Bittersweet Victory

Last night, for the first time in years I felt proud to be an American. Unfortunately, about an hour later, I was utterly ashamed to be a Californian:

How can a state be more concerned with the welfare of its chickens (Prop 2 overwhelmingly approved by 63.2%) than the fundamental rights of a human being (passage of Prop 8)?

I am all for freedom of religion - but when your religion tells me what I can and cannot do, infringing on my natural right to be free and independent, to enjoy life and liberty - that is where I draw the line.

Marriage is sacred in your religion and is defined as being between a man and a woman? Great! Have all the religious ceremonies full of scripture and symbols and weird blessed liquids and ointments that your heart desires! Just leave me and my friends out of it.

I have a friend of the Hindu faith. He believes the cow is sacred (I admit here that I am part Hindu: the part that thinks highly of the cow, but not the part that refrains from eating it). Should he start a campaign to add an amendment to our Constitution banning the consumption of veal and beef on the grounds that it is immoral?

That scenario sounds absurd and even laughable, but is directly analogous to what occurred in California under Proposition 8. The only distinguishing factor between the two is that my dear Hindu friend is probably not in the majority, therefore his Prop probably won't pass.

But that distinguishing factor leads me to even more anguish. Since when is it O.K. for a majority to gang up on a minority to rape them of their inalienable rights? The fact that a majority of our nation (or state, in this case) is Christian does not assume that we follow their rules. Equally wrong is the justification that because our founding fathers were Christian, our laws should emulate Christian tenets. First, that fact is debatable, and second, it leads us directly down the same legislative intent path that justified the abhorrent Dred Scott decision.

History is an excellent tool for learning from our mistakes, but to blindly use it as a crutch to validate religious beliefs does nothing but slow our progression towards a true liberty. If anything, history should show us that we have a penchant for discrimination, and that realization, in turn, should expedite our evolution of social mores.

There is still hope. USC Law Professor David Cruz is a leading expert on same-sex marriage issues. His latest blog entry explains, at least legally, our next step.