Feel however you want about the issue, but I personally have serious issues with proposition 8. We’ve already raised some issues with it in a previous post, but let me do a quick recap of the situation for you.
Same-sex marriage was legalized in California a few short months ago. Proposition 8 was a referendum designed to amend the state constitution to restrict marriage as being between a man and a woman, and therefore overturn the decision of the California Supreme Court.
This is an issue I’ve never understood, mainly because I don’t see how it affects anyone other than the people trying to get married. I understand completely that many people have religious objections to same-sex marriage and are therefore personally opposed to it. That’s fine, but the disconnect is how that needs to force others not to be married.
In Canada, for example, same-sex marriage is illegal. And yet, as part of the law, no religious organization (read: church, synagogue, temple, mosque, pagan flower circle or anything else) can be forced to perform the marriage. No one is forcing anyone to go “against” their religious beliefs. But same-sex couples are still allowed to marry. And yet in California, a right that was so recently granted to these couples has been abruptly taken away.
Keith Olbermann, the left-wing Bill O’Reilly, is not someone I generally pay much attention to. I hate demagoguery of any sort an have no patience for Olbermann’s arrogant style. But he does make a surprisingly erudite grasp of the situation and actually phrases his concerns in a way that mirror my own. Take a look.