To quote a friend

This is from my friend Anna's blog; she put what I was thinking and feeling into words more eloquently than I could have.

"The same day our country made history with our presidential choice, a different group of people had their rights taken away.

Yesterday California passed Prop. 8, which amended their constitution to ban gay marriage. The right for gay’s to marry was already a constitutional right and it was voted away. If you have religious beliefs about who should be allowed to marry, then don’t let gay’s marry in your church. That’s a private organization and I have no problem with that. But if two heterosexual atheists want to get married they can just walk down to city hall and do it because that is a governmental service. Why is this not extended to gays? At one time it made sense and was acceptable to not let blacks eat with whites. Were their reasons then so different from ours now? There is one set of rules for one group of people, and another set for the other.

One of the arguments for supporting Prop 8 is that “it protects our children from being taught in public schools that ‘same-sex marriage’ is the same as traditional marriage.” I pray to whatever god there may be that there will come a time when we don’t feel the need to protect our children from being taught that all people are equal. How has such blatant discrimination somehow become acceptable again?

It was very clear what this proposition was doing, the title says it all. “Eliminates right of same-sex couples to marry. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.” This was entirely about a majority of people agreeing to take away the rights of a minority.

This decision will affect many more than just Californians. They were the largest and most influential state to allow same-sex marriage, and now leave only Massachusetts and Connecticut. When someone’s rights are taken away it affects all of us. With so many people quoting Martin Luther King Jr. yesterday, no one chose my favorite; “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I have no doubt that at some point we will look back on this much the way we now look at segregation laws: with embarrassment and guilt.


The events of yesterday have left me feeling both incredibly proud of my country and incredibly ashamed."


Well put. Thank you Anna.