ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME-SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Changes the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California. Provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California. Fiscal Impact: Over next few years, potential revenue loss, mainly sales taxes, totaling in the several tens of millions of dollars, to state and local governments. In the long run, likely little fiscal impact on state and local governments.
Rev. Rick Warren of the Saddleback Church, a true maverick among evangelicals, has recently come out forcefully in support of California Proposition 8.
Dear Pastor Warren:
I have a few questions for you.1. How is it that my marrying my partner of many years does any harm to the institution of marriage? We are committed to one another. We are faithful. We are monogamous. We love, honor and cherish one another, and intend to do so as long as we both shall live.
2. If I marry my Beloved partner, we will qualify for more than one thousand four hundred rights under the law which we are currently denied. She would be able to make medical decisions for me should I become incapacitated by illness or injury. We (who are both hard-working and productive members of our community) would be able to file joint income tax returns. We would be able to carry one another on our health insurance. How do the recognition of these rights for us, two gay women, harm you, heterosexual married male?
3. The church regularly recognizes and solemnizes both the marriages of women past child-bearing age and men and woman who are infertile or who have had surgery to permanently prevent their parenting children. As this is the case, the production of children is clearly not essential to the institution of marriage. On what other basis can you then claim that a man and a woman are necessary parties to any valid marriage?
4. How do you justify exclusion in the name of your faith, when the Lord and Savior you claim preached and lived a gospel of inclusion and welcome? Why do you stand with the vast majority when Jesus took his stand continually with those who were powerless?
5. It is evening. I have cooked a warm and nourishing dinner for my Beloved. After dinner we spend some happy hours in front of the fire, reading, talking, listening to music. At the end of our long day, we climb into our bed together and turn out the lights. Fortunately, in the state where we live, our privacy is sufficiently protected to allow us the freedom to do all these things. Our love will not be diminished one iota by the passage of Proposition 8. But whose love will benefit? Whose love will grow or be strengthened? I believe that, in truth, no love will be born or flourish as a result of Proposition 8; only hate will grow. Only hate will thrive. You who serve the God whose name is Love... how do you justify your role in strengthening the position of those who would preach hate of their gay and lesbian brothers and sisters?
Thanks to dear one, FranIAm, for letting me in on this wonderful event....
13 comments:
Amen, C--it's particularly disturbing that religious leaders are such drivers in this movement.
Your evening sounds lovely, tho--more of that to you!
Preach it my sister!
You are kind to note what you did. We all must stand collectively, hand in hand, hearts united, to see that justice is delivered for all.
Which is pretty Jesus-y in my way of seeing things...
xoxox to you and your beloved!
There's an EXTREME DANGER if Prop 8 passes! INCEST will become legal! VOTE NO ON PROP 8
Our love will not be diminished one iota by the passage of Proposition 8. But whose love will benefit? Whose love will grow or be strengthened?
Wow.
I've never understood the argument that gay unions are a threat to marriage, but I think the point you make above is far more important in the context of Christian theology.
Blessings to you and Beloved.
Hokey dokey, not sure where that last fellow "reamworks" came from, but... anyway... a novel approach to the issue, to be sure.
Amen, and Amen.
I only wish it weren't already too late here in Georgia. I simply cannot understand in any logical way those who feel there is any "threat" to the institution of marriage if same-sex partners were given marriage equality. It is simply fear-based, driven by a most uninformed (yet pervasive and, yes, historical) interpretation of Scripture.
Thank you for this.
One more, very loud, AMEN!
Just beautiful. Thank you.
Oh, good post, Cecilia. Moving and powerful. Blessings.
From that odd comment...
If our Constitution were changed with Proposition 8, our Judges would have no choice to allow one marriage to contain more than two people as long as each relationship within it was between a man and a woman.
Ahh, you mean like King Solomon? And all those other Old Testament patriarchs with all the wives?
*ducks, runs like hell*
I should probably apologize for that, but I'm not gonna. :)
More apropos to the post at hand? Well done. I'd love to see some answers, but I doubt we're gonna get any.
Pastor Warren comments that no more than 2% of the population is lesbian or gay, and that society shouldn't change the definition of marriage just for 2%.
First, 2% is a low estimate. While it's hard to come up with exact numbers, I think that as many as 5-10% of the population are attracted to the same sex to some degree.
Second, God said he would not destroy Sodom (whose sin, btw, was attempted rape, not homosexuality) if there were as few as 10 righteous people in the city. Percentages make no difference.
Third, if same sex couples are allowed to wed, the only losses that heterosexual people like me might suffer are self inflicted.
Fourth, I'm typing on a Mac - some of you may have heard that Apple publicly opposed Prop 8.
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