Prop. 8, just won’t go away. I had to post this quote because I find it funny every time nonreligious people try to speak religious-speak.

"The campaign they funded was one of lies and deceit, clearly in violation of the religious tenet of “thou shalt not lie. ”

Oh yes, the eleventh commandment. Probably related to "thou shalt not bear false witness."

I just can’t stop reading about the response of the opponents of Prop. 8. And I find a certain amount of amusement with the picketing, white substances, and all the other stunts these opponents are pulling against the Mormons and other religions that supported Proposition 8.

Don’t these people have jobs?

From the LA Times :

Jim Key, a spokesman for the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, said barbs by gay marriage activists were directed at church leadership, not individual Mormons.

"We’re making a statement that no one’s religious beliefs should be used to deny fundamental rights to others," he said.

My response to this comment:

1. Since when is gay marriage a fundamental right? (Which, by the way, is a semantics trick on the part of gay rights advocates to imply that gay marriages is a type of right that gets the highest form of legal scrutiny when faced with a statute that tends to restrain the right–a compelling state interest. In practice, meeting the compelling state interest standard is nearly impossible.) As of today, gay marriage isn’t even a right, let alone a fundamental right.

2. What about a person’s fundamental right to practice their religion (actually, if I remember correctly, free exercise of religion is not a fundamental right any longer thanks the the U.S. Supreme Court)? Where were the "fundamental rights" police when doctors were being threatened with revocation of their licenses because their religious beliefs don’t accommodate artificial insemination of lesbians?

Those in favor of prop. 8 should counter to stalemate: "We’re making a statement that no one’s sexual orientation should be used to deny fundamental rights to others."

Religious freedom, unlike gay marriage, is actually a right granted to the people in the Bill of Rights. How does gay marriage, which isn’t a legal right at all, therefore trump free exercise of religion?

3. A person’s religious beliefs forms part of their value set, which they have every right to voice in a democratic process. Just like the anti-religious values gay rights advocates vote for. What makes their values better than my values? Why should only their values be voiced in the democratic process?

Because gay rights advocates don’t agree with religion?

This is yet another example of elitism at its finest. The "dumb" people shouldn’t be allowed to vote (i.e., they shouldn’t cast a vote reflecting their religious values). Yet again the attitude of "you’re too stupid to vote" rears its ugly head. Even worse, stupid is defined by whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Key’s point of view.

I was initially surprised that nobody in the gay community seemed concerned about judges overturning the voice of the people. But as I have watched the campaign unfold, I see now that gay rights activists have no interest in democracy, which is why they continue to protest and act like buffoons.

They are for an autocracy, where they are in charge. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that they are all for court intervention once again, even now that the people have spoken twice.

Law school warps your mind in to an endless debate about where to draw lines. So I put this out to the gay community:

• Would gay rights advocates support a minority of murderers who believe they have a "fundamental right to kill people" and are therefore being discriminated against by people whose morals dictate that murder is wrong?
• Would it be wrong for those who believe murder is immoral to seek passage of laws to outlaw murder in their society if they believe it to be wrong?
• Would seeking passage of anti-murder laws amount to "hate" of murderers?

I can see the counter argument: murder affects the rights of another person, whereas gay marriage does not affect the rights of anybody but the gay couple.

In actual practice, however, gay marriage has been shown to affect the rights of parents to dictate the values their children are taught in school, the rights of doctors to refuse to artificially inseminate lesbian couples based on contrary religious values, and the rights of religious based adoption agencies to refuse adopting to homosexual parents based on the church’s religiously based opposition to homosexuality.

The end result is the same. Murder impinges on the right of the killed. Gay marriage impinges on the free exercise of religion and on the right of parents to choose what values their children are taught.

These are important rights to religious folks and parents, and must be part of the equation.

** Aside: I can’t help but wonder if gay marriage would come out differently if (1) gays would agree with notification to parents of all gay rights materials distributed and taught in schools and allow parents to remove their children when objectionable values were discussed (or at least be notified and have the opportunity to instill different values to their children, (2) leave small children out of the equation and, if gay rights must be discussed, do it at an age-appropriate level where a child is mature enough to have the sexuality discussion, and (3) allow for religious based values to be respected when those with religious values and gay rights come into direct conflict.

It has been telling to watch the aftermath of the passage of prop. 8 in California. Rather than revel in the democratic process, the prop. 8 opponents are having a cow. Well, not really. They can’t have progeny, even cows. In the aftermath of prop. 8, gay rights advocates have shown their poker hand when they should have folded and tucked their cards back into the deck to fight again another day.

I mentioned in a previous post that I thought the real motivation of gay-rights was, in part, anti-religion sentiment on the part of gays. It turns out I am correct. Aside from targeting the Mormon temples (which so far as I can tell has produced as collective "ehh!" from the church) and Catholic churches, this story of an attack of a cross bearing elderly lady in Palm Springs caught my eye.

What was planned as a peaceful candlelight service in front of City Hall took a hostile turn when the crowd began pushing and a cross was torn from Burgess’ arms. The cross ended up in pieces on the ground. [After being trampled by angry gay-rights activists)

Somebody apparently caught it on video as well, which shows the gay rights advocates a pitchfork and torch away from burning a church down.

After the election, the LA Times produced a photo essay of the protest at the Mormon temple in Westwood. Many of the signs in the pictures had some sort of "Hate" ("H8") message, as if people in favor of prop. 8 hate them. (My favorite: "Mormon Hate Out of My State.")

