Today you'll be voting on whether or not to amend the state constitution to eliminate the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
In 1948 the California Supreme Court found that marriage "is a fundamental right of free men." The Equal Protection clause of the California Constitution states [among other things] that:
A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to all citizens.
This led the California Supreme Court to rule on May 15, 2008 that the statute enacted by Proposition 22 and other statutes that limit marriage to a relationship between a man and a woman violated the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. It also held that individuals of the same sex have the right to marry under the California Constitution.
Proposition 8 would change the constitution to eliminate marriage rights for same-sex couples. It would actually amend the equal protection clause to specifically exclude same-sex couples from marrying. This is a blatantly discriminatory measure that does nothing but exclude.
Proponents will try to scare you by threatening that schools will have to "teach gay marriage" unless you act quickly and vote for prop 8. I don't even know what they mean by "teach gay marriage" but I do know that California schools aren't required to teach anything about marriage ( - Jack O'Connell, California superintendent of schools; California Teachers Association). And this is a completely irrelevant argument because California gives parents an absolute right to remove their kids and opt-out of teaching on health and family instruction they don’t agree with. The proposition doesn't even say anything about teaching marriage in schools, all it seeks to do is eliminate marriage rights. The schools argument is a smokescreen to scare people into changing the constitution to eliminate rights.
Same-sex marriage is a reality in California, other states, and countries around the world. The sky is not falling, and western society as we know it has not collapsed.
In the end, this issue is about civil rights. It's about liberty for people to live with the person that they love, under the marriage contract as provided by state law, irrespective or religion, race, or gender, etc.
This is an issue I feel strongly about. This issue I care highly about due to those people in my life who I love dearly and should be treated as equals having the same rights as I do. Voting yes on proposition 8 is voting to take their right to marry away, voting to take their right to love away. It's telling others that their lives are invalid, when who they feel to love is wrong, and the rights provided by the constitution are free to be eliminated whenever and at whim. It's saying that gays do not deserve the dignity or rights everyone else take very much for granted.
Vote no on proposition 8. There's no excuse.
Note: I took this from my roommate Nathan Piazza I changed a few things, but Ideally I did it to get a message across. I really just wanted to give him the credit for putting all the work into this.
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