an example of both the bigotry of the age they were born into and of what happens when religion goes bad.

It's funny what happens when you draw a line to keep others out. Jesus is always standing on the other side of the line.

With only a few days left before gays can marry in California,

nine major gay rights groups asked couples Tuesday not to sue the federal government or other states to have their California nuptials recognized, saying that legal action could harm the marriage equality movement.

In an unusual six-page memorandum, written for same-sex couples,

groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to Lambda Legal warned that lawsuits would invite "bad" court rulings that could take years to overturn.

The memo cautioned that the U.S. Supreme Court has traditionally refused to embrace major social change until many states have already acted and that the battle for marriage must be orchestrated strategically, state by state, court by court.

Twenty-seven states have passed constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, and only the high courts of California and Massachusetts have approved it. A ballot measure to reinstate California's marriage ban is headed for the November ballot.

If the U.S. Supreme Court considered the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which permits states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriage in other states, the current court would likely split 5 to 4, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy being an unpredictable swing vote, some scholars believe.

Jon W. Davidson, legal director of Lambda Legal, called the joint statement "unprecedented," particularly since it came from so many groups.

The memorandum says marriage rights should be tackled first in state courts, and only in states with courts "that may be ready to do the right thing." Marriage cases are pending before the high courts in Iowa and Connecticut, and gay rights groups are hoping the legislatures of New York and New Jersey will eventually remove [gender from] marriage [licenses].

Unlike Massachusetts, California has no residency requirements for couples wishing to wed, and tens of thousands of same-sex couples are expected to travel to the state to marry. Experts believe that at least some will return home and bring legal actions.

Asked whether the memo was likely to prevent lawsuits, Davidson said: "I guess we'll just have to see whether it is successful or not."

The statement said that "early and unnecessary" court losses over marriage rights in Arizona and Indiana "hurt our other cases." Courts in New York, Washington state and Maryland narrowly rejected same-sex marriage and adopted some of the "contorted reasoning" from those decisions, the memo said.

Instead of suing, same-sex couples should work against the California anti-gay marriage ballot measure and promote marriage rights in conversations with friends, co-workers, neighbors and employers, the statement said.

The understanding of legal concepts such as marriage have changed throughout history.

All gay people are asking for is that others follow the Golden Rule and treat us as they would like to be treated -- as full members of society who are provided the same right to marry the person they love, just as everyone else is treated.

That's why amending the state Constitution to take away some people's rights and forever treat them as second-class citizens is a very dangerous proposition.

Who's next? What would keep the people from voting to deny equal marriage rights to any other group that isn't the majority?

Even though you disagree with the outcome, Glen, you must agree that the impact of the state Supreme Court's decision is likely to extend well beyond California.

California's Supreme Court has long been one of the nation's most highly regarded courts.

Connecticut's high court is one of those. That court is expected to rule soon on the same issue decided in California: whether the fundamental right to marry and the constitutional guarantee of equal protection can be satisfied by relegating one group of people to some other status with a different name.

The decision found that allowing same-sex couples to marry, however, does not deprive opposite-sex couples or their children of any rights.

The decision also powerfully explains why laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation should be viewed with suspicion.

Although sexual orientation is irrelevant to the ability to contribute to society, negative attitudes about gay people often have led to them being singled out for unequal treatment.

Voters are tired of politics that seek to divide us by our differences.

The problem with "slippery slope" arguments like yours, Glen, is that they assume that society and the law can't make distinctions between situations that are different from one another.  But we can tell apples from oranges.

"Past judicial decisions explain why our nation's culture has considered the latter types of relationships inimical to the mutually supportive and healthy family relationships promoted by the constitutional right to marry."

Civil marriage and religious marriage serve different purposes in our democratic society. Civil marriage is a contract between two adults and the government through which we govern such vital matters as a couple's responsibility to each other and their children.

We need civil marriage so the legal system has a way of answering such questions as who inherits in the absence of a will, who gets to make medical decisions for someone who is incapacitated, which communications get to be kept confidential, who must file their taxes jointly and who has an obligation of financial support.