The attacks on religion cause me to ask, who is hating whom?

Most of the prop. 8 supporters were very clear to communicate that the issue to them was one of morality and ideology rather than hatred. There is a difference. People can have a set of values, and even disapprove of choices made, and still offer love and support to the same person making the choices. This isn’t hate — it is using the democratic process to mold society in an image of what majority considers mainstream and right. This is precisely the reason for having democracy, so that no one person (e.g., a king or judge) or a minority group can dictate to the majority the morals of their society. The majority of Californians decided (twice) that gay marriage should not be recognized. Prop. 8 supporters articulated a number of reasons for their support, most of which focused on the ancillary effects of gay marriage for children and free practice of religion, and none of which that were based on hatred of gays as people.

The only haters in all of this are the gays. They are free to disagree, assemble outside churches and temples (provided they do not interfere with the free exercise of worship), but attacks on religious people and tearing crosses, listing those who donated to prop. 8 and encouraging gay rights supporters to do what is in their power to make life difficult for there donors, causing people to be fired from their jobs, staging loud and obnoxious demonstrations during worship services, and the general vitriol observed in these protests against Mormons (this one is really classy ), Catholics, and other supporters of prop. 8. This is hatred. Hatred of religion, morality, and more generally the people themselves that share in these values.

Hate? In a prior post I mentioned that I have a gay colleague. Over the last two months, he has gone from friendly to not talking to me. As our path’s don’t often cross, I didn’t read too much into it, even when friendly greetings from me to the gay colleague were ignored as recently as two weeks ago. That is until another Mormon colleague of mine who works more closely with him came into my office yesterday and made the same observation.

Hatred? By who?

I work with a gay man. He has always been very nice to me, and from what I observe, nice to people generally. He is also very much against Prop. 8 (marriage defined as only between a man and a woman). This morning, I was thinking about what is motivating the gay marriage arguments.

The gays claim that their motivation is only about equality. I addressed this argument in an earlier post. It occurred to me, however, that the gay marriage issue is largely about perpetuation of gay ideology. Given gays cannot have children of their own, how do they perpetuate their ideology for future generations?

Gays have two fundamental problems related to perpetuation of their ideology that gay marriage helps to solve. The problems:

1. Religious morality teaches homosexuality is wrong and ought to be rejected; and
2. Because they can have no progeny of their own, their position is untenable in the long-term without government intervention. In other words, I can teach my children that marriage is only between a man and a woman. My children are likely to grow up reflecting this position (I can hear it now — I am indoctrinating my children… you bet I am indoctrinating my children with my values!! I rather indoctrinate my children with my values than have you indoctrinate my children with your values). Thus, absent government intervention, gays are not passing their ideology on to any further generations — their ideology dies with them.

Gay marriage helps solve both these problems.

First, gay marriage is a direct assault on religious values. It forces people who object ideologically to be trumped by the government. For example, doctors in California who objected to artificially inseminating lesbian couples for religious reasons have been sued and lost . They were told that they must perform insemination irrespective of sexual orientation. In other words, the doctor’s objections on religious grounds were snuffed out by a pro-gay marriage government. Similar occurrences have cropped up in Massachusetts, where Catholic adoption agencies are closing their doors so as not be be forced to promote gay adoption .

Gay marriage is an effective tool, therefore, in solving issue number one. By having the government take a position on gay marriage that affirms it as morally acceptable, objections on moral grounds are trumped by the state.

Second, because gays can have no children of their own, they are unable to perpetuate their ideology to future generations like heterosexual families. For their cause to succeed, they must perpetuate the ideology. It is difficult to change the minds of adults, but not so hard to change the minds of young children or worse yet, to instill the ideology as a matter of first impression before their parents choose teach the children about sexual morality.

Teaching children at an early age about gay ideology makes instilling a parent’s own, different values much more difficult. Children must learn (i.e., be indoctrinated) from somebody. As anybody with children will attest, nature has designed children to learn. They observe and reflect what their parents, siblings, and other authority figures teach them by instinct. Learning is born into us.

So who decides what children learn? Parents or society? Perpetuation of gay rights requires that society, not parents, do the teaching (indoctrination) of children, particularly young children. Case in point: where have gays primarily fought hard to make inroads: schools and broadcast media and the arts. In other words, the two most influential sources of learning for children outside of a child’s family. Indeed, the goal is to use these vehicles to usurp the parent’s ability to decide what a child learns.

But what about all those children who are taught to support gay rights from their parents? When and where did their parents come to accept gay rights? Go back a generation and you will find the same societal-based indoctrination of gay rights as today, just less pronounced. And it has been effective in building the momentum of gay rights.

As I mentioned before, I am not against gays. Frankly, I don’t care what a person’s sexual orientation is. But I do care what my children learn. And I do care about the free practice of religious belief. And I do believe people should be able to live their lives according to the dictates of their conscience as it relates to family issues: adoption, teaching, etc. I am all for giving homosexuals all the legal rights that married couples have to the extent that people with a differing view on the morality of the situation be allowed to voice and live by their moral convictions.

If homosexuals want to perpetuate their issue, persuade adults based on the strength of the argument. Don’t presume to indoctrinate our children with your beliefs; that is my job. Have your own children if you want a child to indoctrinate.

The next installment will be why homosexuality doesn’t fall under the penumbra of civil rights.