“Voters for Proposition 8 may have succeeded within the narrow confines of their belief system, they utterly failed as Americans."

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“While everyone who voted for Proposition 8 may have succeeded within the narrow confines of their particular belief system, they have failed utterly as Americans.”

SOURCE: LAVANDER NEWSWIRE

January 4, 2009

Good op/ed in this morning’s Napa Valley Register. I particularly like the not-at-all-impossible scenario of a Catholic voting majority in California and the subsequent potential for a constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to “a man and a woman who have not previously been married.” (That would seem even more difficult an amendment to fight if Proposition 8 were allowed to stand; the addition of those six little words would indeed be merely an amendment, and not a revision.)

That everyone’s rights are now up for a vote is something the religious zealots refuse to discuss, for obvious reasons. Yet you can be sure that if, or perhaps when, their rights are on the line, they will experience a sudden epiphany about the value of separation of church and state. (Will I be there to defend their rights? As a good liberal, I should. As a mere mortal, I know I won’t.)

In diverse land, a narrow-minded vote

Nothing could better illustrate the deplorable condition of the California education system than the continuing furor over Proposition 8.

How else can a reasonable person explain the fact that, in the most ethnically and culturally diverse state in the country, the very diversity of which implies a wide range of belief systems, an amazing number of people don’t understand that their right to their particular beliefs is precisely what the Constitution exists to protect? …

Like the original Pilgrims, people of the Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim and Taoist persuasions — not to mention aboriginal faiths too numerous and esoteric to mention — have all at various times sought the protection of a constitutional government that distinguishes between beliefs and the right to hold those beliefs.

Never mind that all those belief systems disagree with one another — that’s a given. …

The question that such diversity raises is, how are all these people supposed to live in anything like harmony except by virtue of a system that prevents any one group from imposing its beliefs on all of the others? …

…[S]peaking of the Roman Catholic Church enables me to put the tire back on the road by way of an example. Considering the growing influence of the Hispanic community in California, it is not inconceivable that at some point in the near future it may comprise a voting majority.

Inasmuch as the Hispanic community is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, when that time comes it will be a matter of doctrine that marriage can only take place between a man and a woman who have not previously been married.

Will the people have spoken if they succeed in amending the state constitution to that effect?

I think we all need to pray on this matter — or should we chant? Before we do, however, we need to face the fact that, while everyone who voted for Proposition 8 may have succeeded within the narrow confines of their particular belief system, they have failed utterly as Americans. …

More at the link. Posted by: Sapphocrat