Religious marriages, on the other hand, are defined by the many faiths present in our pluralistic society, and the right to hold different religious views on marriage is protected by the constitutional principle of church-state separation.

California cannot get out of the marriage business and leave it up to churches and other groups because, in the state Supreme Court's words, we need some form of "official government sanction" of the family unit.

Changing this would be an extreme strategy undertaken solely to keep same-sex couples from marriage.

If California were to stop issuing marriage licenses, different-sex couples would face major problems whenever they crossed state lines or dealt with the federal government.

Apparently, your view is that the public should have a say on who their neighbors get to marry.

I think that's quite dangerous, and I hope the voters won't start us down that path in November.

When you say that allowing same-sex couples to marry is an "assault on the family," whose family do you mean?

And how is it an assault on anyone's family if our plaintiffs, Alexsis Beach and Rachel Lederman, who have lived together for 21 years, are finally allowed to wed? And precisely whose children would be harmed by their marriage? Their 11- and 8-year-old sons, who previously said they wanted to tell the judge that their parents should be able to get married just like everyone else's, will be overjoyed and more protected than they are now.

I challenge you to come up with any specific person who will suffer any harm by reason of this couple's marriage.

We simply want the same rights as everyone else, including what you refer to as the right at common law of free men (and, I'd add, women) to the pursuit of happiness.

If voters this November do have to vote on the proposed constitutional amendment that out-of-state forces spent $2 million trying to qualify for the ballot,

Same-sex marriage in California will undoubtedly make life more complicated for many other states. That's their problem, not California's, where the state Supreme Court should let the marriages go ahead this month as planned.

The California Supreme Court's decision clearing the way for such marriages is expected to draw thousands of couples from other states, who will clamor on their return home to have their married status accepted.

For starters, the ruling is likely to lead to a challenge of the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, which defines marriage for federal purposes as occurring only between men and women and empowers states not to accept same-sex marriages performed elsewhere, even though the "full faith and credit clause" of the U.S. Constitution requires states to legally recognize one another's actions and records.

But the enforcement of constitutionally guaranteed rights is usually messy; remember the first months of school desegregation?

Live and let live.

Please tell me why an initiative on the November ballot barring same-sex marriage (a form of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation) is in accord with the California Constitution, when the state Supreme Court has already ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is unconstitutional?

With all the troubles facing us, I would think that the yahoos in the hinterlands would have more important things to worry about than same-sex marriage. But, sadly, that's not the case. And if they find my tone insulting, so be it; I'm insulted by their idiotic initiative.

I'm 70-plus, straight and have been married to the same woman for more than 45 years. I don't feel a bit threatened by gay marriage.

Two 95-year-olds were recently married in Camarillo. I believe it is time to pass a state constitutional amendment to stop nonagenarian marriages.

They are few in number, and there are lots of us. We can easily outvote them.

Also, there is probably a paragraph in the Bible forbidding "nonas" from marrying.

If you look hard enough and are open-minded about interpretation, you can find just about anything you want in the Bible.

Despite the paranoia of "marriage-equality" advocates, ballot initiatives to enshrine man-woman marriage in state constitutions are not a political ploy to win elections. They are the only logical response to the constitutional lawsuits funded by the gay and lesbian community that threaten to impose the gay community's definition of marriage on the vast majority of Americans who prefer the traditional definition of marriage.

Jeez, I dont understand you people. Why is the ''traditional" view of marriage so important? GOP talking points like to use the phrase 'building block of society' but God forbid that they ever expand on that. 90% of people supported the ban on interracial marriage when it was struck down. Majority opinion has no bearing onthis argument.

How does a gay couple's marriage threaten my marriage if my marriage is on solid ground?

Two weeks after deciding same-sex couples are entitled to marry, the California Supreme Court appeared ready Wednesday to rule that physicians have no constitutional right to refuse medical treatment to gays on grounds it would violate their religious beliefs.

The justices' inclination emerged as the state high court heard arguments in a case that pits the religious freedom of physicians against the right of gays to be free from discrimination.

