Shame in the Name of Morality
California elections are a litter of propositions this year on everything for funding hospitals for children to more space for animals, housing extras for veterans and a T. Boone Pickens plan. Also on the ballot is the question, for the third time in less than five years, about whether girls need their parents’ permission to terminate a pregnancy.
Most dicey of all the issues is Prop 8, which would, with only a majority vote, change the constitution of The Golden State to declare that marriage is between a man and a woman. The measure comes in the wake of a state supreme court ruling earlier this year that people sharing a gender can share lives, too.
Essentially it is an effort by unAmerican religious fanatics who are so afraid of their own sexuality that they are trying to force others into their tight, dark closet of denial. And in the process, deny the essential freedoms of our society to assemble with those whom they would choose. Even though this is a foundation element of our country – we fought the revolution to guarantee these rights – there are these nasty primitives who would turn the clock back on the very idea of the evolution of consciousness.
My conservative friend Ward Connerly was asked if he supported Prop 8 – it was one of those red-meat questions at a Republican dinner – and no doubt his answer was not what many of them wanted to hear. He made two points. First, that while he had emotional resistance to the idea, he couldn’t in good conscience say that all citizens of California weren’t entitled the same rights. Secondly, he said, he couldn’t deny any couple the right to pursue a loving relationship such as he has known with his wife.
Case closed, except that I would add this. To anyone claiming to be a Christian, regardless of what their bible says, Jesus Christ would never have voted for Prop 8.
©2008 SetonnoteS
.