Toward a Moral Life

California’s Proposition 8, recently approved by a slim majority of voters in that state, consisted of a single line:

“Only marriage between a man and a woman

is valid or recognized in California.”

I’m not going to argue the morality of the proposition, as incredibly, unbelievably immoral as it is. We live in a republican democracy, which means that a voting majority can make the rules for the area they live in no matter how inane or biased those rules may be. Vox populi, vox Dei, or some crapola like that.

Protect marriage from...what?

What I want to touch upon is the aftermath. The majority of minority voters, and the Mormon and the Catholic Churches (though perhaps not a majority of their members) were quite vocal in their support for this proposition. Large amounts of money were raised and spent on advertising campaigns that were primers for FUD marketing. Among their claims:

• Children would be forced to learn the details of same-sex marriage.
• Gay bars would be allowed to exist anywhere, even locations next to school.
• Church members were told that congregations could be legally forced to allow same-sex marriages in their churches.

Homophobia was rampant.

Now those same groups that have historically demanded their right to speak freely are now trying to invoke a halt to the same sort of free expression for those who are loudly protesting and boycotting Prop 8 supporters. They have been trying to file suits to stop protesters and boycotters from exercising their right of free expression.

The greatest irony of this situation is that ethnic minorities have spent decades of blood, sweat, and tears trying to gain those civil rights and privileges granted non-minorities from the inception of this country. (The Mormons did the same thing in the 19th century by migrating to Utah.) And now these groups, who made hues and cries for the civility available to others, are making a concerted effort to deny it to other minorities.

(The title for this piece comes from this article.)