prop 8 revisited
this is my response to a thread on facebook that got me fired up:
"this issue is not about church and state - there are plenty of non-religious folk who are prejudice.
rather the core issue here is a matter of governance - regardless of how you feel about this issue - the basis of the judge's decision is to... say that moral preference is not a sufficient reason to "deny rights."
regardless of the side of the fence you sit on, this is a slippery slope in two ways:
first, it opens up the door for other forms of marriage which are less morally ambiguous (and yes there is a huge moral argument for gay marriage as well as against it); such as bigamy, marriage between adults and minors, and to the extreme legal marriage with animals and inanimate objects.
second, in the pursuit to uphold one groups rights, you are denying others rights to freedom of religion. basically, you are saying even though you have the right to choose your belief system, you no longer have the right to exercise your right to vote based on those beliefs.
at that level this is not about church and state (that is such an uninformed viewpoint on the topic) it is about competing individual rights. is my right to choose my own governance more important than another person's right to marry whomsoever they choose? That is the core of this issue.
now to clarify fully - this issue is less about the above and more about the states rights verses federal government rights when it comes to passing laws and ultimately the role of the judicial system. at the end of the day what will come out of this is neither upholding prop 8 or overturning it, but to set precedent on the judicial systems right to create legislature via rulings. an example of this happening is the supreme court decision on roe v. wade - in effect that ruling created legislation from a federal level making abortion legal.
this ruling has done the same thing. just because a certain moral stance is associated with a particular religious movement does not mean that stance is exclusive to that movement.
further, all belief is rooted in morality at some level, it has to be - as morals are nothing more than values, and all belief is dictated by values. for instance if you value the freedom to marry whomsoever you should want, then your moral stance is against prop 8 - but it is still a moral stance. if you value states rights to self-governance than you will stand opposed to this ruling because it violates that moral.
the fact that anyone has an opinion on this reveals a moral standing for that person - plain and simple. do not make the mistake of judging others for their morality; or apparent lack-there-of, all the while accusing them of judging others.