noble-zone (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} noble_zone) wrote,@ 2008-11-04 06:42:00 |
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California voters -- Vote No on Prop 8
A professor friend of mine wrote this and gave it to his students:
Proposition 8 is an attempt to rewrite the California Constitution to deliberately violate equal protection. The California Supreme Court decided in June that equal protection requires that the state should allow people to marry a person of the same sex. To change the law now, as Prop 8 would do, is like attempting to rewrite a law after you've lost the court case, or rewrite the rulebook after you've lost a game. That's otherwise known as cheating, or being a poor sport. So they had better have good reasons to rewrite the constitution -- the burden of proof is on the supporters of Prop 8 to show that it is necessary, or else we should vote NO.
The backers of Prop 8 claim that allowing same sex marriage somehow threatens marriage. I find it extremely hard to understand how allowing more people to get married "threatens" marriage, since it does nothing to affect heterosexual marriages. The backers of Prop 8 have offered no arguments to show that same-sex marriage would cause divorces or break up families, and Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Massachussetts are all still pretty civilized places despite legal same-sex marriage, so I don't see what their case is.
Supporters of Prop 8 instead claim that it would somehow force gay sex into schools, or into churches. These claims are baldfaced lies meant to frighten people, or at best wildly exaggerated half-truths, as this L.A. Times piece <http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-prop8-2-2008nov02,0,5926932.story> shows. That this is the best Prop 8 supporters can do shows the poverty of their position, and suggests that the real motivation for their proposed law is ignorance and bigotry.
Finally, some people think they must support Prop 8 on religious grounds, since their religion considers homosexual behavior to be a sin. However, this is a mistake. Prop 8 is not about anyone's religion; it is about the State of California. We cannot rewrite the state constitution, which applies to all Californians, to fit some people's religious views. Consider a parallel case: many Christians (such as Catholics) consider (at least, officially) that divorce is not allowed in the eyes of God. Indeed, while Jesus says nothing about homosexuality, he does clearly condemn divorce (see, e.g., Mark 10). Now, would it be right for some group to pass a law amending the California Constitution to outlaw divorce? Obviously not. The policy of the state, as long established in America, should be: hey, if you think divorce is wrong, you are free to believe that, in which case you shouldn't get divorced. But don't tell everyone else that they can't get divorced, just because you don't like it. In the same way, people who think gay marriage is wrong are still free to believe that. (Notice gay marriage has been legal since June now, and no one has forced anyone to change their views!) If you don't like gay marriage, fine -- don't have a gay marriage. But don't tell everyone else that they can't get married, just because you don't like it.
Or, a much shorter argument against Prop 8: it is wrong to hurt someone who isn't hurting you. Gay marriage isn't hurting anyone. It would hurt, a lot, to strip existing gay marriages of equal rights, and deny everyone the right to marry the persons they love and care about.
It's as simple as that: hurting people for no good reason is wrong, and that's exactly what Prop 8 does, so it's wrong. Please vote NO on Prop 8.
A professor friend of mine wrote this and gave it to his students:
Proposition 8 is an attempt to rewrite the California Constitution to deliberately violate equal protection. The California Supreme Court decided in June that equal protection requires that the state should allow people to marry a person of the same sex. To change the law now, as Prop 8 would do, is like attempting to rewrite a law after you've lost the court case, or rewrite the rulebook after you've lost a game. That's otherwise known as cheating, or being a poor sport. So they had better have good reasons to rewrite the constitution -- the burden of proof is on the supporters of Prop 8 to show that it is necessary, or else we should vote NO.
The backers of Prop 8 claim that allowing same sex marriage somehow threatens marriage. I find it extremely hard to understand how allowing more people to get married "threatens" marriage, since it does nothing to affect heterosexual marriages. The backers of Prop 8 have offered no arguments to show that same-sex marriage would cause divorces or break up families, and Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Massachussetts are all still pretty civilized places despite legal same-sex marriage, so I don't see what their case is.
Supporters of Prop 8 instead claim that it would somehow force gay sex into schools, or into churches. These claims are baldfaced lies meant to frighten people, or at best wildly exaggerated half-truths, as this L.A. Times piece <http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-prop8-2-2008nov02,0,5926932.story> shows. That this is the best Prop 8 supporters can do shows the poverty of their position, and suggests that the real motivation for their proposed law is ignorance and bigotry.
Finally, some people think they must support Prop 8 on religious grounds, since their religion considers homosexual behavior to be a sin. However, this is a mistake. Prop 8 is not about anyone's religion; it is about the State of California. We cannot rewrite the state constitution, which applies to all Californians, to fit some people's religious views. Consider a parallel case: many Christians (such as Catholics) consider (at least, officially) that divorce is not allowed in the eyes of God. Indeed, while Jesus says nothing about homosexuality, he does clearly condemn divorce (see, e.g., Mark 10). Now, would it be right for some group to pass a law amending the California Constitution to outlaw divorce? Obviously not. The policy of the state, as long established in America, should be: hey, if you think divorce is wrong, you are free to believe that, in which case you shouldn't get divorced. But don't tell everyone else that they can't get divorced, just because you don't like it. In the same way, people who think gay marriage is wrong are still free to believe that. (Notice gay marriage has been legal since June now, and no one has forced anyone to change their views!) If you don't like gay marriage, fine -- don't have a gay marriage. But don't tell everyone else that they can't get married, just because you don't like it.
Or, a much shorter argument against Prop 8: it is wrong to hurt someone who isn't hurting you. Gay marriage isn't hurting anyone. It would hurt, a lot, to strip existing gay marriages of equal rights, and deny everyone the right to marry the persons they love and care about.
It's as simple as that: hurting people for no good reason is wrong, and that's exactly what Prop 8 does, so it's wrong. Please vote NO on Prop 8.
