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jan_andreaHoney, I'm sorry you're feeling persecuted. I really am. I think hatred or vitriol towards any individuals involved in the situation is wrong.
HOWEVER.
Posting links to Mormon sites that moan, "Oh, we're so persecuted! People are picketing our churches!" is a non-sequitur. The LDS church bankrolled a hell of a lot of negative advertising that *truly did* make misleading claims in order to scare the uninformed into voting for Prop 8. They tried to -- and in many cases, succeeded in -- using pressure tactics to force their members into voting for it (which you well know).
Those are facts. "Oh, we're so persecuted!" does not change the FACT that they FIRST persecuted others in a very legitimate sense (i.e. not merely picketing and protesting, but actually removing rights!) who are simply trying to have a normal life. IT IS WRONG TO TAKE AWAY CIVIL RIGHTS. PERIOD. Two consenting adults who want to become a family and are not otherwise legally barred from doing so (i.e. siblings, whatever) should not be forced to separate by a religious group or a group of religions; religion DOES NOT belong in legislation. If the Mormons or the Catholics or whoever doesn't want to marry gays and lesbians in their churches, that's fine! Nothing in CA state law was going to force them to! All these people want is to have families like heterosexual families have them, with the rights and responsibilities that go with them. Just because your Prophet says no doesn't mean that people *not even in your church* have to abide by his rules.
Personally, I don't care if Joseph Smith appeared to you in a rain of gold and said unto you, "Vote YES on Prop 8 or face immortal hellfire!" It's still not right for your religion (and others like it, lest it be said that I am singling out Mormons; Catholic hierarchy is just as guilty) to force that decision on an entire state.
I need to know that you understand this. You voted to take away another person's rights based solely on what you were told by your church, as far as I can tell. That's what I can see. If you didn't vote for it, GREAT! Keep me as a friend and I will put it behind me. But if you did vote for it, I really want you to take me off your friends list. I genuinely do. I think that (if you voted for it) what you did was incredibly wrong. Amazingly so. I can't live with that. I'm not going to defriend you until I know for sure what actually happened. If you don't defriend me, I will assume that you voted against it, and YAY! that would be great and I won't say another word about it. But I expect you to be honest about this; if you can't stand by your vote, how much *worse* is that than the actual vote itself?
HOWEVER.
Posting links to Mormon sites that moan, "Oh, we're so persecuted! People are picketing our churches!" is a non-sequitur. The LDS church bankrolled a hell of a lot of negative advertising that *truly did* make misleading claims in order to scare the uninformed into voting for Prop 8. They tried to -- and in many cases, succeeded in -- using pressure tactics to force their members into voting for it (which you well know).
Those are facts. "Oh, we're so persecuted!" does not change the FACT that they FIRST persecuted others in a very legitimate sense (i.e. not merely picketing and protesting, but actually removing rights!) who are simply trying to have a normal life. IT IS WRONG TO TAKE AWAY CIVIL RIGHTS. PERIOD. Two consenting adults who want to become a family and are not otherwise legally barred from doing so (i.e. siblings, whatever) should not be forced to separate by a religious group or a group of religions; religion DOES NOT belong in legislation. If the Mormons or the Catholics or whoever doesn't want to marry gays and lesbians in their churches, that's fine! Nothing in CA state law was going to force them to! All these people want is to have families like heterosexual families have them, with the rights and responsibilities that go with them. Just because your Prophet says no doesn't mean that people *not even in your church* have to abide by his rules.
Personally, I don't care if Joseph Smith appeared to you in a rain of gold and said unto you, "Vote YES on Prop 8 or face immortal hellfire!" It's still not right for your religion (and others like it, lest it be said that I am singling out Mormons; Catholic hierarchy is just as guilty) to force that decision on an entire state.
I need to know that you understand this. You voted to take away another person's rights based solely on what you were told by your church, as far as I can tell. That's what I can see. If you didn't vote for it, GREAT! Keep me as a friend and I will put it behind me. But if you did vote for it, I really want you to take me off your friends list. I genuinely do. I think that (if you voted for it) what you did was incredibly wrong. Amazingly so. I can't live with that. I'm not going to defriend you until I know for sure what actually happened. If you don't defriend me, I will assume that you voted against it, and YAY! that would be great and I won't say another word about it. But I expect you to be honest about this; if you can't stand by your vote, how much *worse* is that than the actual vote itself?
no subject
Date: 2008-11-14 04:52 am (UTC)My religious beliefs say that your beliefs and actions are hateful and wrong and have very little to do with actual Christian values as put forth by Jesus Christ. Why do your beliefs get to be in the legal system as law, and mine don't?
All they wanted was civil marriage. Not marriage in your church. I couldn't have gotten married to my husband in a Catholic church, even though i have the legal right to get married, because the state does not interfere with religion that way. And your religion should not interfere with the state.
My friends getting married DOES NOT HURT YOU. It does not affect your marriage or your faith or your beliefs ONE BIT. So why you want to legislate against their civil rights... why you want to make it so they cannot file their taxes together and get insurance together and introduce themselves as spouses and be legally parents of their children together.... I don't understand it.
And it makes me sad.
You can say you support "civil unions" all you want... but the fact of the matter is that right now, that is ALL legal marriage is. Even if you are religous and get married in a church, your marriage in your church and my marriage in mine and my best friend's marriage out on a cliff overlooking the ocean... the state sees them as all the same from a legal standpoint whether they are done by a minister or a justice of the peace. Holy matrimony is what the church does. Marriage is the license you sign. I don't know why this is so hard to understand.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-14 05:00 am (UTC)The fact that one group of people's marriages can be made "illegitimate" or "illegal" by another group?
It threatens ALL MARRIAGES.
What if someone decided that anyone who wasn't married by a justice of the peace or a judge or whoever was not legally married? It would invalitate the vast majority of marriages. But by prop 8 logic, a majority could theoretically vote that way and boom, you aren't married, I'm not married, and oh well.