Several justices suggested during Wednesday's hearing that they would rule that religion was not a legal justification for two Christian physicians in San Diego County who declined to perform an intrauterine insemination for Lupita Benitez, a lesbian who sought to become pregnant in 1999.

Justice Carol A. Corrigan, who voted against same-sex marriage, appeared strongly in favor of Benitez's right to medical treatment.

Corrigan noted that the physicians were running a business.

She added that if they did not want to perform certain procedures, they could take up a different line of work.

She questioned whether it was appropriate for a doctor to tell a patient, "I am not going to do it for you because of who you are."

Chief Justice Ronald M. George suggested that the issue was not about whether doctors could refuse to perform a procedure at all but whether certain patients could be deprived a treatment that others received.

The doctors contend that their religious objections dealt with unmarried women, not only with lesbians, and that the state Constitution protects their right to exercise religious choices.

Benitez, 36, and her partner of 18 years, Joanne Clark, 49, now have three children conceived with medical help and donated semen.

In a brief interview after arguments, Benitez said she desperately wanted to bear a child and thought that the doctors believed that she was "not worthy of becoming a mother."

And if they want to have a relationship with another consenting adult, it is none of your business, it is none of my business, and it is certainly none of the government's business.

Thanks for the lawsuit. Threatening doctors with the loss of their license will result in fewer doctors willing to provide the procedure at all. Doctors not directly affected by the ruling will sense the negative practice environment and move elsewhere. Everyone loses. Furthermore, most citizens should object to the state deciding which religious beliefs are acceptable and which are not.

what's next if the high court doesn't tell the docs to do their job? telling black's you won't deliver their babies because your religion believes in white supremacy?

A license to practice medicine is conveyed by the state, and subject to state regulation. If state law requires medical services be provided without discrimination, and refusal to provide these services to a same sex couple is deemed discrimination, the physician should be required to provide those services or forfeit their license. Receipt of a state license to practice medicine requires the practitioner to adhere to applicable state laws. If someone's opposed to providing these services on grounds other than medical reasons, they shouldn't practice medicine CA or should practice in a state that does have nondiscriminatory regulations.

I think the leaning by the Court is correct. If you perform a service regardless of what it is, then it must be available to all. This means if you dispense medication, it must be available to all. If you perform abortion, it must be available to all. If you perform artificial insemination, it must be available to all. Etc. If you do not agree to dispense medication, you should not be in the business of dispensing medication.

PlanetOut, a media and entertainment company that conducts surveys about gay and lesbian consumers, says gay consumers earn 20% more than their straight counterparts, on average, and spend about 10% more on nuptials.

Marriage Amendment May Backfire on GOP

Two things already can be said about the pro-posed state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage that on Tuesday qualified for the Nov. 4 ballot.

One is that the coming campaign is sure to be nasty and divisive; the other is that recent history suggests that such electoral struggles over fundamental rights are likely to have unintended consequences.

Any time one group of Californians uses the ballot box as a tool to have another group declared less or different than everyone else -- and, therefore, entitled to fewer rights -- people take it personally and things get rough.

Those pushing the "Marriage Protection Amendment" have at their disposal the language of personal faith and religious tradition, which they surely will make the most of.

But the genius of the American system is that it recognizes majoritarian tyranny as a threat to liberty right alongside power concentrated in the hands of the few. That gives a besieged minority, which this ballot initiative surely makes of gays and lesbians, a well-tested political vocabulary with which to make the case against injustice.

You'd think that when it comes to an issue as fundamental as a person's right to marry the partner of his or her choice,

Protect Marriage, the organization seeking to overturn the recent decision by the California Supreme Court, presented the secretary of state with a petition bearing 1.1 million signatures -- and yet it is hardly a mass movement. California allows professional contractors that pay people to gather signatures for political measures, so anyone with enough money to spend can get an initiative on the ballot.

In this case, most of the money came from two wealthy Orange County residents who also happen to be fervent evangelical Christians.

If Barack Obama is on the presidential ballot in November, younger, well-educated voters are expected to turn out for him in unprecedented numbers, which could be decisive in the marriage amendment vote.

