More on Anti-Prop 8 Supporters and Religious Freedom
I never thought that I would be posting so much about religious issues on my personal blog. But I couldn't believe this post from Lowell Brown:
Proposition 8: Open Season on Mormons?
Basically the Daily Kos is asking its readers to single out Mormons who have donated to support Prop 8 and look for information to smear them. Smearing people for supporting a cause that you are opposed to is bad enough. But singling out people because of their religion is deplorable.
Also, in the post above it describes anti-Prop 8 supporters harassing Mormons as they went to attend church services last week. In contrast, my parents participated in Pro Prop 8 rally in their city on Saturday. My father told me that they didn't have a single opponent to Prop 8 come up to them and have a rational discussion. All they did was yell obscenities as they drove by and call my parents bigots. Interestingly though, my father said that the number of people that gave them a thumbs up or thanked them for what they were doing was about 5 times higher than those who came and verbally assaulted them. Just so you understand, this rally was a group of people on a street corner holding signs that said "Vote Yes on Prop 8". My parents didn't yell at anyone. They didn't try to berate anyone. They didn't jump out and try to stop traffic. They just held signs.
Compare that to the protest in Oakland where protesters tried to block traffic, intimidate and frighten Mormons trying to attend a worship service.
What you see is that there is a very vocal minority opposed to Prop 8 whose only tool seems to be intimidation. They won't try to influence you. They will try to shame you into shutting your mouth.
A lot of people say that Prop 8 won't affect religious freedoms. Looks like it already is.
Clash of Freedoms – Prop 8 and Freedom of Religion, Speech and Association
In a previous post I talked about Proposition 8 in California and how many people view Prop 8 as a freedom of religion issue. Several of the commenters informed me that religious freedom was a red herring. Here is an excerpt:
So those at the top of the Yes-on-8 effort have tried desperately to cast this as being about religious freedom, despite the fact that the religious freedom is already guaranteed by the US Constitution, by the state constitution, and by the very state supreme court ruling that they are railing against. Their falsehoods are being carried along by well-intentioned folks who are deceived by them.
But it seems that there are some experts that would disagree with them. My brother, Trevor sent me this article:
"[Banned in Boston]"[2]
The article goes into more detail about the Catholic Charities case there (Catholic Charities ceased offering adoption services in Boston because they felt that, due to the legalization of gay marriage in Massachusetts, they would be forced to provide adoption services for gay couples, which would be contrary to their religious beliefs). I suggest you give it a read.
A few quick highlights from the article:
- The attempt to define gay marriage as a right is very much an attempt to setup sexual orientation as a protected class under the Constitution. Doing this would put sexual orientation on the same level as race, i.e. denying adoption to a gay couple would be equivalent to denying adoption to an African American couple.
- Though it is unlikely that religions will ever be overtly forced to do such things as perform gay marriages, they will have their non-profit status threatened if they refuse to do so. Basically, supporters of gay marriage who want to force religions to accept the practice will attempt to levy a "religious belief" tax on religious organizations, threatening removal of their tax-exempt status, costing them millions of dollars. They will be told, "Accept gay marriage and you can stay tax exempt, deny it and you lose the status." Sounds like a very conditional form of religious freedom. Don't believe me? Read the article.
If you want a more detailed explanation from one of the religious organizations supporting Prop 8, the LDS church (of which I am a member) has an excellent article detailing their stance and the reasons for their support of Prop 8. As I have stated previously they, nor I, am opposed to legal rights being offered to domestic partnerships. But redefining the word marriage has far reaching consequences as outlined in both articles mentioned above.