I really don't understand why, at least in California, Propositions to ban gay marriage were struck down.
The "Yes on 8" group, when finding themselves down in the polls, reverted to scare tactics and blatant lies to gather support; stating that "They'll teach our kids in schools and go against parental rights!", "They'll endanger our religious freedoms!", "Our kids won't have a mother and a father!" among other ludicrous statements.
Fact 1: Californian parents have the right to opt their children out of certain lessons, and they have considerable influence in local school-boards. Teachers would not teach kids anything the parents did not want them to(unless the parents didn't want their kids taught math, or something necessary like that). The California school board has stated Yes on 8's scare tactics are filled with lies.
Fact 2: Proposition 8 failing will not endanger religious freedoms. Religious institutions cannot be forced by law to work against their traditional practices and basically do things that don't coincide with their religion. Churches are safe, they don't have to marry anyone they don't want to/ host wedding ceremonies they don't want to, and from what I've read this extends to religious organizations, which would include religious-run adoption agencies. So that's safe.
However, if Prop 8 passes, then religious freedoms WILL be destroyed. People who do not follow religion will witness religion fused into secular law, enforcing religious beliefs upon ALL of California. This is a serious slippery slope for more intrustion by religion into the proceedings of the government. Yes on 8 was funded mostly by religious groups who not only are opposed to same-sex marriage, but also opposed to same-sex civil unions, rights for same-sex couples, and groups who have historically supported anti-sodomy laws in other states. This ruling would give leverage for these groups and their scare tactics to push those backwards ideas into this country built on a foundation of freedom. Suddenly, we'd be no better than those countries in the middle-east who, by their religious laws, arrest those who believe in other religions(or hold a lack of religious beliefs).
Fact 3: Most kids in california will have a mother and a father. Some will have a mom OR a dad. Gay couples have not been proven to be any worse than single parents, so there shouldn't be any problem. What people seem to be afraid of is that their children will learn about homosexuality and *gasp* be taught about it and understand it. Maybe they'll even support it. There isn't ANY conclusive evidence that homosexuality is a choice, whereas there's much more evidence for it being genetic or biological, so there's nothing to be afraid of with kids learning about it. Besides, when they start to hear about it in schools, chances are you've given them your thoughts on the matter once or twice. The worst thing that could come from learning about it is kids will be microscopically more supportive and violence/hate crimes/suicide rates will drop a little. A more common scenario is that kids will be more supportive and violence/hate crimes/suicide rates will drop dramatically. I mean, what about gay kids?The people who are seemingly so worried about the children are totally giving the cold shoulder to homosexual youth who face hardships day in, day out. Acceptance can't be forced, but it should be fostered. If your child was gay I don't think you'd want him/her to be scared of you, scared to go to school each day in fear of getting beat up, singled out by teachers and students, verbally abused, etc. lest I remind you worse things can happen to them as well. I think it's perfectly ok to be supportive of a religion that is against homosexuality, but I also think it's best if people respectfully disagree with homosexuality instead of "respectfully disagree" while votinng away their rights, much like two wolves and a lamb deciding who is for dinner. It will foster safer environments for our children to grow up within, and I think that's a good thing, personally.
Though the entire Prop 8 campaign I've heard from so many Yes on 8 voters, and a good number of them seem like good people, but they tend to be misinformed. They talk about how much they respect and love their friends and family members who are gay but in the next sentence they'll talk about how they don't hate gay people anymore than they hate smokers(making reference to smoking being illegal in public, or whatever law that is). That's kind of insulting, because equating gay marriage with smoking is ridiculous. Smokers, in general, can marry, because smoking is an activity used with a carcinogen. Gay people can't get married now, and since the person just bundled them in the same range as smokers, suddenly gay people are worse than smokers.
Some have been scared by those ads the yes on 8 people show, and I don't think I've been able to convince people otherwise, that those ads are fibbing, because they want to believe them so much.
I guess that it just comes from the root of the issue that religious people think gay marriage is an assault on their religion, and the word marriage, when Marriage has been secular for decades, and there are now two widely used definitions for marriage: one involving the holy spirit, and one involving the government. These people see marriage as a holy union between a man and a woman, and I can understand that, but what I can't understand is them trying to apply their religious beliefs into a SECULAR definiton of marriage involving the government and the legal union of two consenting adults.
Why not just go for more "separation of church and state" instead of "fusing of church and state". Why not say "Hey, we want marriage out of the state constitution, to be replaced with civil union, so that religion can do with marriage what it wants.".
That way, everyone would get civil unions, and religious entities could hand out marriages to whomever their scripture sees fit. So religious infringement, no destroying the sanctity of a word, etc.
The problem with that is, as I said earlier, these groups which funded prop 8 are for getting rid of civil unions and all gay rights, so they wouldn't go for that avenue. They don't want EVERYONE to have civil unions. They only want heterosexual people to have civil unions, if ANYONE has to have them.
Marriage is a religious ceremony when it is separate from law.
Within law, it taken upon the form of a secular union of two people under the eyes of the government, rather than the spiritual union of two souls in the eyes of god.
I get it. You're following the religious definition of marriage, but you have to acknowledge the government is using that word too in a very non-religious way, as IT IS NOT GOD. So anything it hands out is void of spiritual linking, void of religion.
Thus, marriage, when used by the government, loses all religious ties, removing any rules the Bible supposedly states.
Thus, the government supporting equal rights, in secular fashion, would find it discriminatory and unconstitutional to deny same-sex couple the right to marry as all logical grounds for argument are eliminated.
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