The one place The Times' survey found overwhelming opposition to same-sex marriage is among evangelical Protestants, 83% of whom said they support a constitutional ban. That makes Ahmanson's and Atsinger's backing understandable, as well as the fact that the list of supporters on the amendment's website looks like a who's who of California's evangelical religious right. But notice that the Catholic bishops, Orthodox rabbis and Islamic imams -- who also hold traditional religious views -- are nowhere in sight.

In 1994, California Republicans thought they had a winning issue with Proposition 187, which would have denied all social services -- including healthcare and education -- to illegal immigrants.

Proposition 187 easily passed, but it ultimately was overturned by a federal court. Since then, only one Republican candidate has won a statewide election for president, governor or U.S. senator in California. That lone GOP exception is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, which may be why he categorically opposes the Marriage Protection Amendment.

After fighting same-sex marriage for four years, the state Thursday urged the California Supreme Court to reject petitions that would delay enforcement of the court's landmark ruling permitting gays to wed [each other].

"This historic litigation is now concluded," wrote Senior Assistant Atty. Gen. Christopher E. Krueger in a brief filed with the high court. "It is time for these proceedings to end."

California's change of heart came as 10 other states, including Florida and Utah, filed a brief in support of a request by gay marriage opponents to delay the effective date of the court ruling.

The offices of attorneys general of Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah protested that their states, which restrict marriage to unions of a man and a woman, would be inundated by litigation seeking to have them recognize same-sex nuptials in California.

The state said the group's request was improperly asking the court "to enjoin the exercise of a newly recognized fundamental constitutional right based on speculation that voters will abolish that right in the future."

The delay "would have the effect of mingling judicial processes with political processes, and would be tantamount to anticipatory implementation of the proposed initiative even before it is submitted to voters," Krueger argued.

Remember how your parents felt about desegregation? And how their parents objected to women's suffrage? And their parents felt about indoor fire? This may seem different, but it isn't.

Gays are going to be fully accepted by society.

You can either slow that process in a desperate attempt to keep the world safely the same, or you can help expedite that change and get to see what the future will be like.

So I'm asking you to vote against all your wisdom and experience.

I'm asking you to trust that the history of social change is full of uncomfortable lurches toward improvement through inclusion and equality.

Last week's Dust-Up on the future of [licensing] marriage drew many comments from three groups of objectors to the California Supreme Court's ending of the ban on same-sex marriage: Those who quoted Bible passages, those who suggested people start marrying their pets, and those outraged that the court had subverted "the will of the people."

Glen Lavy made the case for the people's will on Day 1 of the weeklong debate, though many commenters brought up the counterexample of Jim Crow.

According to a Field Poll released yesterday, a majority of Californians now favor giving rights to same-sex couples — and oppose a ban on [counterfeit] marriage.

Quite simply, more and more Californians no longer regard [counterfeit] marriage as loathsome or morally wrong – what is particularly striking about this attitudinal change is that it is definitely generational.

Younger voters are much less likely to vote to deny gay couples the right to marry than are older voters.

Two down, with 48 to go.

As the California Supreme Court decision outlawing this state's ban on same-sex marriage settles in,

we are being treated to the unmistakable cracking sounds of long-held, icy bigotries giving way to a wellspring of justice.

And, perhaps most telling of all, Macy's this week took out a full-page ad that solicited the business of same-sex couples planning their nuptials.

"First comes love. Then comes marriage," the ad proclaims beneath an image of two wedding rings. "And now it's a milestone every couple in California can celebrate."

It is bracing, after all, to realize how recently much of this nation blanched at interracial marriage,

Gay rights advocates had reason to celebrate on both coasts Thursday, with New York set to recognize same-sex [“]marriages[“] performed elsewhere and California preparing to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on June 17.

The guidelines from Janet McKee, chief of California's office of vital records, contained copies of new marriage forms that include lines for "Party A" and "Party B" instead of bride and groom.

Marriage was an institution to which we'd long been denied entry, a tool used to deem our entire relationship illegitimate.

"There is no dignity in having your heart broken by faceless bureaucratic bigots fighting to preserve their crabbed and medieval worldview, nor in having one's existence made subject to ballot propositions, nor in being used as a fundraising expedient by professional haters and hypocrites," was part of what she told our assembled family and friends.

