An estimated 8 to 10,000 march peacefully on November 8, 2008 in San Diego to protest the passing of Proposition 8. The LGBT community was not alone, marching alongside of them were many from the heterosexual community showing their support for equal same sex marriage rights. Proposition 8 has undermined our State's Constitutional commitment to equal protection under the law and writes in discrimination based solely on arguments that those who have religious beliefs against same sex marriage have the right to dictate to others that do not by creating a law to eliminate that practice. What next? Many people believe it is morally wrong to divorce and remarry, will we now amend the Constitution to take away the right of those that have divorced to remarry? And while we are discussing this, whose religious beliefs should we cater to in this move towards theocratic rule? After all, if we are going to create laws eliminating every practice that offends some religion, we will have to decide which religion is going to be our state religion. Even within Christianity, there are massive differences on this issue as well as others. Since there are very few that agree even within their own specific religion, much less between the religions, who wins the prize of being the theocratic ruler of our personal conscience? Catholic? Mormon? Southern Baptist? Muslim?
Do the "Yes on Prop 8" people understand that if this reasoning stands, freedom of religion will be destroyed as sure as they are pushing to destroy our individual right to freedom to live our lives according to our own conscience as long as it doesn't hurt others.
Same sex marriage does not make it illegal to disagree with it or to act according to one's own religious beliefs. It merely allows other individuals the same respect and provides them with the same benefits and rights that have been accorded heterosexual state recognized, civil marriage. All of these benefits and rights have nothing to do with the religious ceremony some people went through to get married. Those of you who still want to impose your personal beliefs on others, study your history. We do not want to go down this road. As our founding fathers knew, it only leads to the end of freedom of religion and democracy - and that is the slippery slope I hope we all can agree is not one we want to slide down.
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