But would you want your marriage put to a statewide popular vote?

You can't be a gay person in America, even in California, and be a complete stranger to discrimination.

This is the state -- my state, my government -- throwing open one arm to us, yet holding the other poised to slap us hard.

Twenty-six states have amended their constitutions to explicitly bar same-sex couples from marrying.

As the nation's most populous state, California often sets in motion social and political trends that sweep across the country. But legal experts on both sides of the fight over same-sex [“]marriage[“] say that the California Supreme Court's ruling giving gays and lesbians [counterfeit marriage licenses] is not likely to have a ripple effect.

For more than a decade, conservative activists have erected a series of legal barriers to prevent one state's move toward recognizing [counterfeit] marriages from setting in motion a national wave.

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to recognize same-sex [“]marriage[“]: Its Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled it was unconstitutional to deny this [“]right[“] to gay couples.

So, although we recognize that county clerks throughout California have a complicated job ahead gearing up for same-sex marriages -- such as, what should the license call what used to be "husband and wife"?

Some workers may have problems with interracial marriage too, but no one is suggesting that they be allowed to opt out of the duty to perform those constitutionally protected unions.

If they can't handle their jobs, they're free to apply for new ones elsewhere.

Religious groups and clergy are of course entitled to follow their own consciences in these matters. Public employees are not.

After sending initially confusing messages on the matter, Los Angeles County has rightly decided that both paid and volunteer marriage commissioners will be required to perform ceremonies for all who walk in the door.

According to your editorial, public employees should be forced to perform marriage ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples even if they object to doing so on religious grounds. Yet on March 14, the Times editorialized that the state should do away with loyalty oaths on the grounds that it is unconstitutional to require public employees to give up their 1st Amendment rights as a condition of employment.

What changed?

Brewer, 22, didn't come to Morehouse with the intent of changing it. But he found that he had no choice. He had arrived here from Oklahoma City pretty comfortable with himself: outspoken, proudly smart and, at 5 foot 9 and 300 pounds, hard to miss.

Early on, he decided he wouldn't water down his gay identity.

The 141-year-old college has played a key role in defining black manhood in America. But with a past steeped in religion, tradition and machismo, it has struggled to determine how homosexuality fits within that definition.

Brewer was selling the idea of a day of silence for the victims of homophobia and asking his fellow students to sign up.

After four years on the 3,000-student campus, Brewer seemed to know everyone who passed by -- the straight allies and the straights with hang-ups, the openly gay upperclassmen and the men on the down low, that is, straight to the world but open to gay affairs.

But the college offered him a full scholarship, and he grew intrigued by the idea of joining a brotherhood.

It was also difficult to ignore the fact that he had stepped into a place that had not come to terms with the presence of gay men on campus. There were the casually cruel statements from some of the straight guys and the tortuous code of silence from the guys on the down low.

There were ministers-in-training who tried to convert Brewer's gay friends with prayer. There were gay seniors who advised him to tone it down.

But the issue may have been exacerbated by the school's special mission. "Black colleges functioned for years and years to discredit the claims that black people were somehow inferior," said Horace Griffin, a Morehouse graduate and theology professor who has written about gay history.

Back when homosexuality was considered a perversion, he said, black colleges strove to deny that it was present on their campuses.

An uglier incident occurred in 2002, two years before Brewer arrived. A sophomore named Aaron Price beat a student with a baseball bat because he thought the man was making a sexual advance.

Price was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

He worries about the health of the college's fledgling gay rights movement. The Safe Space group this year only had about five active members. Brewer decided that the week of gay rights events would be his legacy to the school he loves. The centerpiece was a panel discussion on homophobia, with Brewer as moderator.

A conservative legal group is asking the California Supreme Court to stay its decision legalizing same-sex marriage until voters get a chance to weigh in.

The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund wants the ruling stayed until November, when voters are likely to encounter a ballot measure that would amend the state's constitution to ban gay marriage.

In court papers submitted late Thursday, the group argues that allowing gay and lesbian couples to [obtain marriage licenses] before the election "risks legal havoc and uncertainty of immeasurable magnitude."

Much has been said about the religious institutions opposing same-sex marriage, but progressive-minded interfaith coalitions have been arguing in favor of it.

Gay men and women are human beings, and according to my faith of Islam, all human beings are equal. It is time we set aside prejudices and invite them in to pray along with us and treat them as equals. Let us try.

As an ordained Presbyterian minister and moderator of the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), I applaud the recent decision by the California Supreme Court to allow same-sex marriage.

The Bible teaches us that we are all equal in God's sight. Indeed, Jesus reached out to those who were sexual minorities in his culture.

The state Supreme Court decision affirms society's commitment to equal protection under the law and is consistent with the values of my Christian faith.

With the ruling of the state Supreme Court striking down the separate but equal policy of domestic partnership as discriminatory, a severe injustice has been corrected.

If marriage is important to heterosexuals – most would say that it is very important – then how can it be denied to part of our population just because of how they were born?

I've listened to the sound bites of those who would create a constitutional amendment to deny the very basic right of marriage to some (while enjoying that same right themselves) and they are not rational:

They are doing it for the children. Which children?

There are hundreds of children of heterosexual parents in foster care who will not be helped at all by an amendment banning gay marriage, but there are children of gays and lesbians who will benefit from allowing their parents to marry.

Letting two women who have been together for more than 30 years marry will not mean anything to children of heterosexuals, but making a constitutional amendment to ban divorce and single parenting would.

It seems unseemly for anyone to have the right to vote to take away rights from others when they themselves are not affected.

They are trying to change the definition of traditional marriage. Can you imagine accusing women back in 1919 of trying to change the definition of a "traditional" voter?

They were only trying to change the definition from one that was exclusive to one that was inclusive, which is all that gays and lesbians are asking for today.

If we allow gays to be married then polygamists will want their multiple marriages legal. What an unfair claim to heap onto the already overburdened shoulders of gays and lesbians.

Polygamists get their authority from the Bible.

Traditional marriage is between a man and a woman. Marriage has been previously defined in these ways: as something your parents arranged; as something you could not get out of without paying money to the Vatican and getting an annulment; as something between family members to keep land in the family, and until 1948 in California, as something between members of the same race.

Gays and lesbians just want to validate their immoral alternative lifestyle. That is an insult to all gays and lesbians. They are born and grow up just like the rest of us. They play sports, learn to play musical instruments, go to college, and they love their families. The only difference is that the person that they choose as their soul-mate to live "happily ever after" with is of the same gender.

At Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church of Pasadena, the mood was celebratory Sunday, with Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" played at services in honor of the decision.

But at the Islamic Society of Orange County, Imam Muzammil H. Siddiqi told his congregation during Friday prayers that the high court's decision was a severe disappointment and goes against Islamic teaching.

The ruling "is a violation of God's law," Siddiqi, an authority on Islamic law, said in an interview. "I hope all people of faith -- Jews, Christians and Muslims -- speak up against this."

A mile or so away at All Saints Episcopal Church, the Rev. Susan Russell led a between-services forum on the religious, legal and political ramifications of the court's decision.

"The justices have ruled in favor of the sanctity of marriage and against bigotry," Russell declared, as the audience cheered. "This is good news for all Californians."

The decision raises questions, too, about what All Saints' blessing ceremonies mean anymore, Russell said. Should couples who have had such ceremonies get married too? Will the civil steps suffice? Or should they go through another church ritual? And what kinds of ceremonies will All Saints provide as it moves forward?

In recent years, conflicts over homosexuality and the Bible have unsettled many denominations, especially such mainline Protestant churches as Methodists, Presbyterians, Evangelical Lutherans and Episcopalians.

William McKinney, president of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and a professor of American religion there, said the ruling was applauded on his campus, which is a multidenominational, theologically liberal Christian seminary.

"On the other hand, though, this sets us up for another round of the culture wars," he said. "As a straight, married man, I feel for my gay friends whose private life is once again going to be the subject of public debate."

For Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, who heads the Conservative Jewish congregation at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino, the court's decision has changed the way he will handle celebrating the unions of gay and lesbian couples at his synagogue.

"I did not in the past. I will now," he said in an interview. "I was really waiting for this [decision]. . . . From my point of view, it's a very courageous thing and is part of the evolution of religious mores."

Schulweis has been a rabbi for more than half a century and has seen his religion evolve, he said, first allowing women into the full "ritual life of the community," then ordaining them as rabbis and cantors, and eventually embracing homosexuals.

"It's one of the most exciting parts of seeing religion as not static and inflexible but as sensitive to different times and different information and different knowledge," Schulweis said.

"What in the world did people in the biblical time know about homosexuals?"

In contrast, since 2000 rabbis in Reform Judaism have been allowed to officiate at same-sex commitment ceremonies. Reform Rabbi Lawrence Goldmark, who leads Temple Beth Ohr, a La Mirada congregation, said he has never been asked to perform a same-sex ceremony, but would be happy to marry anyone -- as long as they're Jewish.

More than half of Californians said gay relationships were not morally wrong, that they would not degrade heterosexual marriages and that all that mattered was that a relationship be loving and committed, regardless of gender.

But the generational schism is pronounced. Those under 45 were less likely to favor a constitutional amendment than their elders and were more supportive of the court's decision to overturn the state's current ban on [counterfeit] marriage.

Thursday, supporters of the proposed amendment asked the court to place its decision on hold until after the election. Failure to do so "risks legal havoc and uncertainty," lawyers for the Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund argued, noting that same-sex marriages entered into between now and November would be under a legal cloud if voters approved the ban. Court experts, however, say it is unlikely the justices would agree to such a lengthy delay in implementing their ruling.

On the opposite side is Lena Neal of Perris, who said she supported the court's decision and would vote against an amendment. Neal, a Democrat, based her views on the experiences of an elderly family member, who she said was part of a decades-long same-sex partnership. When one of them entered the hospital, she said, the other was not allowed to visit -- that benefit was restricted to family members.

"It's their right," she said of [counterfeit] marriage. "They're humans."

1. Less divorce from mixed gay/straight marriages.

2. Less gay children being abandoned and excluded from their families which leads to risks of depression, suicide, and school failure.

3. Less family implosion from mental and emotional, if not physical abuse of gay children.

4. Less risk of addiction or homelessness from said parental abuse or abandonment.

5. More monogamy, commitment and hope of the future.

6. More couples available to adopt needy children (heterosexuals keep up quite a supply that exceeds demand).

7. More productivity (a couple can be free to support each other through professional or economic downturns.)

8. More support for the extended family. For aging parents, for the children of siblings, for the other benefits that free up a gay person to be available to the family who needs them.

9. Less risk of public assistance because inheritance of property and other federal benefits will be bestowed.

10. Less risky behaviors because of the grounding and affirming institution and hope marriage brings.

11. Less assault and violence against gay people which would lessen the need for hate crimes or any other anti hate legislation.

12. More competent soldiers for our all volunteer army.

13. And more happiness and hope for it for gay people.

14. More happiness for their parents, siblings and friends because no one is afraid or has to hide or be deceptive or silent anymore.

15. You can still have your religious belief and your own religious community. They don't have to accept homosexuals and the gov't won't make you.

16. You can still speak out against gay people and convince other people that a gay person being happy is a bad thing in society.

On Friday, a day after the California Supreme Court cleared the way for gay marriage, I visited a place in downtown Los Angeles where no one was talking about weddings. One-time lovers avoided eye contact, children wept and lawyers counted money.

Divorce court.

As for those who argue that legalized gay unions threaten the institution and sanctity of marriage, the statistics leave no doubt that heterosexuals are perfectly capable of cheapening the vows entirely on their own.

"I don't concern myself with how many people get divorced," Calvelli said. "I think about things like going to a doctor's office and being presented with a form, and having to check whether I'm married or single. It kills me to check single because that isn't how I see myself."

Finally, there'll be no more living in sin.

I met my son when he was 4 1/2 . He called me Joel and his father Papa.

When he was 7 years old, I [“]married[“] his father in a religious ceremony.

About a week before, he started calling me "Dad." It was "Dad" this and "Dad" that, in every sentence and question.

But how could I explain that it was a religious ceremony and not a civil ceremony in the eyes of the state?

A striking feature of the majority opinion is how often it uses the word "dignity" -- 22 times by my count. A computer search on the word "dignity" in all U.S. and California Supreme Court cases returned just one U.S. Supreme Court opinion that used the word as frequently in reference to human dignity (as opposed to state or sovereign dignity).

It was refreshing to see a court acknowledge just how essential dignity is to our humanity.

It's a shame that we now face an initiative struggle in which the people will once again be asked to deny the fundamental dignity of their gay and lesbian neighbors.

Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo on Monday asked county supervisors to order Acting Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan not to allow employees who are uncomfortable with gay marriages to excuse themselves from officiating at such ceremonies.

For some, it is as simple as access to the vocabulary of marriage. "My wife" translates so much more readily to the general populace than "my partner," said Marcia Hams, who traded vows with Susan Shepherd days after Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage on May 17, 2004.

Other same-sex couples say marriage has produced more practical benefits.

Gay and lesbian spouses can authorize emergency medical treatment for each other that once was off-limits because they were not husbands or wives.

They can inherit property without mountains of paperwork explaining their relationship -- documents that often still were subject to challenge by biological relatives.

And, as legally recognized families, they have access to cheaper health insurance.

The couple have diverted the savings to a college fund for their 16-year-old daughter, Paige, who wore her first pair of high heels to her fathers' candlelight church wedding.

"I was a huge opponent," said Rep. Paul Kujawski, a Democrat who voted repeatedly in favor of a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. After three years of conversations with gay and lesbian families and individuals, Kujawski said, he has become a supporter: "I listened to story after story, and I found out they only want what everyone else wants -- the opportunity to live in happiness and dignity."

But for the most part in Massachusetts, lesbian and gay marriage has become so everyday that when kindergartner Chloe Page saw her teacher sporting a new wedding band, she asked if he had married a boy or a girl.

Carisa Cunningham, spokeswoman for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders here, said gay and lesbian divorces in Massachusetts probably numbered "in the several dozens."

In a way, "Massachusetts has been like the reality TV show for gay marriage," said Karen Kahn, co-author of "Courting Equality," a book examining same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

“Nothing terrible has happened in our state.”

“There continue to be little pockets of opposition, but almost none of it is not religious-based.”

Growing up as the son of two unmarried "moms," Hams, 28, said he always had to watch what he said about his family, even among his closest friends in open-minded Cambridge.

Now that Marcia Hams and Susan Shepherd are married -- they waited in line for hours with Peter to become the first same-sex couple in the commonwealth to obtain a marriage license -- he said: "For me it is a huge weight off my shoulders. I don't have to explain anything to the people I meet. I can just say my parents are married. This is the kind of privilege that most heterosexual families take for granted."

Officials at the California office of vital records must revise text in the state's marriage license, which contains the words "bride" and "groom." There may also be a need to devise a more gender-neutral oath that couples must legally take before being married.

Being a heterosexual male -- not that there's anything wrong with that -- the gay-marriage debate doesn't hit me where I live.

In overturning a ban against same-sex marriages, the California Supreme Court this week has put the hot potato back on the table, so there's no use in hiding from it.

And [same-sex] [“]marriage[“] will disrupt the social order by doing what exactly?

If [counterfeit] marriage is against God's will, let him handle the punishment. Why should mere mortals be the ones dispensing the judgment?

I keep thinking that if same-sex marriage posed such a threat, why isn't it clear to me or millions of others?

There's a way to prove it. Let's authorize same-sex marriage for five years, then see whether the country is in worse shape.

It's natural for people who love each other to want to marry.

It's a personal, societal and legal validation that means something to them.

As such, how dare other people tell two adults that they can't marry?

How dare other people, who it just so happens aren't gay, decide that those who are get relegated to secondary social status?

It's the argument made a couple generations back against whites and blacks marrying -- other people just didn't like the idea.